Swim Squad 18052011 Review

Dear Team,

We did:

100Kick

200Pull

300Swim 

10X50 Kicks on 2:30

10X50 Pull with Strap on ankles on 1:45

4x50 Swim on 1:15

100 Breast

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Total: 1.9K.

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I'd review this swim short and sweet. I thought I saw many faces who are feeling pretty distressed about kick sets and still felt the fear for doing such practice. 

To put things into perspectives... I'd like to remind everyone about 3 points:

1) All of us were once only half as efficient as what we are in the water right now. Just a year back.

2) All of us manage to cope with the sets and finish it.

3) All of us were tired.. And those of you who felt like you're the only one, NO, you're NOT.

For those of you who have been merely following through whatever I prescribed in the menus, I'd like to ask you to step back and look at what we've done over the past weeks and this week and look at the true meaning and fruits of the training. 

I've always said that in each and every training, I hope you go back with a mind full of ideas to improve and full of confidence that you will do better on the next session!

However, in these last two sessions, I thought I saw little of the latter.

The longer and tougher sets are always demoralizing especially if you focus only on the perceived exertion side. Meaning, how bad you felt in the sets. Seriously, I thought we ought to all know that training shouldn't be about staying in the comfort zone and if you do stay, then so will your plateaus.

In order for consistent motivation, we need the motivation to come from our heart and to do that, we need to first accept what our weakness is and what our strengths are and to have the curious heart of a beginner to improve. 

We need to shift our focus from how we feel in the already-known-to-be-difficult sets to quantifying what we've accomplished and what we are trying to accomplish. Having that clear mind set of "how to become better" is Key in not losing focus and motivation.

Anyway, tonight's sets are very educational just like last week. Having your timing to compare from set to set allows you to see if your kicks are actually dragging you or are they really working to help you move faster.

The strapped leg pull sets are meant to be a superb test on your streamlining ability and core muscle to keep your hips afloat. I see most of us have difficulties in these two areas.. to further elaborate, they are about...

1) Keeping the body straight and not crunching the body from side to side with each pull and body rotation.

2) Keeping the hips afloat.

Problem with Point 1...

If you have problem with point 1, it shows that during your normal swim, your pulls and body rotation have not been executed correctly. You're either rotating too much from side to side that causes the body weight to be "thrown" from one side to another that causes drag or water resistance on the side or you're pulling too hard in the wrong direction (side wards at the catch instead of down maybe?) or both.

Remember that your catch is to be done relaxedly.. if you don't, the outward scull and downward push at the start may cause your body to move sideways. 

Secondly, If you are pulling the water across the centerline of the body like what Lawrence(we miss u.. so have to mention about you here.. :P ) always did, your body will definitely rock from side to side too and cause difficulty in accomplishing Point 1..

Problem with Point 2...

If you have problem with point 2, it simply shows that your back and your buttock and hamstring muscles are not strong enough to keep your lower body hugging the water surface. 

And the matter of fact is if you can't do Point 1 properly, the wave drag you create in your body rotation will be "slapping" you from side to side and make you slower and thus the buoyancy will drop.. the hips will sink even worst.

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All in all, we have to go back to the value of "Stop stopping yourself." -- reminds me of Love Guru the movie -- as per mentioned last week. And exercise more control over our body exertion to ensure we only propel ourselves forward and not exert any amount of force laterally(to the side) that is not necessary and causing our body to be "slapped" from side to side.

As for combining your kick and your pull to make it into a proper integration and moving as a whole body.. I'd not nag about it here anymore as I already explained how your body will tangle up if you don't kick the rhythm properly with your arm pulls during the debrief ya..

Contact me if you need help.. I hope to see more SMILEY FACES EXCITED FOR TRAINING NEXT WEEK PLEASE!!!!

CHEERS

KK

18052011 Swim Squad

Dear Team,

Everytime I start my post with Dear Team, I'm just glad I don't have to deal with plural or singular kind of language errors... =p

Anyway, we're in our 3rd base endurance week. Loads of swim again, loads of "time goes by so slowly" kind of stuff....

Warm Up: 123 hundreds. (15 minutes)

100 Kick
200 Pull
300 Swim 

Main Set: 3X10X50 (Kick, Pull, Swim) 60 minutes

10x50 Kicks (25slow, 25fast) on 2mins ----> So it starts gently.
Rest 2 minutes
10x50 Pulls with Strapped Legs on 2mins ----> So that you can't cheat, and you'll have to fight the sinking demon and still do the catch properly.
Rest 2 minutes
10x50 Hard Swim on 1:30min ----> Aim for continuous kicks (especially in breathing) and proper techniques in swim
Rest 1 minute

Cool Down: EasY SwiM (15 minutes)
5 x 100s as
Backstroke [Loosen shoulders - stretch all the way back in recovery]
Breaststroke [Practice your catch, and feel the glide in your kick to streamline your body
Fist Freestyle [Practice water feel, feel the catch and building of resistance at the front part of pull]
Breaststroke [Practice your catch, and feel the glide in your kick to streamline your body]
Backstroke [Loosen shoulders - stretch all the way back in recovery]




Cheers
KK

11052011 Swim Squad REVIEW with timing and smthg else...

An important finding:
Wave Drag caused by the entry of the arm and lateral movements to the side because of a unstabilized torso moving sideways can be costing you more energy than you thought!

Let us first recall the definition of success in swimming or what is efficient swimming:

It is to move through the water with the minimal amount of energy required for a particular effort.

Timing of your swim is but just a quantifiable aspect of this beautiful skill. The actual success we're looking for is in the efficiency of the performance of the art of swimming.

Visualize this:

Two persons (Swimmer A and B) swimming side by side at the same speed. Are they expending the same amount of energy to get the same result?

Let's put aside the weight, height, palm size, strength and every other physiological aspect and just focus on the technique aspect of this little comparison.

A smash his hand into the water at entry everytime then extends his arm and shoulder underwater very quickly in an attempt to stretch as far out and as fast as possible.

B makes his hand entry as effortless as possible and extend his arm and shoulder underwater quickly but still conscious in not putting any effort to push the water frontward.

Judging from these two circumstances, A would definitely be expending more energy than B to swim at the same speed.

3 reasons:
i) A is not able to do a clean entry and thus his catch will not be productive and so his pull will be affected too with the large amount of bubbles(air) that he brought into the catch with the smashing entry.
And because of the inefficient catch, he will have to push back much harder to get the same result.

ii) A'll also have to do more strokes to catch up because the push phase he'll do will not be as efficient in propelling him than B's push will.


iii) Third and the most important factor is the wave drag Swimmer A will be getting from the strong extension of arm and shoulder under the water after entry.
As the extension of the arm and shoulder is done frontward, it is actually pushing against the water in the direction where he's moving.
His strong extension will cause a lot of resistance from the water because of the force applied forward.

To top it off...
B will be able to do a much more efficient catch because the little amount of bubble stream would have dispersed by the time he finished extending his shoulder. Thus he'll be able to hold on to more water and make a better push.

With that scenario and reasons, we can easily conclude that Swimmer B expends much lesser energy to move forward at the same velocity as Swimmer A.

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Take note that it is not just about the moment when the fingertips enter the surface that needs to be effortless. A lot of us do that with great ease.

However, because the "stretch" or the extension of the arm and shoulder gives us the feeling of extra surge and glide.. people tend to overdo this part of the swim and do the extension very forcefully in an attempt to achieve:

i) More surge
ii) To reach in front as fast as possible and as far as possible

For swimmers with tight shoulders especially, they'll need to use a lot of force to stretch the lats and shoulder girdle for them to feel a good extension.

When they use that force in the extension, you're actually stopping or slowing yourself down. I.E Negating the push phase of the opposite arm.

SOLUTIONS:
Take note about this 3 points:

i) It is virtually limitless in how effortless we can work to become because of the need to perform a movement with our arm - The extension/stretch. BUT we can practice to make it as effortless as humanly possible. Read (ii) below to find out how.

ii) Fast/Quick does not equate to FORCEFUL. It is possible to do things fast and quickly without using much force. One way is to master the movement by first doing it relaxly and slowly. Once the movement is mastered, the speed of executing the movement will become faster without the need to use much force to control the movement's execution.

iii) It is the push phase working together with the hip rotation that allows the surge to become significant. The stretch merely works as an additional aspect of streamlining the body.

CONCLUSION:

I have to let this off my chest as I conclude this chapter of new discovery about wave drag.

I felt bad about this and I have to apologize for using Vincent's swim against mine as an example. I've been very close with him that I kind of taken it for granted as I was too excited about the new discovery and I thought I started criticizing unnecessarily.

What went on was that my analysis of every detail of his swim was constantly occurring because I am very concerned about him trying too hard to catch up after missing the two weeks of training.

And thus I watched extremely closely every single stroke he took while doing my own swim and that's why I could tell the actual effort from the facial expression and the amount of force I felt from his entry and push as we swam virtually side by side or me lagging him by half a body length getting all his turbulence from the torrential amount of force.

Even though he is always very comfortable with race pace all the time, the way he needed 15-25 seconds to recover/catch breathe to talk with ease says quite a bit about the exertion level also and thus my conclusion during the breathing that he was pushing pretty hard - his RPE can of course tell the opposite because RPE is about how you feel over a certain effort and not the effort itself.

And with that analysis of his swim, I was excited to tell that by this slight change of my stroke to reduce the wave drag at the entry and extension, I've gained time on him while we maintain the same pace or effort throughout..

More importantly, at the end of the day, the big picture I was trying to get all of you guys to see is that we could all swim a much faster timing while using the same or even much lesser effort. As you can see from the timing of my last set of kick, I was actually able to do that much faster because I conserved energy from the swim while still getting a decent timing for the swim. That showed a lot about how an efficient form with lesser wave drag can save you tonnes of energy to expend later on whatever that is needed.

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Timing: - I was on high alert mode on wednesday night because of my lousy swim and my brain was hyperactive thus I could remember from my watch what are your individual timing. I was also consciously calculating how many seconds I won each and every one of those who came after me just to make my brains busier and not feel so bad about swimming so slowly. I was fuming for my own swim to be truthful but its more like I didn't have time to rest as I committed to help a young basketball team.

Vince, I thought the swim was a little off for you.. which I was guessing if you were feeling stressed out from your work. If you need any help for training do let me know what I can do for you. I hope you can do well for OSIM. One thing I thought you did really well was your kick was really consistent until the last set.. As for the pull sets, you managed to control the legs very well after the second set! I also noticed when you breathe left on your bilateral swims, your head comes up very high compared to your right side breathing. A few seconds can be shaved from there.
Last but not least, the old habit of not straightening the arm to 90% is coming back.. the push phase for you now ends with a 90degrees flexed elbow. Slight more extension behind will aid a lot more in the glide rather than the forceful extension. We both know that you have a harder time than average joes controlling your tremendous amount of strength but I hope you gain insights from this article and starts working towards a better stroke as we've always been spurring each other for from now on!=)

Pauline, you were SUPERB in your swim. Your kick was Shockingly fast to be honest. I'm sorry I underestimated you. =P Do take note in the last 2 sets of swim and kick when you're tired, you're not able to push the amount of water you controlled in your catch. Fret not as it is a good news if you're indeed able to do the catch to control a lot of water. Just make sure you keep training and keep pushing for the push even when you're tired.. if training yourself, rest more but still must do the push phase.. the strength and endurance will come in few weeks! =)
Oh, for your perusal, I included your previous 7x100 swim timing and you could see that even at your last sets you were faster than your that 7x100 swims. Crazy effort, crazy ability to understand and grasp concepts.. no wonder you're a surgeon... I am Truly Happy for you. =)

Sam, I am so happy you finally got into the focus and problem solving mode I've been preaching to you about. Your amount of focus is tremendous throughout the swim and your ability to evolve your stroke during your kick sets (especially the last one) is just so incredible. Congratulations on getting better on your mental training. =)

Ben, improvements are clearly visible as you nearly catch me in all of the first 50s of the hundreds. Keep working on your technique at a moderate pace right now, so they won't all fall apart when you go really hard at it in a few weeks' time. =)

Calvin and Wilson, I admire your determination in trying to get better set after set by putting in more and more effort especially in your kick sets. Calvin has shown so much more improvement in your kick since last time and Wilson improved by a freaking 3 minutes just by letting the fear of pacing go loose. For your swim, you still have to make sure the right hand enters a little shallower. Calvin, I'm also extremely extremely pleased with your swim.. your every stroke executed gives the same amount of glide and the rhythm of your swim was so constant from lap 1 to the last that if I were to take a metronome to just calculate how many strokes you take for 6 seconds, I can multiply it by the amount of time you swam to get the exact number of strokes you took for all the swim.

Teck Beng, I thought you were pretty off that night but the good news is it is normal and off nights usually happens to people who trains consistently night in and night out or follows a routine of swimming a specific frequency week after week. To take something out of it is that the off night was probably a sign that you've plateaued and/or your body needs more rest. It could also be just the body reacting to the purpose of the sets sequence I made. If plateauing is what you felt happened then it's time to shake the routine up a little.. either make it easier or slightly harder! Nonetheless, kudos to you who still finished 12 x 100 of swim.. it is an endurance set and you ENDURED. =)

Cheers
KK

11052011 Swim Squad Menu

Excluding this week, we're 11 weeks away from OSIM Triathlon.

We're on the second week of Base Endurance Phase (5 weeks total).

We'll have 4 weeks of build, 2 weeks of Peak and 1 week of Taper.

Warmup: (30 mins)
5x200 (Swim/Kick/Pull/Kick/Swim)

Main Set: (44 mins)
12x100 Alt Swim (on 3minutes), Kick (on 5mins), Pull (on 3minutes)
Focus:
1) Consistent Effort and Timing.
2) Streamlining at the frontal area (Stretching of lead arms)
3) Relaxed arm stroke other than a HARD PUSH with body rotation to the side to assist glide.
4) Proper EVF Catch.
5) Whatever personal mistakes you've made in your swim and reviewed last week(s).

Cool Down: (16mins)
400 EASY  as Back, Breast, Back, Back - 2mins per lap. easy right?
Focus:
1) Stretch arm backwards fully during Backstroke to get the benefit of a lats and chest stretch every stroke. Helps loosen up the shoulders
2) Breast stroke is for you to catch your breathe.

Total: 2.6KM.

Cheers
KK

VIDEO REVIEWS - 6 May 2011

KH

1) when you are gliding, the legs are opened up instead of kept together, notice that when you attempt to glide each time, you come to a complete stop in the water despite looking pretty streamline at the upper body.. its because of your legs opening up and tensing up to get ready for the next kick. Keep the legs close.

2) When doing pull, both hand fingers are widely spread apart. It is a MUST to change.

3) It seems like after your catch, you just let the pull become automatic. You have to continue to make sure that the palm is facing backwards and your forearm also as you push the water back. This "automation" of pull and push is now causing your palm angle to be pitched sideways when you push.. and thus the water you controlled at the catch all "slipped away" and when you push, you're not surging forward cos the water already gone and you're not pushing onto anything! Do you feel that way? 

I used to have that problem and now i still experience it on my left side unless i am really conscious about keeping the forearm and the palm facing back as i extend my elbow. Where the palm is facing is REALLY important. (Check your swim catching ben.. you'll see what i mean, he is always surging forward because he made sure that during the catch, he establish the control over the water with a Vertical forearm position and the palm facing backwards.. then when he push back, he made sure he is always in control of the water till his push is fully done.. thus he moved much further than you do since your push "isn't working".)

4) Right arm pull is late. It waited for the left arm to come back then you start catching. The late pull also contributed to the stop in gliding.

5) The body is generally not moving as one piece in a synchronized manner. It looks pretty ok to the non swimmers but you can see clearly that the arms and shoulders leads the rotation and the hips follow, then the legs kick to get to that side position. The rotation to the side has to happen as a plank from head to toe. I.E the turning must be from the core, obliques and hips area in order for the majority of the body to "swing" together.

6) When you're tired, you tend to have the Mr Take mistake of leaning your head to your arm and think that you're stretching your arm and shoulder forward to touch your ears with your shoulder.  It has to be the shoulder moving up and not the face coming closer to the shoulder.. learn to focus on one point diagonally in front when you swim and stay focused on that point when you rotate your WHOLE BODY from side to side. 

7) When you're tired, you also tend to fidget your line of sight from front to down to the side.. keep your line of sight focused on the diagonal front.. you need to feel like you're a very stable knife slicing through the butter(water) while moving the whole knife (synchronized body) side to side.

Ebnu

1) Not enough rotation on the left side.

2) Too much focus on coming up to breathe.  The lifting of the head out of water to inhale caused a lot of tension to the shoulder area which translate to a sinking rear end.

3) Return lap looks better because the right arm (master arm) is better at stretching. However, it is important to note that it is the stretch of the LEFT ARM that allows you to stay on the side to breathe without any pull.

4) Currently, the left arm is dropping down as you breathe. You should keep the left arm extended until you finish the inhalation. 

5) You need some personal time to grasp the concept of turning with the left lead arm as you surface to breathe. Take note i used the word 'surface' to breathe.. not lift. Right now, you can see that even though you're rotating your neck to the right, your left arm is pushing down with the momentum of the entry to help you keep your head up to breathe.. look at 00:00:29sec of the video onwards till 45 seconds and on.. it is obvious. 1:31 also showed the same thing.

6) The legs are pretty opened up when you breathe thus causing the drag to stop your glide.. same as KH.

7) It is important to note that you have a much better control over your legs' exertion now that you don't kick that much. You have to shift your focus to having an effortless breathing on the side.. no need to press down on your left lead arm.

Remember: To succeed, we have to be discipline to do those that are good but we don't honestly like to do. In this case, if i were you, i'd hammer the drills and ask Teck Beng how to do it. He's good with the side skater drill.. :)

Teck Beng:

1) Catch angle is too small, i.e too shallow and the fingertips are pointing inwards to the chest. The finger tips should point straight down to the floor (with the elbow, wrist and palm in one line). When your fingertip is pointing inwards to the centerline, you're catching with a dropped elbow and thus the resistance at the front is very very little only and no matter how hard you try to push, nothing much will happen because you got nothing to push back. This is a mistake resulting from over pushing in your swim even when you're feeling fatigue and you're no longer able to control the amount of water from the proper catch… the hand will automatically make adjustment so that you'd slip some water during the catch to make it easier to catch, pull and push. Go look at my multi angle land drill again and compare against yours.. you'd see your hands are really under your centerline when you finish your catch.

2) Don't keep your left lead arm on the left side of the shoulder. Note that when you rotate your shoulder you need to rotate the arm together to keep it at shoulder width apart. If you keep your arm at where the previous shoulder was pointing then you're separating the arm from the body to rotate the body only. the 6th second onwards of the video clip shows this very obviously.

3) Recovery is hand leading instead of elbow leading. The elbow is not high enough. Remember that when you finish your push, the first thing that exit the water is your elbow, not your hand.

4) The overall rhythm of the stroke is very jerky.. need to start smoothening by recovery with the elbow and swinging the elbow in front effortlessly. Because of the hand leading recovery, it becomes very controlled in order to do a finger tip entry at the front while keeping the elbow high becomes a necessity. When you start recovering with the elbow first, the high elbow, fingertip entry will become an automated smooth process.

Mr Take:

1) The body is swinging from side to side. 8th to 30th seconds in the clip shows this very clearly. The side to side movement is causing a lot of drags and also causing the body to move sideways instead of using the momentum to move forward.

2) The stroke you're doing is very upper body and upper limbs dominant, thus if you're going to race like this without the kick, your hips will drop very low and sink.. look at 1:33 onwards from the clip. So if you want to continue this position of your head, you have to add the kick continuously.. else, i'd advise to keep the head lower and press more on the chest constantly to keep your hips floating.. just like what i showed in my short swim for you guys illustrating between kick and kick-less fs swim,

3) Very wide arm recovery causes a very slow transition from stroke to stroke because the arm and hand takes a longer time to travel back to the front for the next stroke. This is not obvious in a slow swim like this but when you attempt to go faster, you'll find yourself not able to pull as fast as you want because of the outward swing of the arm during recovery traveling a longer distance. The shortest distance to recover from the back to the front is a straight line along the body's side as close as possible. =)

Yukari:

1) Recovery started with the elbow… but…. once the elbow comes out of water, the hand/palm immediately takes over and lead the whole arm forward. Thus it is still a very wide recovery like Mr Take's. If you take a ruler and put it along side your body on the video screen, you'll see actually your arms are swinging outwards like a butterfly stroke too… you felt that it is correct because the recovery do start with the elbow… :P

2) As you get tired, the catch become very shallow and you're not getting a firm hold on the water anymore.. Need to be more conscious and focus on the catch to control a large amount of water before pushing back. If you can push back easily, it means your catch has been done wrongly and need to scull and feel the water a bit more when you catch. I can see that your body is "cleverly" adapting to the tiredness by trying to catch a little less water so you can push more really… not the way to go ya.. :)

 3) Also you can see very clearly from 1:06 onwards.. i closed up on your catch and you're doing actually a STRAIGHT ARM PULL.. no more EVF high elbow catch! That slowed you down a lot because you couldn't catch properly… You see from 1:51 to the end.. you're not really moving at all! So need to control more water yup! Cannot be lazy on the catch.. because if you're not catching the water, you cannot push. I know i'm repeating myself.. but it is just That important..

4) Last but not least, your fingers are all opened up when you're pulling… see for yourself~ this is a mistake that must be changed.. VERY compulsory! Without a closed fingers palm as your paddle.. you won't be able to catch too!

Ben:

1) You're not comfortable staying on your right side (right arm extended) as you recover your left arm.. your left arm recovery is always rushed.. that uncomfortable feeling forces you to kick a lot more when you recover and breathe and do your right arm pull.

2) at 1:16-1:20 you can see that your arms are not straight in front. The yeo family syndrome. 1:47 also shows clearly your right arm is crooked. No stretch…….

3) You're doing a straight arm catch. No good. Please go read back my "Description of the catch" post and watch the video of the rotation and DO IT in your swim. If you jus think about it and expect your limbs to follow, it won't happen because you haven't learn the rotation of your humerus properly yet. You're compensating on your catch by doing a very very exaggerated 'S' pull.. that is not good cos it causes your body to move sideways and back straight each time your catch.

4) You are kicking with very opened legs.  Keep the legs together. 

5) STOP YOUR HEAD FROM FIDGETING AROUND WHEN YOU'RE TIRED!!!!

Lastly, a video of myself for you to compare...

KK



It is a 1:33 but it isn't that fast in the sea all the time.. i just try to aim for this effort as and when i can.. =)

Cheers
KK

Menu for 04052011 Swim Squad

Warm Up: (5mins)
200m ----

200 Freestyle Swim

Drills (All return with 50m FS Swim working on focal points): (20mins)
500m ----

50 Right Extended arm, kick on side (Focus on turn gently to breathe without disrupting body position)
50 Left Extended arm, kick on side (Same as Right)
50 Breast stroke pull (Ensure correct pull and fast recovery)
50 Free + Fly Kick (Ensure 3 kick per side Rhythm)
50 Freestyle Sprint with SLOW ARM, SUPER FAST KICK (Try to imagine everytime you reach forward and glide with your arms, you're using your kicks to drive you forward)

Rest 5 mins

Main Set: 48mins
1800m ---

3 X 123  on 16mins 
100 Kick 2mins
200 Pull 6mins
300 Swim 8mins

Cool Down: 12 mins

300m ---

100 Back
100 Breast
100 Back

Cheers
KK

TRIBOB Sprint Triathlon 1st May 2011 (KIDS TRIATHLON)!

Dear Team,

This entry is specially dedicated to the event of Tribob Sprint Triathlon and I touched on parenting and communication issues in this entry other than the performance of your race. The adults are encouraged to read it as I share with you my "secrets" of gelling with the kids.

We'll start with Special Performance(s) worth noting:

Saori's run pace is 5:17/km.. for comparison, Vincent's run pace is 5:04/km.. Hmmmm... :Pp

Jeremiah ran a sub 9minutes 2.5KM! How cool is that?!

KK did a 5KM PB of 23:05!

Sam did a 5KM PB of 36:43!

Vincent's Bike Average Speed is 32.8 Km/H!

Yukari and  Mr Take ability to focus on the race after being late and having no time to warm up is incredible! We have to all learn from them how to get into a calm state of mind to do things in the best possible mode!

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Before heading to the compiled results, here are some points to talk about:

1) Individual timing versus the timing of the field of competitors.

When new triathletes look at their own timing, they usually compare only against their friends and however superficially it can be, they only consider the two factors of "I'm faster than him/her! :)" or "I'm slower than him/her! :("...

However, what happens in actuality is not that simple. Certain race course favors certain type of athletes of a certain body type/mental strength/temperature regulation. The above are but some obvious individuality of the athletes that can turn out to be big factor(s) affecting the performance in a race.

For example, some people perspires A LOT and EASILY.. Perspiration is an innate ability to cool the body by letting the heat evaporate from our body.. and compare him to a guy who don't perspire as easily and put them both in a superbly hot weather race (like Desaru). Unless the guy who don't sweat so easily puts in a lot of preparation work to acclimatize and also takes special notes and steps in the race to cool himself down (like pouring water over body and head).. he is likely to perform much worst than the guy who perspire more due to the ability to regulate temperature. An over heat engine can be risky to get heat exhaustion or stroke.

Another example maybe on Tribob sprint triathlon, the race is a flat course race.. i.e there is no up slope and down slopes.. if we train enough to know more people, we will know there are people who CLIMBS AND DESCENDS REALLY WELL but sucks in a flat course Time Trial. It may be as simple as the mind taking the flat road as a boring way (low motivation) to sustain a high effort level. Or it can be comparing two people, one superbly skinny and one stout and big.. If you put the stout and big guy on the hilly course, he'd probably die in the middle of the course but if you put the skinny dude on the hill, he'd fly up the hills with little effort needed simply due to his low body weight- that of course is assuming both athletes have trained equally hard.

Last example is some of you are using super fast bikes and some of you are using MOUNTAIN BIKES. If those using mountain bikes are biking as fast as you in the average speed, then I think it is time you practice more already because you don't know how much tougher it is to get that same speed you get for a road bike while using a mountain bike... :P

Having said that, we should not compare just the numbers of the timing but also our individual issues affecting our race and then learn to choose and prep for race smartly in time to come. :)

Also, other than looking at just your timing and your friends' timing, it can be beneficial to look at the whole field's timing versus the previous years' average results.

There are factors affecting the race course timing over the same distance.

For a non exhausting list:
a) Choppy Sea Swim
b) Windy Bike Course
c) Hot and Humid Run

These 3 points are really common in triathlon races, and they often slow us down. However, when we look at the timing of this year's competitors versus last year's.. the shift in the margin of timing difference is usually across the field.
The reason is that these conditions are race conditions and it affects every single one of them out there on the field. So next time, when you hit the bike leg with a strong head wind towards you, don't be demoralized because everyone goes through the same thing and if you're slowed by the condition, they'd be slower too. Of course, with pre race race course information, you can always prep yourself to turn such conditions to your edge...=)



2) Mistakes - Our ability to spot them (especially as a coach) versus the competitor's ability to change them. An issue that affects setting expectations on our children.

When we look at the kids race, we see a PURE sense of competitiveness versus an ABSOLUTE sense of fear versus a CRAZY AMOUNT OF FUN and perhaps a small percentage of LAZINESS.

Other than those things, we often see tasks that we adults assume they could have done those more efficiently. However, we also often fail to recognize AND understand the specific situation that the child was in. We often fail to consider that he or she may have thought otherwise in that situation or the ability to do the task in the efficient way may have been taken away due to fatigue.

And I've seen countless adults screamed and shouted at the child at the immediate instance of the very first failure that cause the shakened child to be even more shakened.

I do my fair share of shouting and screaming.. those of you who see me coach, I scream like a durian seller and I shout like a illegal money lender. But very few of you know the AMOUNT OF COMMUNICATION I've established with the kids to let them know my expectations and also the sheer deal of explanations that I did in CRAZY permutations of ways to ensure the kids understand TIME AFTER TIME AFTER TIME in an infinite loop of repetitions.
Sometimes the kids just doesn't have the heart to register in the amount of effort I put in and that is when I flare up like a T-Rex. It works for me that way, but only after ensuring they understand what is expected of them (effort and heart in lesson) and that they always get the "why"s of me screaming at them.

I just felt that too many of the adults never care to explain in proper expression to ensure the kid's understanding and scold the hell out of the child not because the child lacks heart and effort but because the child never was given the chance to understand. It is just unfair that way and I SERIOUSLY hope to change the way adults teach if I can put this stupid long paragraph in proper phrasing.


3) Encouragement OR Stress?
It is a thin line to draw between setting expectations and giving an encouraging statement. It depends A LOT on how a parent put it through to the kid. As an adult, we have learnt from our line of work to hide meaning behind our sentences and we do it so well, sometimes it came our naturally in our tones even though we don't mean it. Admit it, because it happens to you, you, you, and me.

For children, they are just not smart enough to decipher and yet they are simple minded, or Pure enough to believe the exact sentence that you said and because of the kindness in the sentence that they felt, they feel compelled to do even better than what you've told them to. We call that - Motivation. And it is a Powerful tool.. It is the source of initiative to do EVERYTHING.

Put for example: "Saori, I hope you'd swim your best time and everything else doesn't matter!"

Two situations may have happened here:
a) Saori may have went out to swim a personal best 150m and came out of it totally exhausted for the rest of the race...
b) Saori may be smart enough to pace herself for a really strong swim and yet recover well for the rest of the race...

Which situation turns out doesn't depend on how smart the kid is or how much practice the kid get because being a kid, "a best swim" = "A BEST SWIM". And for those of you who have kids, I think one of the most common phrase that comes out is "What if.....".. and you get the drift, "what if i didn't get a best swim?"...... that's when the stress comes in.

With that, I conclude that it is important for us adult to fully explain to the children what our expectations are (how high, or how low) in exact details and how they are supposed to respond to the race. I, as a coach always encourage the kids to think for themselves what they want, after I explain to them what I expect of them to perform and this usually results in the kids ability to decide for themselves and either excel or leave the class totally for other endeavours.

That is the secret to why Meher listens to me more than her daddy (that's what her daddy says) and all the kids seem to gel really well with me. The "secret" is just to take them Seriously and explain to them in details without keeping anything because "we think they won't understand because they are just kids.".

Take this back and think about it: Since you already know they don't understand, the more the need to explain to them isn't it? How can you assume that they can't understand you when you haven't try because you gave up due to your assumptions that they are just not smart enough? Com'on, I tell you some of you adults are just deceiving yourself if you get to know the kids more than I do in those mere 1 hr a week session I have with them. That - is a challenge to you. =)



4) Our voice and when to use what kind of encouragement phrases.
Children are the most sensitive receptors of body language and facial emotional expressions.

A very good example is a very nervous mummy telling an already calmed down kid "Don't be nervous or panicky-kykyky---kyyy.. oK-KKKA--KKAYY.."...

Seriously? -_-..

Another good example is a very frustrated daddy who sees the child breaking down under the pressure of competition and fatigue at the swim to bike transition.. and he shouts at the top of his voice in AN ANGRY TONE:
"BOY AH!!! DON'T PANICK! DO FASTER DO FASTER DO FASTER!!! YOU CAN DO IT ONE!!! WAH LAO EH... NOT LIKE THAT!! THE OTHER WAY!!!"

I can guarantee with my reputation as a coach that the child will get a cramp the moment he goes for his run after the bike (provided he doesn't crash in the bike leg).

As parents, I understand that some of you can get very emotional over a situation that is happening to your child/children that is not within your control and being helpless is a very frustrating feeling. However, instead of getting emotional, sometimes, not offering help is actually helping them. If the shouting was not there, he'd might have been able to calm down the moment he sits down and recognize his transition area that he had set up and gone through so many times in practice. If the mummy didn't try to comfort the kid in that nervous manner, the kid may have already zoned in and forget about the spelling of "panickkkkkyy" already.

Sometimes, we have to weigh the situation and stay neutral to our emotions. That is especially important when we speak to kids. We are their leaders and as leaders we cannot be shakened. For they sense every bit of emotions from us and trust me, whether they show it or not, their mind and body register these emotional and body language and signals.. AND They do react to it consciously or subconsciously.


This is yet another challenge for you parents - to learn to control your emotions and choose your words wisely and use an appropriate tone to suit the purpose of the sentences being communicated.



5) Triathlon - a fierce Competition, also a friendly race to be there for each other when times are tough.

Honestly, when I was doing my swim, I went out with a mentality to kill everyone. But after a big gulp of sea water, I kind of lost my composure and took a little bit of time to find back my rhythm as I was kind of worried for my bike leg (WHICH I DIDN'T TRAIN AT ALL...).. On the return part of the swim, I was going back and forth with these 3 australians and british (heard them after the race).. I was very sure I would outswim them all but then not knowing where the swim exit was (it was not marked!), I decided to step back and let them lead the way while I come up close behind..

On the bike, I was reserved and I didn't really know which gear to use thus I used the lighter one just in case.. but in the run, I was in Champion mode. I was out there to clock a PB. I know I could and I would do it because I promised the team in facebook that I will push to the max til the end of race. Everyone's back view was a flag for me to crush down and I outran many.

Feeling triumphant as I go on, I saw Ben and KH on the way to the U turn while I'm about 1.5km ahead of them.. I pushed even harder to be ahead even more and as the effort goes harder, I just want to compete so bad to win not everyone else, but myself.. my ego, my pride and my limit. When I finally finished with a dash and a PB breaking 1 minute off my 5km best time, I felt a rush of adrenaline down my spine together with some gastric juices from my tummy that taste like GU Gummy.. yucks.

For a stuck contrast to my drama rama high morale race......

I'd like to mention Yasmin and Meher for running together towards the end of the race. It brings back a nostalgic feeling of my first few races when I felt I didn't have the heart to compete.. and since I was there just to complete, might as well do a run with my friend that I meet in the race distance? Two makes a company and makes the run even more funny isn't it? :)

It was a friendly atmosphere and I'd definitely do the exact same thing if I was just there to complete. Well done girls! :)

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After the long long nagging..

Here's the timing screen shot!
Below is a link to download the file. It is an excel file and I already freezed the panel nicely with sorting and filtering enabled.

TOOK ME 3HRS TO SORT OUT THE NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS FOR EACH CATEGORY AND RETYPE EVERY INFORMATION FROM THE WEB TO THIS FILE FOR IT TO MAKE SENSE TO YOU. I also added a Transition Team Position ranking for fun, just to see who takes the longest to change - Teckbeng, 4mins is the amount of time I take to shower every morning... what happened at T1, you picked up some hot babe? ;)


Click here to download excel file TEAM_SAPPHIRE_TRIBOB_TIMING.xlsx


Cheers
KK