I AM, Grant Hackett

Everyone always says that the best bang for your buck in triathlon is getting a coach. After working with Matt for slightly over a month, I now echo those sentiments.  Matt has lived up to my expectations as a coach. He has met with me several times outside of training just to talk shop, we have met up for multiple workouts and his knowledge and insight into the varied aspects of triathlon are invaluable.

During one of our first pool sessions we busted out the GoPro and video taped my swim from every angle.  He pointed out areas of concern which I could immediately address.  He did remind me to only focus on 1 or 2 aspects because trying to fix everything at the same time would be overwhelming.  A few things that I have been focusing on are, my reach ( keeping my arms straight and parallel as well as reaching for the end of the pool), completing my stroke (early catch, and extending my triceps through the follow through) and hip rotation (it took a while to figure this one out, I’m slowly making progress).  I have been working on these three aspects intensively during my pool sessions and within the last couple of days have been reaping the fruits of my labor.

Every few weeks I have a pool session that has a main set of; 3 sets of 10x25yds.  25 yds may not appear to be a long distance, because of my HIM goals, but the current focus is to build my aerobic engine and some speed right now. Below are the same Main Set done a month apart.  The numbers speak for themselves.

                          11/03/11                                                               
Rd 1
Rd 2
Rd 3
     18.67
19.20
18.29
19.63
18.42
19.94
18.49
19.83
18.14
19.11
18.13
19.19
17.75
18.40
16.02
18.54
17.57
18.21
18.18
18.15
18.13
17.13
17.52
18.84
18.25
18.32
18.84
17.92
17.86
18.37

                               12/09/11
Rd 1
Rd 2
Rd 3
18.53
18.28
16.29
17.19
16.85
16.38
17.51
16.91
16.24
17.23
16.79
16.70
17.20
16.96
16.55
16.79
16.73
15.91
16.87
16.75
16.01
16.76
16.32
16.30
16.20
16.68
16.79
16.67
16.27
15.86













11/03/11 avg for all three rounds was around 18.3X
12/09/11 avg for all three rounds was around 16.7X

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is confidence a bad thing?

For the past week I have become very confident in my fitness while at the same time it has been hard to keep this new found confidence contained. While I am excited about the emergence of this confidence it is slightly premature and not yet warranted. However for the past couple of days I have started to think that I need my ass handed to me to put my confidence in check. I have even been debating about asking Matt or another training partner to annihilate me during a training session as a reality check. Fortunately, last night in the pool I was given that reality check and learned a few valuable lessons. Last night I had a pool session that contained a main set of 400 repeats below T- Pace. Leading into this session I knew I was in for a tough yet attainable workout. After a reassuring warm-up I went to work. I felt unbelievable on the first 400, actually the best I have ever felt in the water. My stroke was smooth yet not rushed, I was gliding through the water, breathing was very ...
Read more

Its been over a year

Image
This past weekend was an exciting weekend for me.  I had a friend's wedding to celebrate as well as some very fun training to tackle.  I had a blast at the wedding on Friday night and was eager to get out Saturday on my bike and crush a race specific session. My original plan was to take off from Rocky Point but on my way there I realized I had forgot my Garmin so I turned around to grab it.  After getting over this slight annoyance I got myself together and decided to head out from Stony Brook. I headed out East on 25A from Stony Brook on a beautiful, warm fall day. The warm up was for 30 minutes slightly below race pace.  The exciting part of the session was the 1:30 at race pace then 30 minutes above race pace.  No sooner had I began to lift my effort than shit hit the fan. I had just made it past Rocky Point and was feeling great.  I had past a few cyclists on my way out there which was to be expected since its a very popular road to cycle on. ...
Read more

Finding My Ultra

Image
I have had no affinity to run a marathon. However there is a unique allure to ultra distance running. It's somewhat counter intuitive to be attracted to a longer distance when the preceding distance is repulsive. One of several off season goals of mine was to run 20 miles.  I wanted to test my limits and become acquainted with "longer" running distances.  For a majority of my endurance and multisport friends 20 miles is routine.  I have never ran more than 13.5 so my 20 miler was going to be an adventure, I was going to be taking the first step in finding my ultra. I certainly had concerns going into this run; 1. How would my body react after 14 miles? 2. How to effectively pace myself? 3. How to hydrate and fuel during the run 4. How would I mentally coupe with running for 2+ hours 5. What type of clothing should be worn to avoid chafing?  6. How would this impact my triathlon training specifically the bike? I had mapped out several differen...
Read more