Swimming is fun - Kicking, not so much

Weekly stats:

Swim: 6,580 y
Bike: 91.5 mi
Run: 18 mi

Masters class has been great so far but it has shown me just how poor of a kicker I am. When it comes time for kicking drills I go from one of the fastest in my lane to the slowest. Instead of letting this really bother me I let it get me mad which in turn motivates me which makes me want to work harder to improve. I figure if I can get the kicking down it will help my speed in the water quite a bit. We've also been working on rolling, high elbows, reaching out, and a few other things that I'm sure will all come together in the coming weeks.

Biking is coming along well, I've been slowly increasing my weekly mileage but with running and swimming to fit in I am usually riding three times a week. The good thing is that Jen will start increasing her mileage in the coming weeks for her HIM training so my mileage should also increase as I continue to ride with her. On Sunday we rode with the Cyclepath group and Jen did really well. We were towards the back of the pack in the beginning as the A and A- groups took off ahead but eventually we settled in with some other riders and kept a good pace for the rest of the ride. There was about three miles of climbing followed by another ten miles of rolling hills and Jen did really good on those. I tried to stay in one gear for all of the climbing and was pleased to see that I could do it; I think I only got out of the saddle for one little stretch.

My running mileage will start to creep up over the next few weeks as I start ramping up for the Jungle Run Half Marathon on July 13th. Jen is running it with me and I've also convinced someone I work with to give it a shot. Jen made him a training plan and so far he has been sticking to it. His nutrition is somewhat questionable but that's another topic all together and I figure if he is sticking to the training and getting in the miles then that's good enough.

This weekend we attended a tri skills clinic put on by a local racing club - the main focus was swimming but we did a "mini tri" at the end where we rode a half mile and ran about a half mile. The purpose was to practice our transitions so the distance was irrelevant; still, I'm proud to say I won the mini tri :) In the water we practiced group deep water starts and knee deep water starts, drafting, and sighting. Overall it was a good class and I picked up a couple of things to use in the swim portion.

Here is a group photo taken when we were practicing the knee deep starts:



(As you can see I clearly did not get the "squat down" message)