Tips and Tricks
Dawn_Treader
Member
Use this thread to add any tips or tricks that help you in your training and your actual challenges. There are so many small things that are perhaps too mundane to make for a good discussion, but there are useful small things that are good to know and even better to share. I didn't see any other thread like this in the archives so I hope the admin will adjust this if I overlooked an existing thread.
Sisu: a Finnish term meaning strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in the face of adversity.
Comments
Sisu: a Finnish term meaning strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in the face of adversity.
It's a long set (9100) and for me takes just under 3 hours. My problem is remembering which 'day' I'm on, especially with some reps ending at the opposite end of the pool. So what I do is a special count while swimming.
I normally count laps, not lengths, but with this one I have to count lengths. So I synchronize with bilateral breathing. '1 of 12' for length one of the 300, '2 of 12' for length two and so on. That followed by '1 of 11' Each word is an arm stroke. By the time you get down to days 10, 11 and 12, you've been swimming for a while, so it helps to have a method to keep on track.
A happy coincidence of this method is that I'm now bilateral breathing more!
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
Give up coffee.
loneswimmer.com
Sisu: a Finnish term meaning strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in the face of adversity.
* Never show up to the pool/water without a specific workout, preferably written down. Without a clear plan 300 yards can feel like 3000 and with a plan 3000 can feel like 300.
* Vaseline on earplugs creates a much better seal (I have sensitive ears).
* Have a recovery drink with you for the end of the workout and drink it without 20 minutes of finishing.
* A 500 ladder is a good easy way to add 1500 yards to a workout (1 x 500, 1 x 400...etc.).
* Swimming races is a good way to overcome fear of open water. I find the presence of others very soothing.
loneswimmer.com
I am barely human before ingesting coffee in the morning. Giving it up is not an option.
http://notdrowningswimming.com - open water adventures of a very ordinary swimmer
And I'm with you: if I show up at the pool w/o a workout in mind, it feels like work, instead of fun.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
As a variation, you can do the "8 days of Chanakuh" with this instead and it makes a very nice 1 hour lunch set with warmup/down. (3000 yards + warmup/down yardage).
-LBJ
“Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” - Oscar Wilde
I have used colored plastic clothes pins that I clip between the floats on the ropes. Different colors for different multiples of laps/sets/intervals/wharever.
-LBJ
“Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” - Oscar Wilde
I LOVE @Dawn_Treaders grape reward system. I wonder if that works as well with beer?
@Loneswimmer, give up coffee? I'd rather give you my first born. No really. You can have her.
I use these handwarmer packets after a cold swim. You can put them anywhere. Yes, anywhere: http://www.amazon.com/Grabber-Hand-Warmers-Pairs-HWPP10/dp/B001CEMJRK/ref=sr_1_2?s=sporting-goods&ie=UTF8&qid=1389730130&sr=1-2&keywords=handwarmer+packs
Molly Nance, Lincoln, Nebraska
Nicer boats like the Outrider have built-in outlets, but many boats have only a cigarette lighter (or less).
Jackery's products are well-reviewed. The 12000mAh-capacity Giant+ stores enough juice to recharge an iPhone 5-6 times on a single charge. Also works with Android devices.
- Buy on Amazon
Amazon UK doesn't sell Jackery, but this one by Anker looks to be equivalent.
How to organize A LOT of equipment so your crew can find stuff easily
These are hard plastic pencil boxes, and they happen to fit really nicely into a Rubbermaid Roughneck. (Mine happen to be from Staples.) Permanent marker wasn't really sticking (the plastic was too slippery), so I took sand paper to rough up both ends, and the ink stuck.
The trick with this setup is that it works even better when you have an extra pencil box floating around on top. This way, when you want to pull one of the boxes out, you can insert the extra pencil box in its place, so that the boxes don't fall on each other and slide all over the place.
Note the two bits of velcro adhesive on the sides of the Rubbermaid Roughneck ... one to hold the mini LED light, and the other to hold the whiteboard marker. :-)
How to attach waterbottles to a rope without duct tape or risking the cap popping off
The key here is the tying of the knots. The knots need to be spaced with just a tiny bit more space than the circumference of your waterbottle. You want the loops to be fairly small. Getting the distance between knots and the loop size right may take an irritating amount of time. :-)
Push one of the loops (loop A) through the other end of the other loop (loop . You'll then thread a carabiner through loop A, as in the third picture:
This loop can't really slip! No matter how hard you pull the ends of the rope apart, no pressure is exerted on the neck of the water bottle. Slick, no? :-)
Here's how it looks with the waterbottle:
For what it's worth, this is the knot I used (before it's tightened):
I've got space/knots for five bottles on my rock climbing rope. This way, I can add five bottles of fuel, secure the rope to a dock, and have cool drinks during training. :-)
How to know approximately how many calories/carbs you're drinking
If you always mix your drinks up the same way (for me: 50 grams of koolaid or gatorade powder in 750ml of water), you can re-graduate the outside of your waterbottle. I took some masking tape and taped off a long thin rectangle down the length of my waterbottle. (This was to prevent me from accidentally sanding all over the place.) I then took sandpaper and roughed up the plastic inside the taped-off rectangle so the permanant ink would stick. I then peeled the tape off.
Since I put 50 grams of carbohydrate in 750 ml of water, I knew that every 75 ml of water would be 5 grams. So I poured in 75 ml of water, and put a mark on my waterbottle, then another 75 ml of water with another mark, etc. until the water bottle was divided into 10 servings. At each feed, I can measure off my intake as, say, 30 grams of carbs / 120 calories / 450 ml.
The links you included are webpages, not images.
For example, the image-source URL of your first photo is:
https://opmqmg.bn1302.livefilestore.com/y2m3cLYAVjUr1WtapkAqS97kHQc0BYjsP5qEqg-2_noGM4QKgOad3eW0AwnMqKXaUgf9DGbX0MVwwJI2BIftyGakUBTUp0ZXSrarSOnM6Vn-o43yJre7h3d5QQZ0kA0P-6V/Org.jpg
Just put that between a pair of img tags, and it will display.
Alternatively, you can upload a photo using the blue image upload button at the bottom-right of the toolbar.
Sorry for the frustration... hopefully the upcoming software upgrade will have a more intuitive process for including images.
"Lights go out and I can't be saved
Tides that I tried to swim against
Have brought be down upon my knees
Oh I beg, I beg and plead..."
It's all what you're used to.
How to dose pain medications without making a mess
If you use tylenol or NSAIDS to manage pain during your swims, you might use liquid tylenol, liquid ibuprofen, etc. It can be messy (and sticky!) for your crew to try to measure out the dose on a rocking boat. Prefilling the doses in syringes (not needles) can help enormously!
You can typically get (often free) an oral syringe from the pharmacy. They look like this:
These, unfortunately, have caps that can be knocked accidentally. You can also get "luer lock" syringes to prevent this problem (even available on Amazon...)
Amazon link: luer lock syringes
You can then get luer lock caps (also available on Amazon) that twist onto the ends so the syringes can't leak.
Amazon link: luer lock caps
How to follow the boat more easily at night
If you take a rope, hang it the length of the boat, and *evenly space* lightsticks (light LEDs, or whatever...), it can give you a great sense of spacial awareness at night. If the boat starts to twist (or you angle away from the boat) the lights will appear to move closer together. I find this invaluable for navigating at night.
How to warm up quickly
These are fairly well known in Canada, but may not be commonly available in your neck of the woods. :-)
These are amazing hot packs. There is a thin metal disk inside a liquid that, when snapped, starts off a chemical reaction that produces an impressive amount of heat. It also turns the liquid into a solid. The best part is that they are reusable! You just have to boil them for a couple of minutes, and the solid turns back into a liquid.
.... except that it's not. At all. :-) By "hang it the length of the boat", I mean, "tie one end of the rope on the stern, and the other on the bow, and rest the lights so they hang along the side of the boat". All it does is light the edge of the boat -- and it gives you no more information than you would get swimming in daylight.
Diana's directional streamer, on the other hand, gave her information about the currents and removed (or significantly reduced) her need to sight.
Putting a series of glowing light sticks in the water at night would, of course, make whatever predators were in the area think it was their birthday... ;-)