Watt a day!

A different sort of day.  Steve Casson had arranged a day for some of the people he works with to go to a  Wattbike session in Nottingham and then to be filmed swimming at Loughborough. I had agreed to car share with two people from Northants Tri, Mel and Val.  I hadn't met either of them before but it was really interesting being with them for the day as they are both British Triathlon age group'ers, with Mel having competed in Australia and Val competing shortly in Ireland.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the Wattbike session - I had checked them out on the www and understood what they did bit not sure what the session would show.  We did various different sets to see how efficiently we cycled, our power output and whether and what type of cyclists we were.  I now know I am not a sprinter based on a 10 second set - my reading didn't measure on the scale as I was rated untrained, however when we did the 5 minute endurance set I was able to get to level 4 that means I was OK... all it said was that I had more to do.  I am looking forward to getting the data and then I can look in more detail and see what I can of to further improve my cycling technique.  Photo thanks to Steve Casson.


We then made a quick trip over to Loughborough University pool to be filmed so that our technique can be filmed and then analysed.  It is a large pool.  A quick warm up then 3x25m lengths to be filmed underneath and then from each side.  After I had completed the swim I was told that I would find the video helpful for my rotation and stroke.  I then had about 30 minutes in the pool including some 1:1 coaching from Steve when he wanted me to work on my stroke, with a stronger glide and then getting more power from the push through on my stroke and to not use my legs as they go everywhere. He felt that after a few lengths it looked better but lets see how I get on on another day.  We then went to review the video of all of our swimming - I must admit I was not ready for how badly my swimming looked, I had some good entry for the arms to the water but most of the rest needed to be improved but I was advised that at the heart of all of this was more core strength then my body and legs would keep in a straight line and I would be more streamlined.

I didn't have a Pilate's session in the training plan for tonight but as I had already booked the class I went and, as I need to do more core work, I didn't feel it would be a wasted effort.

Here is looking forward to further improvements. I was inspired today by the commitment and journey's of all of the people I worked with and how much progress they had made, and perhaps I can make.

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