My next goal for swimming to save more time is to do proper flip-turns. See also: http://www.svl.ch/flipturn.html
Great hint: "•Never use your arms and hands to initiate and perform the tumbling motion (mistake #1)." - I trained it without arm-movement and it is much more smoother!
Turns - Flip-Turn Eyes from Glenn Mills on Vimeo.
I am really happy that I started the lifeguard course. Meanwhile I learned important skills in the lifeguard trade:
1. swimming without googles
2. handling emergency situations
(from alarming to lifesaving reanimation)
3. transport-swimming of persons
4. diving 4-6 meter deep w/o equipment
5. jumping from the 3 m tower
Combining usefulness for mankind with sport and fitness I decided to become a lifeguard. "Baywatch" is calling. ;- )
I joined SLRG Zueri to train for the lifeguard-course. Exciting a new and useful skill. ;- )
This weekend was the total-immersion fresh-up to be ready swimwise for the upcomming season. I took a first beginners course two years ago and went this time together with Irina for a second time. I focused on rotation and on how to save energy and indeed learned some important things:
- I have to work on my core strength and have to focus to swim "on the "Latissimus" muscle" to be pushed forward by the water
- maintain body-tension and push back the arm/hand as much as possible towards the back
- 
www.swimmersguide.com is a great website to find pools around the world! Check it out.
- www.finisinc.com are selling great equipment. Unfortunately not yet internationally. I ordered a special snorkel to focus more on the technical swim.
- "Swim slow to swim fast"
Happy laps!
7 days to my first IM. Yesterday I had the last long training session: 3.8 k swim (1'35''). Everything went well. I felt good.
The water temperature is rising in the Zurich lake.
I guess we are not swimming with a neoprene (actual water temperature is 23.5°C with 1 week to go). Four months ago I bought the 70.3 and I am quite happy with it. I like it even better, since swimming is more "real" in the "shorty".
Training is somehow influenced right now with "moving the house" and "job change". Though I am able to find the right balance over and over again. My nutrition is going ok, though I could be thinner.
For the next week I will enjoy the circus and training becomes a matter of low priority. Have fun! onefreeracial
The early bird swim training of the free radicals started again in the beautiful outdoor swimming pool, 06:00 Uhr Hallenbad Opfikon Glattbrugg:
3 k swim:
6 * (500m crawl, 2 rounds running round the pool, 20 pushups)
at the end I jumped from the 3 m tower - a fear for me to conquer every time again. I don't know why that scares me so much.
Loosing weight, feeling fit, 18 days to the IM....
Absolutely no time to write something here....
....only training counts right now.
Swimming:
- I started to train in a group: http://www.godfrey.ch/
Biking:
- use a bandanna to avoid neck pains from the wind
- mind the heat!
Running:
- training on hard ground is cruel
The last weekend I hosted two triathlon-princesses from Frankfurt: Vero the Hill-queen and Alyssa the fastest Kangaroo chaser in the northern hemisphere. We did the Rapperswil-"Strecke", some commercials and wetsuit-testing in the 12° C limmat river. Great time folks! You are always welcome to any "course" or Strecke or Tri-Camp. :- )
Alyssa shortly before she got lost in the Zurich forest:
Vero, the hill-queen and Tim ascending to the frozen cold:
In front of a shield, which says: Your life will be in danger, if you swim here:
Today I went to Beat to discuss training issues I experienced while pushing the training for the Ironman. Beat is the shopowner of Santa Monica:
http://www.santamonica.ch/ and I think also founder of erox: http://www.eroxswiss.com/. Despite that, he is a great guy having huge experience for Ironman-Training. Anyone in the triathlone scene in Zürich/ Switzerland knows him. On top he really has the right equipment in his store. We discussed four points:
1.Freezing while on long biking tours
* Beat asked me for my clothing and explained I should change my combination. New layers:
1. net-shirt
2. Frottee/Terry-Fleece
3. New breathing active windstopper jacket for biker.
2. Biking shoes feel uncomfortable while being on the road more than 2 hours
maybe they are too small. due to the long distances the feet start swallowing after a while - for short periods then the foot feels numb and squashed. We will examin this in 2 weeks. Beat needs to have a look at my shoes.
3. Running Shoes
Maybe I need new ones. we will examine them also in two weeks.
4. Nutrition I wonder why I don^t loose any gram weight - although I train like a dog. Beat suggested to hide the scale and only look in the mirrow to see if everything is okay. He said: muscles weight twice than fat and right now I am replacing a lot of fat with muscles. :-( Good and bad - since I have to carry the muscles arround in the competition.
* Kieselerde
During Long swimming sessions I experience sometimes shoulder "adjustment-pains". So I think "Kieselerde" might help. Beat said, maybe I should rest a day or plan for "recovery" training sessions.
* Additionally Beat recommended stuff called "basic balance" from "Sponser". It is a "basic mineral salt" composition. It tastes like dishwater. No joke. It^s medicine- nothing more.
* At the same time Beat said: while training for the Ironman: no milk, but soya and no yoghurt and no cheese! Man, this will be really tough for me.
In the evening I swam 3.3 km - wich is a new swimming distance record for me. 65 turns. Meanwhile I get used to flip turns. :- )
Here an example I found on youtube:
It really helps to look at the knees while turning.
Stay strong folks, the next season is approaching fast!!!
the free radical
today I was supposed to swim with pullboy, no leg-movement and with paddles to train the arms. I was really exhausted after 4 times 150 m. I really need to repeat this. Furthermore, I tried to float through the water - not so easy to become a dolphin.
Running every day is really tiresome. Two days I had a break. Otherwise, I really enjoy it. .jpg)
After the first week engaging in the job again, I am struggling to keep the training going. However, I did some swimming, running and today I am looking forward to spending some more time running. At least my weight is tumbling further on - right now: 85 kg.
Here you may find a short video about the best endless pool in the world: the Limmat river in Zuerich:
Here are my training results - recorded by www.2peak.com:
Here are more fotos from the event:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scheffti/sets/72157600330729856/
best viewed as slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scheffti/sets/72157600330729856/show/
Great stuff. Thanks again family and friends!
Today again 1 hr swimming.
to be prepared and hardened I decided yesterday to swim today in the cold (=16°C) water. No other swimmers, but the ducks were there. They funny enough sneaked up to me, when I slipped in my neoprene. Afterwards they joined me even swimming. Now I am feeling good. Let the competition come...
In the afternoon I did some readjustment to my sattle to get a better 90° angle. My actual bike position is the red line. The blue line shows how it would look like on a triathlon-bike. Much better for the back, for speeding and efficiency. The long distances really require the right equipment. On the left side you can see a nice graph with comments from the website: http://www.bikesportmichigan.com/bikes/karma/thumbs/famegeo.gif They have some good clues on the bike position at their website.
today I swam and run at the competition course. To know the course beforehand is very important to me. This might be a psychological thing, but boosts my confidence. I picked some guiding positions on the water to navigate well. Also I had a look at the "stairways to heaven" at the run-course. There are 60 steps to climb until you reach the castle (see foto). That really is no fun, since it breaks your running-rythm. As a reward for the training today I drove to the next tri-shop and bought a rudy-project sunglas. :- )
That's great! I have the largest endless-pool in the world directly in front of my appartment! The Limmat river has at the "Werdinsel" a very nice current to swim against. I got also used to the cold water after 10 minutes. I found also a trick: to spare some air to breathe it out of the nose. I don't know why, but after the 5th stroke I paniced sometimes. Now, breathing out of the nose takes this panic away. Great stuff! I want to be an Ironman.
4 weeks before the competition I tested out the full 70.3 distance. I took a Silverbird-taxi to Bogor (180.000 Rp.) to a Golf club named "Sentul Highlands".
Today I was swimming again in the Hotel Borobudur Pool (50m lag). http://www.hotelborobudur.com/ The water is quite clean there and it has a nice jogging trail (700m) with not soooo much "Polusi udara" (=air pollution)
. Right now - on the peak of my training load - I feel really tired. Training while feeling (& being?) tired is good for some reasons: 1. during the triathlon one might also feel tired 2. you have to motivate yourself to get up and do the training 3. the body learns to take it. Like the marines said: "the only easy day was yesterday!". No training today. I am not in the mood at all. Nevertheless I visisted the olympic stadion and tried to contact some local swim-, run- and triathlon-clubs. The senayan swimmin pool (50m) is open from 7:30 am - 4 pm.We will see, what is going on. I got my first blogg-comment in a parallel blogg. Someone said, Jakarta might be a good preparation for Hawaii: tropical heat, ... now I feel better. ;- > 
Training again: 45 min swim 1km. The lower-back-pain is fading away, so that I could do some legs swimming. After the forced break swimming felt like flying through the water. All the power released. Interestingly a bat would watch me crawling in the house-pool.
Swim-training in the swarm of free radical sharks. I need to train swimming in a group. The trainer was really good, he said, I have to kick more with the legs, to improve my swim position (legs are to deep in the water). When I kick at least once a stroke I maintain a flat position and minimize water resistance.
