london tri breaststroke ok ?
asa
Posts: 1
in General Chat
hi all, have entered my 1st tri event and gone for the olyimpic distance at london in aug . training going ok apart from the swimming. Managing to do the swim in about 30mins at the mo,but breaststroke. Will that be ok on the day ? thanks for any feedback [:D]
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I'd say try to get the crawl technique ok. It'll get you faster then 30 mins in time.
What we really need to see though is some hooray henry butterflying the whole thing - now that would be worth seeing !!
When you come out of the water following 30 mins breaststroke your legs are going to be very tired, as breaststroke requires far more involvement from the quads and hammies as you flex your legs alot more than in freestyle. Therefore my advice would be try and work on the freestyle, get some lessons, you have time. Once you get the technique right with freestyle it becomes a far more efficient stroke than breaststroke.
You can always mix it up the race, with a few breaststrokes here and there to regain your composure. In the long run you will not only be faster through the water, but you will be alot faster on the bike and run afterwards. I think after 30 mins of breaststroke I would struggle to finish the race let alone put in a good time!
The negatives were:
1) you need a wider space to swim in, so there were a few times when I had to do a weird half stroke/ kick so I didn't disable any fellow competitors.
2) due to the leg use, specifically the muscles used, I got cramp in my inner thigh on the bike
Other than that it was fine - I managed to beat quite a few crawlers, although was about 34 mins, so you're faster than me!!