Fraser Cartmell Ironman triathlete » Swimming

Aguilas day 5

Fraser — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:16:03 +0000

Another day, another ride. It’s been good so far; 5 days in and the riding total hovers at the 500k mark. The legs are feeling it however. – Must become more familiar with riding hard between now and Clearwater!!

It’s been a flying 5 days or so – it seems like yesterday I was racing in Portobello, Edinburgh at the Scottish Aquathon – the things we do!

From this . . . . . . .

. . . . . . to this !!

(Thanks to Rob Eyton-Jones for the above Porto shot)

It’s a deep burn

Fraser — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:05:46 +0000

Perhaps rather unimaginatively I have attempted to cobble together two seperate (and quite frankly unrelated) topics in order to avoid having a post title along the lines of ‘Photo’s for Norwell – Part II’….

I know, you're supposed to get wet in a wetsuit, I know

Anyway, the title has a meaning (or a story at least) – this morning we had a nasty surprise on pooldeck; VO2/anaerobic max sprints …. call it what you will, it’s another way of saying ‘pain’ regardless of the numerous methods of rebranding available. – And I would suggest it is something that triathletes like us tend to suck at. Well, I do anyway.

The goal

Race w/u and start simulation

The Set

Minimal w/u into 2 * (12.5m MAX on 3 mins, 50m MAX on 4 mins, 100m MAX on 8 mins!!)

The boys

Gavin ’seriously-who does a 1000m w/u before a race? Who?’ Noble, David ‘Maccers’ McNamee, Mike ‘I’m in training for the Blenheim/Winsdor lead out double’ Adams, and myself – Fraser ‘clutching at straws’ Cartmell.

The gear

One very nice and perfectly normal race suit, as worn by Maccers, one all singing and dancing brand new TYR Sayonara swimskin (that’s me clutching at those straws for ANY available seconds) and two sets of back to basics old school budgie smugglers as fashioned by Noble and Adams.

The results

Serious amounts of lactate (it’s a deep burn as Gav pointed out), heavy breathing and less than spectacular times – with only Mike dipping under the minute on the ‘from a push 100s’.

The conclusions

We would probably have swum almost as fast on the 1.20 turnaround cycle, and budgie smugglers are still the way forward. – Oh, and it’s a deep burn.

I told you I was lashing two topics together....

Back on track. I think.

Fraser — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 04:16:27 +0000

My first full week of training here in California is done. It’s been a busy week. But I think I have got back on track in terms of swim, bike and crucially, run. I have been struggling with a niggly pain in my lower leg for a few weeks now – ‘I am running, I’m not running’, and so the cycle sort of continued. However tonight I got a nice run (not jog) tucked away, and it is hopefully the start of ‘proper’ running again. Fingers crossed.

Trusty old diary, laptop, Garmin and GENR8 grape flavour

I raced 2 weekends ago in Miami, and had been jogging along that week, but very limited. The race didn’t ‘flare’ the leg up, but I also didn’t fel like I was progressing so I stopped having any time on my feet last week, and actively searched for a good physio to start some treatment when I got here. I have been having ‘ART’ – Active Release Techniques, which is basically another way of saying ‘deep tissue massage’ in American-speak…. and seem to be responding well to it after a couple of sessions (yet to receive a bill though…yikes!).

So, otherwise, I have ridden the bike a fair bit. 17 hours or 485k. Approx 300 miles in old money? And I have swum a fair bit too – 33k in yards, which I think is just shy of 30k in meters. Mostly on my own, BUT not all. Aha – I joined in with a squad. The North County Masters in fact. They swim in Enchinitas down at the coast in the YMCA (I had never been in a YMCA building before). There are a few triathletes drop in – Michelie Jones was there one of my swims before heading off to race at IM Oz, and Luke Bell was in the other day ready to race in Oceanside next w/e too. And then I did a sesh with Olly Freeman, and the past 2 days I have had Will Clarke to train with. Both of those guys are making their 70.3 debut at the w/e.

So it’s been a good week’s work. Fingers crossed the leg holds up, I get a few more run miles under my belt, and I’ll race at the weekend, just like planned.

A swim in the sea

Fraser — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:57:20 +0000

This morning I decided to skip the visit to the pool in favour of a splash in the open water. I don’t often swim in the sea – the only time I did it during the whole 3 months I was away in South Africa was to actually race. (When I say swim; I mean swim, and not ‘play’ in the waves – we did that a few times ) – but it’s real nice to do it without the wetty!

The session was pretty simple – 20 * 50 strokes backwards and forwards: against and with the tide. 20 strokes steady, 10 strokes hard and 20 strokes easy. A couple entry and exits from the beach and that was it! – I get bored on my own pretty quickly….. probably 1200m all in. Done.

Looking the other way was the bridge that I will race up and down 4 times on Sunday morning – the only hills here in Florida. It looks nice and easy, but I rode it flat-chat yesterday and took most of the ride home to recover……. looks can be deceiving!