After a weekend off (which I spent poolside coaching swimmers at a competition — just can’t get away from it), back into the water today and I just had it in my head that having done 1km front crawl non-stop last week and then 1.25km non-stop the following day, I really wanted to make 1.5km non-stop today. I can’t pretend it wasn’t tough, but I got there, and faster than I’ve ever swum 1,500m before. After a short rest I did another 1km in three sets, followed by some front crawl kick and then pull, again practising bilateral breathing. I finished off at 3.3km with 100m swimming front crawl and breathing bilaterally; the first time I’ve ever been able to do it over any distance, never mind 100m. So, two major milestones today and I’m feeling quite pleased with myself.
My plan is to keep up the pull work for a little longer until I can comfortably start off breathing bilaterally without needing the drills and then start switching it about a bit, doing drills such as breathing to one side when swimming from the shallow end and breathing to the other side swimming to it, and breathing every N strokes (where N is an odd number greater than 1).
Total distance for the month: 45,500m
Total distance for this year: 240,500m
Distance compared to annual target: 11,500m under