Progress Already!?

So after only a week of the new swim drills and I think I've saved close to 7 or 8 seconds per 100 yds in the pool. No joke. The 2 tweaks that coach wanted me to make to my stroke have really made that much difference. Turns out, you really don't want to be doing most of your reach under the water. Duh. I mean water is way more resistant than air, so why not do most of your reach in the air. This has made a big difference. The other big difference is a more subtle change in my timing of the reach/pull. Instead of gliding too much and doing too much of a "catch up" stroke, I start my pull a little sooner and use a higher turnover. This keeps my speed up and in combination with the reach correcting some other things, has really got me going in the pool.

So last year I did a 37 minute swim for a half-iron distance; not particularly great compared to the pack, but good for me. The year prior, I did a 38 minute swim and a few years ago was doing >40 minute half-iron swims. 37 minutes is about a 1:45 per 100 yds. If I can hold a 1:38 per 100 yds, that gets me down to 34 minutes and change, nearly a 3 minute improvement already! And this is after a week of doing the "right" drills. I can't wait to see the video tape we made.

Making some progress on the PowerCranks, too. I did a 2 hour ride today and started it with 45 minutes straight! Not bad. Still very low cadence and I can't go with my hands on the hoods for very long, but I can at least keep things moving for a while now. And at the end of the 2 hours, I even took my bike off the trainer and rode around the block. Very weird. Especially as you come up over a hill and have to down shift and your cadence really jumps up high. I think I might be ready to try a short, flat road-ride now. I'll probably continue most of my riding on the trainer as I begin to try to go with higher and higher cadence, but I may try a ride out on the bike path this week. Not bad progress after just a week and a half, but I still have a lot of work to do!