First technique lesson - fly and breast!

This week I started what I hope is a long series of technique focused lessons with Katie.  Tuesday evening before practice, we spent half an hour analyzing my butterfly and breaststroke, figuring out what is wrong with them.  On the fly side of things, we just identified what was wrong, but didn't do anything to fix it during the lesson--we both need to go and read up on it before making any changes, since I haven't a clue how to fix the problems, and she's not a flyer.  Breast, on the other hand, we started working on immediately.

Katie took a number of videos during the lesson so I could see what she's talking about.  On a side note, this is sooooooo much more helpful than having a coach just yell at me to change something, since a lot of this stuff looks worse than it feels for me.  Anyhoo, here are the videos and my analysis of 'em.

25 fly, every other breathing pattern

This first video is me swimming a 25 fly breathing every other stroke.  I wasn't swimming at race pace, so my technique might be slightly different at speed.  Hmm, I'll have to have Katie film it at both speeds next time so I can compare.  Anyways, there are three things of note in the video.

1) My kick tempo changes from breath strokes to no-breath strokes.  On no-breath strokes, the kick follows my body motion and snaps at the right spots.  On breath strokes, however, the kick timing changes.  This was a revelation to me.  I've never consciously thought about my kick on fly, since it is just an extension of my body motion.  I was surprised when Katie pointed out that the tempo changes from stroke to stroke.  At this point, I'm not even sure how I'd go about fixing the issue so that I have a constant kick tempo.  

2) I've got a different head/upper body position at full extension on breath strokes than I do on no-breath strokes.  This was something I was aware of, but wasn't aware of just how different the positions are.  When I don't breathe, my chest and head press down with just the right motion and depth for my stroke.  When I do breathe, however, the pressing down motion is jerkier and I don't push down as far.  

3) I *think* I press my head and chest down too early.  For the past 8 months or so since I started swimming more fly, my upper arms have pushed a lot of water on the recovery of the pull.  Part of it is because I naturally ride lower in the water (while I've got a fair amount of padding, I'm pretty heavy for my height and a good amount of it is muscle; while I'm naturally bouyant in the water when just floating or treading water, I've always ridden low in the water while swimming, even back on Tritons when I was ~50 pounds lighter and had 4% body fat) and my shoulders aren't flexible enough for me to rotate them far enough back to swing my arms higher out of the water.  The other part, and this is where Katie and I are just guessing, since we couldn't devote much time to playing around with it, is that we think I might be pressing my chest/head down too early in the stroke.  I start pushing down when my arms are approximately directly out to the sides.  By pushing down too early, and with the aforementioned limited range of motion in my shoulders, I might be pushing my upper body, and thus my upper arms, down while the arms still have 50% of their range of motion to go through.  That would explain why my upper arms are dragging through the water while my lower arms are doing just fine.  We're not sure if I actually am pushing my head/chest down too early in fact, or if it's just a shoulder mobility/rotation issue.  We'll look at it more in depth in future lessons.

Fly, breathing every stroke

Here I breathe every stroke.  You can definitely see the difference in the kick tempo from stroke to stroke.  The big kick at the end is the same, but the other kick (it appears that I have a two beat kick) is stilted and looks pretty weak.  In addition, it's pretty clear that I'm not pressing my chest/head near as far down on these strokes.  Again, my arms are pushing the water.  All that being said, as a whole, I don't think it looks terrible when I breathe every stroke.  I'll probably never have a "pretty" fly, but it's functional and works for the most part.

Fly, no breathing

This time, no breaths.  Marked difference in kick tempo from the previous video.  Still dragging those arms.  I think my overall body motion looks better in this video, but still have the aforementioned issues.  Sigh.  If I could figure out what I need to do to fix the arm dragging, I have a feeling that would probably mitigate the other issues.  Lots of work to do on my butterfly over the next few months...

Breast, normal pull

This is my breaststroke with my normal pull.  As far as I can remember, I've never really changed my breast technique over the years like I've changed my technique in the other strokes.  So, to the best of my knowledge, I've been swimming more or less this exact stroke for ~15 years (the only change I've made in recent years is trying to get my hands to pop out of the water on the recovery).  Two main things of note in this video:

1) My kick is out of sync with my pull.  It's not in this video, but Katie had me do the accordian drill (hands linked together and you swim breast pulling your hands in and pushing them out in time with your kick), and I only had one stroke in the entire 25 where the pull and kick were actually in sync.  Other than that one drill, we didn't work any on my kick timing.  On the plus side, my kick isn't terribly weak, which means it is actually much better than I thought going into this lesson! :-D

2) Since the video is taken from the side, rather than head-on, you can't really see it, but when I push my hands forward, they create a wall of water that I then have to push my upper body through.  Not exactly the most efficient way to swim breaststroke.  I have a pretty powerful pull, but it's just so inefficient (heck, that describes my entire breaststroke) that I squander most of that power on just trying to overcome said inefficiencies rather than moving forward.  Anyhoo, my pull action involves sweeping my hands out and under  my shoulders, bringing my hands nearly together under my chest, then pushing them forward, breaching the water in the process.  It's the push and pop of my hands that creates the wall of water.

Breast, new pull

Kinda hard to see in this video, what with the side shot and all, but Katie had me pretty drastically change my pull.  Didn't work on my kick, so that's still screwed up, but the pull is quite a bit different.  She had me attempt to do the Rebecca Soni pull.  For those who aren't familiar with her pull, it doesn't follow the normal breaststroke pull pattern.  The pull I described in the previous video is the normal pull that every coach I've had has had me do (not that I do it as well as they've taught me...).  Soni's pull, on the other hand, is more of a scull than a full pull.  She sweeps her hands out as I do, but the turns it into an inward scull in front of her shoulders instead of pulling them back underneath her shoulders.  From there, she doesn't bring her hands together under her chest, but shoots them forward from in front of her shoulders, narrowing the gap between them as she extends.  That's what she does.  I'm not quite at the Soni level yet.  I don't have the scull down yet, but I was able to grasp shooting my hands forward from my shoulders rather than the center of my chest pretty quickly.  From the side, it's hard to see, but while the pop of my hands still produces a wall of water, that wall of water is off to the sides of my chest, so I'm not pushing my entire upper body through the wall.  I feel terribly uncoordinated swimming with this pull, since it goes against everything I've done for the last 15 years in the pool, but even though I've got a long way to go to even come close to perfecting it, it does feel faster and more efficient!

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Looks like the next lesson is going to be next week, Tuesday or Thursday.  This first lesson was phenomenal (especially with the addition of the camcorder, hands down the most useful swimming related item I've bought) and I can't wait to see what we'll work on next time!

First triathlon!!!

I competed in my first triathlon yesterday, the Culpeper Sprint Triathlon in Culpeper, VA!!

There was a group of six of us from the swim team who competed.  I was the only tri-virgin of the group, and I think I did surprisingly well, all things considered!  The triathlon was a 750m swim, followed by a 16 mile ride, then a 5k run.

First up was the swim.  The water was quite warm, 86 degrees, and was murky to the point where you couldn't see past your arms.  The course was a triangle, with the start and end portion of the race at one of the points on the triangle.  There were around 75 folks in my wave (I was in the first wave, the Under 39 Men wave).  The wave kicked off with the normal piranha feeding frenzy, and I put up a pretty strong pace for the first 200 meters or so to separate myself from the pack.  After that I settled into a slightly slower pace and just cruised through the next 500 meters or so.  I'd estimate I was swimming at around a 1:20 pace.  I swam faster for the last 75 meters or so into the finish.  My swim time was 11:50, so I'm thinking the swim course was closer to 850m than 750m.  My swim time was the 7th fastest overall and 6th fastest in my wave for the men.

Once out of the water, I headed into the transition area.  For both the bike and run transition areas, I wasn't worried about speed, just about getting in and getting out with everything in order.  In order, I took off the cap and goggles as I was running in, put my helmet on once I got to the bike, then put on my socks and bike shoes and headed out with the bike.  My transition time was 1:49, which gave me the 86th fastest transition time for the men.  Now that I've gotten actual transitions under my belt, next time I'll focus on speed.  Many thanks to Simon L. for walking me through the transitions a couple weeks ago!!

Next up was the bike.  Coming out of the transition area, we immediately ran up a hill to where the bike course started.  Once we ran up the grassy slope to the road, we were off.  Due to me not having a bike at the moment, I borrowed my sister's bike.  And it's too small for me.  And the saddle lowered as the ride went on.  And its gearing felt different from the other bikes I've ridden.  Sigh.  It took me about 5 minutes to get used to the odd position on the bike, and an additional 5 minutes after that to finally adjust to the seemingly different gearing.  After the rough first 10 minutes, though, I had settled in.  By my count, I passed 3 people on the bike and had 21 pass me, which was actually way less than I thought would pass me.  There was a group of three guys ahead of me that I kept pace with--over the 16ish mile ride (the gps on my phone clocked it at ~16.7 miles), I kept the guy at the back of the group between 30-200 feet ahead of me until the last 1/4 mile or so, when they pulled ahead.  Overall, it was a great ride.  Mostly overcast, upper 70s, and pretty scenery.  Plugging the numbers in, I averaged 17.9 mph on the ride with a time of 55:55, giving me the 70th fastest bike time for the men.

Coming off the bike, we had to run down the hill with our bikes back towards the transition area.  On my third step on the grass going downhill, my left ankle twisted and immediately started hurting.  I limped my way into the transition area and stretched it out in there.  Also had some leg cramps, so stretched them out, too.  Pretty slow transition, as I took off the helmet, put the race belt on, then swapped my bike shoes for running shoes, and stretched out.  I had a 2:04 for the transition, which was the 180th fastest for the men.

The last portion of the race was the run.  My right calf and quad were cramping for the first mile or so, and my left ankle was pretty much on fire.  I basically hobbled the entire "run."  For the 5k, my time was 31:18, which comes out to a 10:04 pace per mile.  Not exactly setting any speed records.  On good running days, I've been able to hit sub-8:00 per mile paces for 5-10 mile runs, so I know I could've knocked off 6-7 minutes off that run sans ankle issues.  Oh well.  My run time was "fast" enough to put me 154th in the men's rankings.

Final time was 1:42.54, which put me 6th in my age group and 76th overall for the men.  Given the issues I had with the bike and the abysmal run, I'm extremely happy with that time!  I had a total blast, and really look forward to my next tri, which looks to be in October, unless there's another sprint between now and then!

Outlook for the rest of the summer and upcoming short course season

We've got a bit over a month left in the summer season, with the switch to the indoor fall/spring season occuring at some point in September.  With that in mind, I've started mapping out my training plan and goals for the rest of the summer and short course season.

• For the rest of the summer season, I'm pretty much just going to stay in maintenance mode, aiming for 4-5 practices a week.  No high intensity or high yardage training, just continuing to work on my back technique and maintaining my current proficiency in the other strokes.  The next meet isn't till late October, so I won't start training for it until we head indoors in September.
• Starting next week, I'm going to do one or two lessons a week with Katie, one of the coaches on the team.  For the remainder of the summer season, provided her schedule cooperates (she coaches an age group team, too), I'll do half an hour sessions with her before the Tuesday and Thursday evening practices.  The intent is to really work on my technique, since there's a rather limited amount of time that the coaches can spend with an individual swimmer during the practices.  I haven't decided what specific things we'll work on, just that we'll work on technique in general.  Provided her schedule allows it, I'd like to continue the lessons through the fall/spring season, although not necessarily twice a week at that point.  We'll be practicing at pools with blocks, flags (not all of our summer pools have 'em), and all that stuff, so the lessons could even expand to race specific stuff.  In addition, I've started sending some of my swim videos to a friend of mine, Will B.  A few years older than me, we swam together for a few years in Louisville, and his younger brother is one of my best friends.  Anyways, he was a backstroker and is now the head coach at Darton.  He's been a lot of help the past couple weeks and has given me some great advice and tips for backstroke.  I'll continue to shoot him videos and questions as my training progresses.  With his technical expertise (albeit just communicated via email, rather than in person) and Katie's lessons, I think I'll make vast strides in my technique and strokes over the coming year.
• Starting in September when we move inside, I'm going to start training for the 200 fly and 200 back.  I fully intend to swim both of those at Spring Nationals in Indy next May, so I'm going to train for them for the whole season.  The endurance I'll build training for those two will also help for the 100 fly and 100 back, but I'll also need to throw speed training in for the latter two.  I'm thinking that if my technique is sufficiently improved by that point, then I could use my half hour lessons with Katie to work on speed/endurance training to supplement the team practices and my solo practices.  That's a long way from now, though, so I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.  My goal for Zones and Nats next spring is to be able to swim my choices of the 50/100/200 fly and back and the 200/400 IM and post good times in whichever events I choose.  To this point, I'm only satisfied with my 50 and 100 fly times, so that's a lot of training I've gotta do between now and April.
• The practice schedule hasn't been posted for the indoor season yet, but I assume it'll be similar to last year, with morning practices offered from 5:00-7:00am MWF (one hour long practices, just two sessions), 6:00-7:00am TTh, Saturday 8:00-9:00am, and evening practices offered 7:30-8:30pm MTTh.  Unfortunately, this past season, there was no rhyme or reason as to the practice plans--they used to follow a schedule such as "Tuesday evenings are sprint practices, Wednesday mornings are IM," or something along those lines.  The season started out that way, but then it ended up that each practice didn't seem to be coordinated with any of the others, so you might have three practices in a row that were distance free, or two IM practices back to back, that sort of thing.  Therefore, I'm looking at the team practices as just a way to get some yardage in, not as my main way of getting in specific training.  I'll swim solo to get in my specific training.  With that in mind, I'm thinking something like MWF (or maybe TWTh) mornings, MTTh evenings, and Saturday mornings with the team for general yardage.  On top of that, I'm planning an hour long solo practice on MTh evenings before the team practice and a 90 minute solo practice Wednesday evenings.  I might also do a solo kick practice once a week, but I haven't made up my mind about that yet.  During the three solo practices, I'll focus on alternating between high intensity, high speed, and stroke workouts.  The USMS forum has a set of coaches that post practices online for the various disciplines, so I'll use their practices for my solo practices.  High intensity practices.  High yardage practices.  Stroke practices.  There are some awesome looking practices in there!  I did a handful of them (mostly the sprint practices) in the months leading up to Nats in April, but didn't do them regularly.  This time around I intend to utilize them to supplement the team practices, to fill out the gaps in that training.
• Weights and dryland!  I've been sadly remiss with these two, so I'm starting to incorporate the two of them next week, starting with a month or so of dryland before I tack on weights.

With just the training I did from last August through March, I made vast improvements in my butterfly and I have also made some good improvements in backstroke since March.  And I did all that without really doing stroke training or any true speed/yardage training, and no weights or dryland.  With all that stuff added in the mix for the upcoming season, along with the lessons with Katie and help from Will, I predict that my meet performances will blow this past season's out of the water.

Since I'm seriously stepping up my game this time around, I've decided to update my goal times for the remainder of this year and next year that I set in April before Nats.  Where I've changed my goal times, the original goal times are in parentheses.  The times for next year, unfortunately, are not my goal times for Nats in Indy.  They're just my goal times for the calendar year.

Event	2012	2013
50 fly	25.5 (25.8)	24.5
100 fly	57.1 (57.1)	55.0
200 fly	2:16.0 (2:18.0)	2:07.0 (2:05.0, a typo)
50 back	27.5 (28.0)	26.5
100 back	1:01.0 (1:02.0)	57.0
200 back	2:15.0 (2:18.0)	2:08.0 (2:10.0)
100 IM	1:00.0 (1:01.0)	58.0
200 IM	2:15.0 (2:15.0)	2:08.0
400 IM	5:00.0 (5:00.0)	4:45.0 (4:40.0, a typo)
50 free	24.5 (25.0)	23.9
100 free	55.0 (55.5)	53.8
200 free	2:02.0 (2:05.0)	1:58.0

With a full 3+ months of hard training under my belt this fall, I'm pretty confident with my 2012 time projections.  At least, I'm pretty confident with my fly and back projections.  The 200 IM looks to be achievable by then, too, but I'm not sure about the 100 or 400 (don't even know if I'll swim the latter till next year, so it's iffy).  If I swim the free events, they should also be feasible, but like the 400 IM, I might not swim them till next year, since I'm training specifically for fly and back, and those events take precedence over free/IM events at all meets.

I'm seriously pumped for the upcoming season!  I've always like swimming indoors more than outdoors, and the thought of swimming in a facility that actually has all the accoutrements of a regular pool (good lane ropes, blocks, flags, sufficient lighting, good walls) is so much more enticing to me than most of the outdoor pools we swim at.  In addition, with the help of Will and Katie, I'm starting to have more hope in my swimming improving.  And plus, the Olympics are a hell of a motivator!

Can't wait for the start of the season!

EDIT: I've got a competition partner (not really sure what to call her) for backstroke!  One of my friends, Jayme V., swims for one of the other teams in the area, and swims at most of the local meets as well.  She's a backstroker, and we're approximately in the same time bracket (although she's faster right now), so she's who I'm gunning for in back at every meet we're both at! If she's swimming at the sprint meet in October, the first meet of the season, my goal is to beat her in whichever backstroke events she's swimming.  :-D

First long course meet in 7 years...ouch!

Oof.

That was seriously one of the most painful meets I can remember.  Well, I'd say the most painful meet was when at the age of 6(?), I swam the 200 free.  Anyways, definitely in the running for the most painful meet in the last 10 years or so.  The only meet I can remember that came close to this one was the Iron Man meet I did in highschool--in about a three hour time period, it was all four 200s, the 500, and the 400 IM.  Now THAT was a killer meet!

Anyhoo, this was my first long course meet, and first time swimming in a 50m pool, since the OVC meet at Lakeside in Louisville in June 2005.  Ow.  To emphasize that point: Ow.  Ow.  Ow.  And once more for good emphasis, ow!  The pool is a pretty cruddy pool (not quite as sketchy as the long course one I practiced at in highschool, but pretty dang close.  I swam four individual events and one relay--the 200 IM, 50 back leading off the 200 medley relay, 200 back, 50 fly, and 100 back.  We had a pretty good sized crew (for us) at the meet, with seven of us swimming.  That's about double the size of the contingent we normally have at meets, so I was quite happy about that!  Here's my recap of the events and videos of them, too.

200 IM: I admit, I was really dang nervous before this event, even more so than I was at Nationals in March!  I'd gotten in a decent warmup earlier, but still, I had approximately 5,000,000,000,000,000 butterflies in my stomach.  And this wasn't even one of the events I was worried about at the meet!  I had a decent start and a good 50 fly.  Not terribly fast, but I wasn't trying to set any personal records or anything of the sort--with both the 100 and 200 back coming up later in the morning, I wanted to conserve enough energy to survive them and not blow out on the 200 IM.  Pretty staid back leg, good breast leg, and then I just held on on the free.  Effort wise, I'd say I was right where I wanted to be.   I went a 2:51.68, with manual splits of 33.21, 45.04, 51.17, and 42.04 (no, they don't add up to the official time).  I dunno what was up with the time--my entry time was a 2:41.00, an approximate conversion of my best short course time of a 2:19.62.  I can think of three possible culprits for the time variance.  1) There's something funky with the pool, whether it's actually longer than 50 meters, or it's got some current thing in there.  2) My turns give me a lot more speed than I thought, and taking half of them out of the race made me that much slower.  3) I totally misjudged my pace.

My bet is it's a combination of #s 1 and 2.

On the plus side, just by swimming it, I set the team record for my age group! :-)  I set the bar pretty low, so this looks to be nothing but a personal goal for me to beat each summer till I turn 30.

200 medley relay: This was far from the team's A relay, but we gave it our best shot!  We had a lot of fun and placed in the middle of the pack.  I had a decent back leg, although I went too deep on the start and started to fade on the last 5 meters--there wasn't a huge amount of time between the 200 IM and this swim.  My split (all splits are taken from me timing the video) was a 35.89.  Not that fast, but I think #s 1 and 2 from my 200 IM recap apply here.  Debbie swam the breast leg, and as far as I can tell (I just met her today) she had a decent swim--her split was a 53.19.  Erin swam the fly leg, and had a phenomenal swim.  I've been trying to get her to come to a meet since January, I think, so I guess she finally caved in.  :-)  Anyways, her best time at (short course practice) was a mid 37 for her 50 fly.  Her split today was a 39.31, which converts to a high 34 short course.  Chris finished out the relay swimming the free leg with a 32.41  From the video, I timed us at a 2:40.80.  Not too shabby.

On a side note, this past week in practice at one of the 25m pools, I went a 35 from a push in a 50 back during the main set, while wearing a drag suit.  Methinks there's something fishy about my split in the relay, which certainly felt faster than the 50 in practice.

200 back: This was the event I was the most worried about.  I've been working on my backstroke for the past couple months, and it feels quite a bit better than it did up through Nationals in March.  My original intent for this meet before I saw the event order was to swim the 200 fly, 200 back, and 400 IM.  Unfortunately, I found out in June that the 200 fly and 200 back were back-to-back, so I scrapped that plan and decided to finally stop putting off my much needed back technique work and decided to focus on the 100 and 200 back at this meet instead.  Anyways, with the combination of this being my first long course pool and only my second time swimming the 200 back at a meet since 2005, I really wasn't sure how to approach this event.  Over the last two weeks, I've been doing some pretty intensive kick practices and sets, trying to get my legs ready for the sheer brutality that is the 200 back.  Umm, didn't work.  I had a much better start than in the relay and took it out at a pretty good 200 pace, or at least that's what it felt like.  From the video, my first split was a 39.60.  The second 50 also felt pretty good, with a 44.92 split.  I started to feel the burn in my legs at about the 125 or so, but still had enough left in the tank to split a 46.02.  My legs burned out, and I mean BURNED OUT, at the 165 or so.  The last 35 meters were pure hell, but I still managed to split about a 46.60 (hard to tell exactly when I finished, since the video wasn't zoomed in till after I finished).  Overall, it felt like a pretty darn good 200 back--not per my highschool standards, but pretty darn good for how my backstroke is these days.  However, I went a 2:57.67, which is a good ~13 seconds off my entry time, which was converted from my 200 back which I did back at the beginning of February (2:24.72), when I hadn't trained for it at all.  I mean, come on.  My backstroke has improved quite a bit since then, so the only reasons I can see for me adding that much time from a slow entry time is because of the turn effect or a funky pool.  I really can't see my turns being that big of a factor, so it's gotta be the pool.

On a side note, I think my backstroke looks quite good, at least in comparison to what it used to look like before I started working on the technique.  Not the fastest arm turnover, but I've got a good kick, good rotation (although my overrotation to the right is noticeable), good head position, and my hands no longer cross over the center line.  From the head-on shots, it looks like I'm not dropping my elbows enough on the pull, but that's not that bad, all things considered.

Just by swimming it, I set the team record for my age group!  I set the bar pretty dang low, so unless someone else in my age group who is faster than me starts competing, this should be nothing more than a personal goal for me to beat each summer till I turn 30.

50 fly: I haven't trained specifically for fly at all this summer.  I think I've maintained, more or less, the speed I worked up to over the spring, but haven't worked on endurance at all, focusing my efforts on backstroke.  I knew I didn't have the endurance, due to aforementioned training, for the 100 or 200 fly, so I figured the 50 fly would be about as much fly as I could handle.  Unfortunately, this was only about 15-20 minutes after the 200 back, and I was still hurting pretty bad.  Anyways, I had a decent start and felt really good for the first 35 meters or so...and then the 200 back hit me like a dump truck.  I fell apart at the end of the race, and it's pretty embarrassing to watch.  I went 32.50, which is way off my 29.60 entry time, which was itself a direct conversion of my 25.90 Nationals time.  Seriously, what's going on with this pool?!  My dying at the end shouldn't have added more than one second to my time for a 50, which leaves nearly 2 seconds left to account for.  There's no way my admittedly not-the-greatest open turn accounts for that much time.  And my conditioning isn't that poor to account for me adding that much time.

100 back: This was the other event I was nervous about.  Unfortunately, it was my last event of the meet...and I was pooped.  My legs were barely hanging on, even before I got in the pool, and I was just tired.  For an event that looks so easy, the 200 back is really quite the torture device!  Anyhoo, I had a pretty empty heat--lots of people had scratched, apparently.  The videographer started the video...after...the start, so I'm guessing my first split was a high 37, but I got myself at a 42.46 for the second 50, for a 1:20.54 official time.  I had a pretty good start, but couldn't get off the damn lane ropes to save my life!  On top of that, I was definitely feeling the accumulated tiredness weighing down on me like a 50 pound weight.  Still, all that aside, I thought I had a very solid race.  Unfortunately, that 1:20.54 is a full 5 seconds off my converted time from the 1:06.03 I went back in February in my pre-backstroke training era.  Again, what the hell?!  If this had been a short course pool, I'd have been surprised if I couldn't have gone that 1:06 with how much my back has improved, even with how tired I was by that point.

Like the 200 back and 200 IM, I set the team record just by swimming the event.  Well, that's not entirely true--Chris swam it a couple heats ahead of me and went a 1:37.  Technically, he set the team record, and then I broke his record about 5 minutes later.  :-)

The rest of the crew at the meet had pretty good swims.  Erin, at her first meet, did the relay and the 50s fly and free.  I think she was pretty happy with her times all three, so hopefully that'll be enough to get her to join the meet crew!  Debbie swam a meet last weekend, but I don't know how her times compared.  Simon had a pretty good 100 and 400 free, so maybe we'll be lucky enough to get him to swim a couple more meets here and there.  Chris had some decent swims, too.  Ray and Mark appeared to have good breaststroke swims, but I don't know enough about their backgrounds to say for sure.

All things considered, I had a great meet.  Despite the fishy times, I enjoyed myself immensely and my backstroke felt far stronger than it has at any meet up till now, even with the lack of turns!

Masters swimming gives me a headache!

In a very good way, that is!

I've touched upon this subject before, but it came up again for me over the weekend.

Master's swimming is (in my experience) a much more cerebral sport than age group swimming.  I'm looking at it from the competitive perspective, so those who swim for fitness might not have the same outlook on the sport.

Anyways, back in age group swimming, it was almost always the coach who did the thinking about technique and stuff for me.  He was the one who showed me what hand position to use in each stroke.  He was the one who told me what breathing pattern to do.  He was the one who yelled at me for not doing something properly.  If I wasn't grasping a particular technique to his liking, he'd pull me out of the water and walk through the motions on land.  He'd have me wait around for 15 minutes after practice was over to have me go over my backstroke start until I could do it to his satisfaction.  So on and so forth.  I was pretty much just an automaton, doing what the coaches said without *really* thinking about it.  For 13 some odd years as an age group swimmer, I never really gave the technique side of things much thought.  I always knew that the coaches would be quick to point out flaws in my stroke and tell me exactly what to do to fix them.  I can't even begin to count how many times Mike and Scott yelled at me or worked with me in person on my technique.  Indeed, when I coached for two years down in Charleston, that was exactly what I did for my swimmers, too.

After taking the 6+ year hiatus from the pool, though, a lot of that technique that the long line of coaches beat into my head isn't 100% instinctual anymore.  I'd say all the core technique is still there without me consciously thinking about it, but it's that remaining 25% that's giving me the headache.  One good example of this is my freestyle.  When I joined Alexandria Masters last summer (I technically joined in August, I believe, but didn't really start training till October), that was one of the first things I noticed--the coaches don't coach us adults the same way as age group coaches coach the kiddos.  There's no yelling (which, now that I think about it, I actually kinda miss), the coaches generally don't critique your technique unless you ask for it, and they also generally don't work with you one on one either by pulling you out of the water, having you stay after practice, or by doing lessons with you.

I miss it.  I miss it a lot.

On the other hand, now I'm the one who has to educate myself on swimming.  That means I read up on technique, watch instructional videos, watch race videos, and constantly have to think about my technique as I swim.  Take the 200 IM, for example.  When I swam it in meets in highschool, the only things I thought about were stroke counts going into the wall, arm turnover rate on back, and making sure I didn't choke on the water.  Everything else was pure instinct or had been drilled into my head for so many years that I didn't have to consciously focus on it anymore.  Now, not quite.  When I swam it at Zones in April, I had to think about my start, my breathing pattern on fly, my stroke counts going into the walls, my turn speed, my hand and head position on back along with my turnover speed, shooting my hands forward on breast, my hand and elbow position and my kick on free, and a bunch of other little things.

Every practice and every meet involves a whole heck of a lot more concentration that it used to.  And I love it!  I'd say I'm much more knowledgeable about the technical details of the sport than I used to be, and I've also got a much greater interest in it.  By and large, all the technique that I've incorporated into my strokes over the last 9 months or so has been on my own, with no coaches there to tell me what to do or how to do it.  I can look back at the progression of my backstroke since last summer and recognize the vast improvements that have been a direct result of my fiddling with technique without a coach weighing in.  Same with fly.  Not so much with free, since I have gotten a fair amount of feedback from Drew and Katie over my ongoing struggles with that blasted stroke.  While I really miss the hands on 1-on-1 aspect of age group coaching, this method of me mostly figuring out my strokes on my own is much more fulfilling in the long run. I have direct control over what I do in my strokes, not the coach.  Yes, it can be a pain in the behind to have to focus on this stuff all the time, but it will *eventually* become a subconscious process again...I hope.

Techniquin' my way to a better stroke

As I've mentioned before in this blog, my technique ain't the greatest in any of my strokes.  That being said, I think it's best in fly, then back, then probably breast, and finally free.  I know exactly what I need to work on in fly and back, don't care about breast, but would like to figure out my free.

This summer I'm by and large taking a break from fly work--I trained in it all last season, so while I'm training in it enough for IMs, I'm not putting the effort in to train for the 100 and 200 yet.  Don't get me wrong--I could go out right now and bust out what would probably not be a terrible 100 or 200, but I'm not putting the training in this summer that I will in the fall/spring in order to focus on those events.

Rather, this summer I'm focusing on back, and having just made the decision last week, free.  Here's what I'm working on for back--I'll hopefully have the technique locked down by the end of the summer:

• Head position.  I started working on this in the spring, and it has helped a bunch.  Due to how I ride in the water, when my head is in the neutral position, water washes over my face with every stroke.  Kinda a pain in the butt, and while my body is actually in the correct position, it doesn't ride that way in the water, so my speed goes goes down.  By tucking my chin in and tilting my head forward towards my chest, I mostly keep my face out of the water and it alters my body position.  I have seen time improvements since I started doing it, so I just hope it's the final answer for me in regards to head/body positioning.
• Out of water stroke.  This is something that the coaches have harped on in my stroke, although I've never been able to tell I'm doing it.  Naturally, in the recovery portion of the stroke, I apparently cross my arms over the center line as my arms enter the water above my head.  They are supposed to enter directly above the shoulders, not crossing over the center line of my head.  Given that I've always thought that's actually what I've been doing, this one is kinda awkward to work on.  Now, when I swim back, I'm focusing on deliberately swinging my arms wider on the recovery.  It feels really freaking awkward at this point, and feels like I'm not swinging my arms all the way up.  Haven't had a chance to get any feedback from the coaches yet, so I don't know if my recovery is in the correct position yet.
• Catch and pull.  This is something I've been working on since the spring, but haven't gotten any feedback on it since February or March.  At that point, I had a terrible catch on both sides, although my left catch was slightly better.  I'm strong enough that even with a terrible catch, I can still produce a good amount of power, but it's grossly inefficient.  I've been experimenting with hand position at the catch, trying a variety of positions and hoping to find the one that gives me the most power for the pull.  At the finish of the pull, as well, I'm very inefficient.  I didn't start working on this at all until this week.  I haven't talked to any of the coaches about this specific portion of the stroke, but I don't think I'm finishing the stroke all the way down past my hip.  I think I'm finishing right at my hip, so I'm robbing myself of that last push at the end of the stroke.  Sigh.  Lots of work to do, and until we have another underwater video session, I won't be able to see firsthand what sort of progress I'm making.

Just this week I decided to start working on my free technique, too.  I haven't totally ignored it in the past 9 months since I started swimming seriously again, but it's been idling with breast on the back burner.  As a whole, my free is disjointed.  My kick isn't where it should be, the recoveries aren't the greatest, and I'm still having issues off and on with dropping my right elbow on the pull.  About the only thing I have done right so far is that I rotate my entire body when I swim.  Whee.  I can hardly contain my excitement.  I've spent the last few days reading a fair amount about free technique, ranging from the minutiae of hand placement when it enters the water to full swim technique.  In highschool, Mike had me switch to straight arm swimming, and it worked for me then, but didn't do a thing for me last year.  So, I decided this week to work on completely revamping my race freestyle to hybrid/galloping freestyle.  For a great example of pretty much all the various styles of freestyle, here's the video of the men's 400 free relay from Beijing.  Eamon Sullivan leads off the Australians swimming straight arm.  Phelps swims galloping/hybrid.  Garret Weber-Gale and Cullen Jones swim your standard free.  The third French dude swims windmill.  Lezak, at the end, swims galloping/hybrid. So, with last night's practice being my first attempt at working on that technique, here's what I gotta work on over the next weeks and months.

• Kick.  Since galloping/hybrid free is such a lopsided stroke, you have to have a strong kick to balance it out and keep from sinking on the long stroke.  Due to the rhythym of the stroke, your body will move up and down each stroke cycle.  If you don't have the strong kick, you don't move up at that portion of the cycle.  If you don't move up, your mouth doesn't clear the water, and you lose a bunch of momentum and power efficiency.  In the video I linked to, look at Phelps' and Lezak's kick.  They have huge dynamo kicks, especially Lezak.  That's a big change for me.  When I swim free, I generally have a much smaller, tighter kick.  Galloping necessitates a much larger kick, or at least moving the plane of the kick up to right at the surface of the water.  I'm just flat out not used to kicking like that, so it's a big mindset change.
• Pull.  Under the water, this is a bit different than a more balanced stroke.  Here's a video showing an above and below water look at Phelps' free.  You've got a "strong" side and a "weak" side.  On the weak side, your breath side, you pretty much don't rotate much at all, but the recovery out of the water isn't any different than normal.  On strong side, the non breath side, you rotate a fair amount to the side, giving yourself a pretty deep catch on the pull, generating a lot of power.  In addition, you throw that hand forward on the recovery.  On top of that, you delay your arm out front before the catch, so you're kinda doing ketchup drill.  In effect, you're pulling at two different speeds and with two different techniques.  Oof.  I've got a pretty good breakout pull when I do swim free, so this is pretty much a continuous breakout pull on one side and a more or less regular stroke on the other side.  So far I feel very disjointed and uncoordinated while swimming like this, although Katie did say that when I did some 25 sprints like that that my free looked smoother than it normally does.
• Breathing.  For the rhythym of this stroke to work, you can only breathe to one side.  I've always tended to breathe more to the right than the left, but I have always breathed to both sides when racing.  However, I naturally turn on my left side and dig deeper than on my right side, so I've decided to go with what's more natural for my body and just breathe to the right when galloping.  That being said, it's going to be a hard habit to break, breathing to both sides.  I unconsciously did it a few times last night when trying to gallop, which completely destroys the rhythym and body motion.  I can't gallop to save my life when I'm not swimming fast, so I'll continue to swim regularly and breathe to both sides when not sprinting.  On the other hand, I won't necessarily need to breathe every time I pull on my right side, so I won't have to deal with a complete imbalance when sprinting.
• Recovery.  I touched upon this a bit in the pull section, but that was more about the underwater portion of the pull.  In the above the water recovery, I have to throw my strong side hand forward, so I'm going to have to learn to throw my left hand forward, as I don't currently throw it.  My stroke speed is almost fine on the right side, just need to speed it up a little bit.  On the other hand, I need to work on raising both elbows quite a bit at speed.  When I'm not swimming fast, I generally do a pretty good job of doing a high elbow recovery, although that pretty much goes out the window when I swim fast, as you can see in my rather disappointing 100 IM at Masters Nationals in April.  The high elbow is something I've been struggling with for years, so I'm not entirely sure how well I'll master it.  This, more than anything else with the new technique, is probably going to be the hardest part for me to grasp!

Galloping requires a LOT of concentration on my part in practice.  The stroke imbalance is bad enough on its own.  Then there's the big kick.  And the breathing to only one side.  And then the blasted recovery.

Argh!

I'll consider myself lucky if I can get this technique down by the time the first short course meet rolls around in October, and have it refined and to the point where I don't have to actively think about it by the time short course Nats roll around in April/May!

Olympic Trials!

I only got to see a few highlights from the 2008 Olympic Trials, and with my relatively newly reaffirmed interest in competition, I made sure to watch as much of Trials as I could this year.  Here's my recap of what I thought were the highlights of Trials (all of them finals).

Day 1


Men's 400 IM: You can see the video here.  Tyler Clary gave it his best shot, but he's like me in that the front half of his IM is better than the second half.  Of course, this will come down to a battle between Phelps and Lochte.  I give the edge to Lochte in London in this event, at least based on this race at Trials.  Phelps' start and turns were pretty cruddy, and his turns didn't really improve till the last day or two of the meet.  Lochte's definitely got him there.  Phelps, on the other hand, has him in fly, but Lochte isn't too far behind.  Lochte then has him on the middle portion of the race, and I *think* has a slight edge on him in free.  Plus, I love how Lochte effectively stops trying at the flags coming into the finish.  Overall, unless Phelps can greatly improve his turns, I give this one to Lochte hands down in London.  On a side note, Lochte, Phelps, and Clary handily swam the top three times in the world this year in the 400 IM at Trials.  If Lochte had swum all the way into the wall, I think he'd have cut off a second and a half or so from his time, which would put him just shy of the US record and within 1.75 seconds or so of the world record.  Should be a heck of a race between the two!

Day 2


Men's 100 breast: You can see the race here. This race was all Brendan Hansen.  Coming out of retirement to try for the team, I didn't have high hopes for him.  However, he took a commanding lead and won this race pretty handily, with Eric Shanteau taking second.  Both are Olympic veterans, and it's always nice to see guys like that making it back for more than one Olympics.  That being said, neither swam particularly fast for the world rankings--Brendan Hansen's time puts him 5th in the world this year, and Eric Shanteau's time only puts him at 12th.  Hansen would need to drop nearly .75 to take the top time of the year.  Theoretically doable, yes, but I think it's unlikely.  That being said, I sure look forward to seeing what the next three weeks of training will do for those two!

Women's 100 fly: Here's the race.  Dana Vollmer owned this one.  While she was a bit off her semifinals time (due to her long finish, I'd say), she still won this one handily.  She broke her own American record in semifinals, and that time put her just .35 off the world record.  It also puts here .3 seconds ahead of the second fastest time this world and a full .8 seconds ahead of the third fastest.  With the next three weeks of technique and stuff, I'd say she's got a really good shot at the world record.

Day 3


Women's 100 back: Here's the video of the race.  Missy Franklin is insane.  That's about all I can say.  Prior to Trials, I hadn't followed her at all.  I knew the name, and that she was apparently some sort of freak of nature, but that was about it.  In this race, she started a trend that continued throughout the rest of the meet (with the exception of her 200 back)--she starts off solidly middle or towards the back of the pack and just takes off towards the end of the race.  Going into the turn, Natalie Coughlin was in the lead or tied for the lead, and there was a marked distance between her and Missy, who was 3rd or 4th at the turn and wasn't much better at the 75.  It looked like Natalie really tightened up at about the 85m mark, and Missy just kept going and set a new American record in the process.  All that being said, Missy didn't have a perfect race, and yet her American record is only about .7 off the world record, and is the fastest time in the world this year, to boot.  I'd say she's got a really good shot at taking down that record in London; on a side note, that world record is one of the records that was set during the "super suit" era in 2009.  Very few records that were set then have come down, male or female.

Men's 100 back: Here's the visual recording of the competition.  Matt Grevers is a beast (6'8") and won this one at the turn.  Going into the turn, it was pretty much a dead heat, and he came out a head and shoulders ahead of the pack and accelerated away from there to finishing more than half a bodylength ahead of second place.  Like Missy Franklin, I'd heard his name but hadn't followed him.  His time puts him nearly .75 ahead of the next fastest time in the world this year and just .14 off Aaron Piersol's super suit era world/American/US record.  I'd say he's got a phenomenal chance of breaking that record.  I was quite impressed with the swim--he swam over a second faster than he did in Beijing, when he got silver in the 100 back behind Aaron Piersol.  Rick Thoman, who got second at Trials, is currently seated third in the world, just .11 behind the #2.  It's conceivable for the US to get gold and silver in this in London!

Men's 200 free: Here's the video.  This was another two person race between Phelps and Lochte.  Phelps took the lead early on, but Lochte had much better turns.  Phelps just outtouched Lochte, but I think this race could just as easily have gone the other way.  I really don't know what's going on with Phelps' turns--I've never seen them look this, well...pedestrian.  I dunno if it was just something off for him, or if his turns in general are relatively crappy now.  Anyways, their times put them #2 and #3 in the world this year, with the #1 spot being nearly 1.3 seconds ahead of them.  I'd like to think that with a tightening of their strokes over the next three weeks, they'll take gold and silver, but at this point I can't say who I'd call for which medal.  On a side note, the US should dominate the 800 free relay.  The fastest four American 200 freestylers going to London are in the top 11 in the world this year.  EDIT--it looks like Phelps has dropped the 200 free and Ricky Berens will swim it in his place.

Day 4


Women's 200 free: Here's the vid-ay-oh.  Besides Allison Schmitt destroying her own American and US records in the event, it was a pretty ho-hum race.  She's 1.5 seconds off the super suit era world record, so I dunno if she'll be able to pull that out, but she has a great shot at getting gold.  Missy Franklin got 2nd, but it wasn't a very inspiring finish.  The American 800 free relay is looking at silver in London, I think.  Only the top three Americans are in the top 15 ranking this year, while Australia's four are all in the top 10.

Men's 200 fly: El video esta aqui.  Michael Phelps won this one easily, with Tyler Clary rallying from behind to swoop up and take second.  I only hope Phelps wasn't going all out, as he was over 2 seconds off his world record from the super suit days.  He's currently seated #1 in the world and Clary is #5.  There's less than half a second between #5 and #3, so the US might be able to get two medals out of this event in London.

Day 5


Men's 100 free: X marks the spot.  Lezak!  Lezak!  I was only hoping for one thing in this race, that Jason Lezak would place in the top 6 in the final and make it to London in either the individual event or the relay.  At 37 years old, he is 9 years older than the next oldest guy who swam in the final, Cullen Jones.  Lezak has been pretty much the go-to relay guy for the US, being the anchor for a mix of medley and free relays in the 2000, 2004, and 2008 Olympics.  His performance on the 2008 400 free relay is quite possibly the most awe inspiring race I've ever seen.  Here's the video of that race.  Seriously, Lezak's leg of that race gives me chills.  Anyways, I was really pulling for him to make it on the relay in London, but he had to get 6th or better to do so.  Nathan Adrian owned the race and took first quite handily, with Cullen Jones coming in second.  Lezak got sixth!  I was quite surprised (in a good way) with Jones' performance, but more about that later.  Anyways, with Lezak having secured a relay birth, I'd love to see him swim fast enough on the prelims relay to earn a spot in the top four of the team to make it on the finals relay.  If he could be the anchor again, he might pull off another completely Herculean effort like in 2008, when he completely smashed the world record for fastest relay split.  Either way, I'm extremely happy he's back for his fourth Olympics!  On a slightly downbeat note, though, the US looks to be fighting France for silver in the event, with how the times stand now.  Australia looks to have a firm grip on gold, with the top two fastest 100 freestylers this year.  Their fastest is a full second faster than Nathan Adrian, our fastest this year.  Australia has the 1st, 2nd, 9th, and 15th fastest times this year.  We have the 4th, 11th, 12th, and 14th.  France has the 3rd, 10th, and 12th.   Russia might be in the mix, too, with the 5th, 6th, and 8th seeds this year.  Of course, all that said, I believe we went into Beijing seated second behind France, and thanks solely to Lezak, got the gold.  Who knows how it will play out this year!


Men's 200 breast: The vid's here.  Clark!  Clark!  Prior to the actual start of Trials, I had no idea Clark Burckle was still swimming.  Back in highschool, when I lived in Louisville, he swam on one of the other teams and we swam against each other in the 200 and 400 IM a few times that I can recall (at the time, I could give him a run for his money on the front half of the IM, and then he'd downright murder me on the second half, mostly due to my abysmal breaststroke).  I worked for four years at the clubs his dad owned, and Clark was also a coworker of mine for one summer.  Anyways, I was quite surprised that he made it to the finals of the 100 breast, although he didn't make the team in that, and was really looking forward to seeing his 200.  In semifinals, he, Hansen, and Shanteau had an electrifying three way race, with Clark touching out both of them.  The final was a similarly enthralling race, with Scott Weltz (who had just been middle of the pack in the semifinal) winning and Clark getting second, just barely touching out Shanteau.  So proud of Clark!  On a downbeat note, Weltz's time, the fastest of any American this year, was only good enough to put him 5th in the world, and Clark's finals time (not his fastest this year) would put him at 13th.  The Japanese have the top two slots, so it should be quite interesting to see how that plays out in London.


Day 6


Men's 200 back: Here's the link for the video.  This was a two person race between Lochte and Tyler Clary.  The race itself wasn't all that special, but it was interesting to see Lochte's strategy--he looked like he was pretty much loafing the first 150, then turned it on the last 50, dropping almost .8 from the previous 50.  His and Clary's times put them 2nd and 3rd in the world this year.  I think it is very feasible for them to take gold and silver.


Men's 200 IM: The video is here.  As usual, this was a two person race between Phelps and Lochte.  This final was about 25 minutes after Lochte's 200 back final, and I can only imagine how much he was hurting at this point.  The 200 back just HURTS and takes a good while to recover fully from.  Phelps' turns looked better in this race than at the beginning of the meet, but honestly, that's not that hard to do.  Phelps held Lochte on the back and actually had a slightly faster breast leg--I'd imagine that was due to Lochte's 200 back, since he's normally faster than Phelps on both.  Phelps touched out Lochte, but in better conditions, I'd give this race to Lochte.  That being said, their times were handily the top two in the world this year, and both are less than a second off of Lochte's world record he set last year.  This should be a heck of a race for the two of them in London.


Day 7


Women's 200 back: Here's the race.  Missy Franklin dominated this race, and exhibited a very different race strategy in this than I saw in her other events.  In the others, she started off middle of the pack or towards the back of the pack and accelerated at the end of the race, whereas this time she started off in the lead and kept it.  As a viewer, I prefer that type of race, rather than the more nerve wracking race strategy she utilized in her other races.  Her time puts her 1st in the world this year, and Elizabeth Beisel, who got 2nd, is currently ranked 4th.  I can see them both medalling.


Men's 50 free: Da veedeeoh es hear.  This was a surprising race, especially with the return of Anthony Ervin.  A sprinter who took gold in the 50 in 2000, he retired before he 2004 Olympics, and as far as I can tell, didn't do any competitive swimming till last fall.  Coming back after a 8+ year hiatus, he took 2nd in the 50, beating out Nathan Adrian and Matt Grevers, the favorites.  The other big surprise was that Cullen Jones won the 50.  In 2008, he didn't place very well at Trials and only swam on the 400 free relay.  This time around, he will swim in the individual 50 and 100, and the 400 free relay.  I'm quite impressed with his turnaround, especially since he's now ranked 2nd in the world this year, with Anthony Ervin 3rd.  Very impressed with how both of them swam!


I didn't get a chance to watch Dara Torres' 50 free yesterday, but I'm extremely impressed that she got 4th, and she's nearly 20 years older than her competitors!


****


Overall, Trials was a blast to watch, and we've got some phenomenal swimmers going to London.  Here's hoping we dominate the swimming portion of the Olympics again!

Bikes and trikes and all things wheeled

Just to clarify up front, I have not bought a trike and have no intention of doing so. :-D

As y'all know, I've decided to throw myself into the triathlon scene as a way to crosstrain for swimming.  I've run before Saturday practices with the running group a handful of times since March, so figured I might as well get on the bike, too.

Lately I've been focusing on the bike side of the equation.  I can run just fine, although my speed isn't what it used to be when I ran far more often.  I have easily held a 7:30-8:00 pace on the runs I've done lately, my longest of which was a 7 mile run a few weeks back.  I'll get more into that over the next few weeks.  Swimming is obviously not an issue.

I've decided to throw myself fully into cycling.  I already had bike shorts, and I've since ordered clipless bike pedals, shoes, a jersey, and some maintenance gear.  I've also got the bike picked out, a Motobecane Le Champion Ti.  The bike has great reviews and for the price, it can't be beat.  The components that are on the bike (gears and all that stuff) retail for about the price of the full bike, so that's a huge savings.  I'm decided that I want a solid upper mid tier bike, and that one should serve me very well in that capacity.  I've decided to go with a titanium framed bike because, frankly, I'm not the gentlest on a bike and I don't want to have to replace a carbon fiber frame ($$$) due to getting in a bad crash.  With a titanium frame, I could probably play chicken with a dump truck and just need to polish the frame afterwards.  That and I kinda like the simple retro look of that bike!  As I get better at cycling, I'm open to getting into racing, and that frame is suitably light to where I won't need to get a lighter bike for quite some time, if ever.

I'm planning on ordering that bike in mid July and have my first organized race/ride shortly after that (more on that in a bit).  In the meantime, though, I've rented a road bike from a local bike shop so I can start training for the July ride.  It's a 2005 Orbea Onix, and while it's showing its age, isn't a bad bike to train on, although it is carbon fiber instead of titanium, so I can't directly compare it to the one I'll buy.  That being said, coming from a mountain bike, pretty much any road bike would be light years better for training purposes.  The difference between riding a heavy steel framed mountain bike and riding a light road bike is astronomical.  For those of you who aren't familiar with road bikes, I'll go over some of the biggest differences. 

1) The weight.  My mountain bike is around 30 pounds (or more), while the rental bike is around 16 pounds.  The bike I'm going to buy is around 18 pounds.  The rental feels like a plastic toy, and I'm so used to lifting my heavy mountain bike that whenever I lift the road bike, I use way too much muscle and invariably overbalance.  On the road, the lightness is remarkable.  I was used to having to muscle through a few pedal strokes on the mountain bike to get any sort of speed going, and could just feel the weight of the bike.  With the rental, it's not even close.
2) The ride.  My mountain bike has a plush gel saddle and has a suspension.  In addition, the tires are really freaking wide.  The result is that it soaks up bumps like no other.  The asphalt is all cracked and pitted?  No problem, it rolls right over it and I just feel a few minor bumps.  The rental, on the other hand, has no suspension, really narrow tires, and a pretty hard (and small!) saddle.  The same road imperfections are *slightly* more noticeable.  Over smooth pavement, though, the ride is just fine.  I've read reviews of the LeChamp that say its titanium frame does a better job than most carbon frames at soaking up road imperfections.  Still, the mountain bike has a road bike beat hands down.
3) The gearing/speed.  My mountain bike has 21 speeds (three rings in the front, seven in the back).  Of those 21 gears, I've never used more than 10 of them.  It's got a lot of low gears for hills and stuff, but since it is an off road bike, they are pretty much pointless on paved hills, as they are too low to produce any speed.  On flat road riding, I'd stay in the top 2 gears, and with hills, I'd extend that to the full top 7 gears, maybe the top 10 gears if it was a particularly daunting hill.  The rental bike and the one I'll buy have 20 gears (two rings up front, ten in the back).  Thankfully, they don't come with the smallest gears, which I found totally useless for road riding purposes.  On my two rides on the rental so far, I've used about six gears.  I haven't gone above the 18th gear yet, and that was at a full sprint down a hill.  The highest gear on my mountain bike feels to be the equivalent of the 14th gear on the road bike.  In addition, road bike wheels are larger, so I can get more speed out of each pedal stroke.  My full sprint on the old bike is equivalent to my moderate effort cruise on the rental.  If the gps on my phone is to be trusted, I hit 34 mph in a dead sprint in 18th gear coming down a fairly shallow hill on Sunday, and could probably tap out at around 30 on the flat road with a strong effort.  I can keep a much higher pedal cadence on the rental than I could on the old bike, which helps keep my overall effort level down quite a bit from what I'm used to.  Yesterday on my ride, the last couple of miles were into a pretty stiff headwind, around 20mph, I'd guess.  My phone had me at averaging 18mph over that stretch.  In contrast, riding my old bike in Charleston in what felt like the same headwind conditions, I averaged just over 10mph.  In summation, I can ride a lot faster with a lot less effort on the road bike than on the mountain bike.
4) Riding position.  As I'm sure y'all know, a mountain bike has a much more upright riding position.  It's nice and comfy, but creates a LOT of air resistance at speed.  On a road bike, however, the seat is higher up and the handlebars are lower down.  When I'm cruising, I ride with my hands on the hoods (over the brakes/gearshifts on the handlebar), but when going for speed, I put my hands in the drops (the bottom part of the U shaped handlebar).  The former position is more akin to riding the mountain bike, although I'm stretched farther forward and my butt is higher.  The latter position has my upper body much lower down and is quite a bit more aerodynamic than on the mntn bike.  I think it's quite fun to ride in the drops, but my neck can only take it for so long before I have to go back to the hoods for a bit to stretch my neck out.

Now, on to the races I've definitely got coming up, starting off with a three weekend triple header!

• On July 28th, I'm doing my first ride/race, the Shenandoah Valley Bike Festival!  At this point I'm debating between the 50 and 100 milers.  I'd like to do the century, but realistically don't know if I'll be up for a 100 mile ride by then.  On the other hand, I could go out and do the 50 miler today.  Most likely wouldn't be very fast, but I could do it just fine.  The century would be a much more exciting challenge.  I'm leaning towards the century, but won't make that call till mid July.
• On August 5th, I'm doing my first triathlon, the Culpeper Sprint Tri!  It's a 750m lake swim, followed by a 16 mile ride, then a 5k run.  It's kind of a team event for the swim team, as we generally have a good group of folks who compete in the triathlon.  It should be a blast!
• On August 11th, I'm doing the Cumberland Valley Century.  They offer a metric century (63 miles) and a full century (103 miles), and I'm leaning towards the full century.  Same as with the Shenandoah Valley ride, though, I'm not making the call on which distance to register for until mid July.  This one goes through the Antietam battlefield, which hits my Civil War history buff-iosity, so I'm very keen on this ride.
• After that I get a month breather, then on September 15th, I do the Piedmont Wine Challenge Bike Ride.  I'll do the full century, which provides great scenery and visits to 9 wineries... :-)
• On October 6th, there are three rides for me to choose from, I just haven't decided which yet.

There are plenty of other races available, triathlons or bike rides, but these are the only ones I've decided on for sure so far.

Can't wait to really get into it!

******

EDIT: I forgot to mention earlier that I'm having a bit of trouble adjusting to the sizing of cycling and tri clothing.  More specifically, jerseys and tri suits.  I'm quite heavy through the chest and shoulders, and have been since going to El Cid.  My upper body is much larger than most cyclists and triathletes.  Reading several cycling forums, it's pretty common to read about a guy who is 6'1" and about 150 pounds, or 5'9" and 135.  Kinda like I was back in highschool.  I'm 5'9" and about 180.  In highschool, it wasn't an issue (I was just scrawny back then), but it is now.  My chest measurement was a 38 in highschool, I believe.  Midway through my time at El Cid, I was up to a 42.  Since I started swimming again, I've put on back muscle that I haven't had in quite a while and I'm currently at a 44.  When I eventually get back into the weight room, I can see that going up an inch or two more.  Anyways, back to the point at hand, tri suits and jerseys are supposed to be pretty form fitting.  I've still got extra weight around my middle, but I wear size 32 pants/shorts.  Per the sizing charts that the various manufacturers provide for their tri/cycling clothing, I'm right at the border between M and L for my waist, but am at the bottom end of XL for my chest.  I ordered a L sleeveless jersey (the blue one) last week, and got it on Friday.  It fit just fine around my midsection, but was too tight on my chest.  So, I returned it for an XL.  It's supposed to arrive today, so I'll have to see how that goes.  I also ordered a L tri suit (duh, the blue one), which is supposed to arrive later this week.  I'm rather iffy about the sizing of it.  Per its measurement chart, the XL is for dudes with a 44-47 chest, which is just fine.  However, the XL is for dudes with a 39-42 waist.  I just hope the material is tight enough that it won't balloon out over my waist, since I'm a good 8 inches below that rating.  My big fear is what will happen when I finally get rid of the extra weight around my middle.  If I drop down to a 30 waist and put another inch or two on my chest, that'll put me firmly as a M for my waist and XL for my chest.  I really like the concept of tri suits, but I just don't know if it will be feasible.  Sigh.  I'll have to see how it goes.