Testing, testing...

Last week my Garmin surprised me after an outdoor bike session with an increase in my FTP: Functional Threshold Power, or the amount of effort I can theoretically sustain.  

The following day, it told me my 'Lactate Threshold' for running had gone up a bit, too.  

That got me thinking... Has my swim speed improved?  How will I know? 

I learned to swim more than a length of front crawl for the first time in 2022.  Then on July 6th this year when I started working on my front crawl in earnest, I did a 'Critical Swim Speed test'.  

As a novice front crawl swimmer, it was just a place to start, somewhere to begin improving my technique and swim fitness.  It told my that my front crawl 'CSS' - again, the pace I can sustain - was 3 minutes 49 seconds per 100m.  

Since then I've worked hard, swimming regularly, using the Zen8 trainer, completing my Brownlee Fitness workouts with my Form goggles, and most importantly, having coaching with Sarah from Beyond the Water.  

So today I repeated the test...  I knew it would be faster - but by how much? 

Today's test result?  2 minutes 43 seconds per 100m in the pool.  That's over a minute per 100m faster than just 4 months ago!  I'm faster in open water than in the pool, and I have 7 months to keep working on my stroke, swim fitness, endurance and efficiency.  The hard work is paying off! 

It's little results like this that will keep me motivated through the next 7 months: slowly, slowly, step by step getting closer to knowing that I can meet those cut off times.  Onwards & (literally) upwards.