Swimming, 18th June 2019

Same set as yesterday, and again I wasn’t feeling too sharp. This time because I’d been up quite late ferrying my son between post-GCSE parties. Again I can’t complain. He’s worked very hard over the last six weeks of exams.

When I arrived at the pool there were two lanes with one swimmer in each. I opted for the one with the “fast lane” sign and the life guard very kindly wandered up the pool to suggest to the other swimmer that she might move into the other lane because someone much quicker was swimming. Apparently she answered “Are you sure?” Even for my warm-up I was doing two lengths to every one of hers. I think he was sure 🙂

And then during my warm-up another lady turned up and said she was going to join my lane. I didn’t recognise her and she didn’t exactly look as though she was going to be pounding out the lengths at speed, so I pointed out that it was signed “fast lane” and politely suggested that she might be better off in the other one. “But that’s not fair! There are two swimmers in there already!” She did eventually agree to use the other lane, somewhat indignantly, and actually was much the same pace as the others.

Anyhow, the set itself went pretty well, but for what might be described as a “lack of control” on my part. Despite the 49.5s target, most of the reps I did were faster than 48s. Eventually however I messed up on rep twenty-one when I turned my head to breathe for the last time before the turn and got a mouthful of water from someone’s breaststroke bow wave. Finishing off the set after that failure wasn’t exactly a problem though.

USRPT distance this year: 149,800m
Total distance this year: 154,150m

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Swimming, 17th June 2019

So, a new target today:

  • 400m f/c warm-up
  • 24 x 50m f/c, target time 49.5s, turnaround 75s
  • 200m swim down

I wasn’t feeling particularly sharp for this session. Sunday was spent in the sweatbox that is Millfield swimming pool whilst my daughter was competing. She did really well however, so I can’t complain too much. And in the end I didn’t do too badly with this new set, though it didn’t go quite as well as I wanted thanks to others in the pool swimming across my lane. I ended up with two failures on reps sixteen and twenty-one.

USRPT distance this year: 148,050m
Total distance this year: 152,400m

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Building an observatory. Construction #75

Another quiet week, but I did at least dodge the rain and spend some time fitting a lock to the outside door on Saturday. I now need to fit handles and, as the only spindle I had was clearly going to be too short, I’ve ordered some square bar from Ebay to cut down to size.

I’ve also started ordering other bits for the electrics and they should start arriving this week.

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Swimming, 14th June 2019

One final repeat of this week’s set today:

  • 400m f/c warm-up
  • 24 x 50m f/c, target time 50s, turnaround 75s
  • 200m swim down

And I managed to swim the entire set without too much pain. I only had one rep over 49s, which feels pretty good. So, as I mentioned yesterday next week I shall drop the target time to 49.5s and take it from there.

USRPT distance this year: 146,350m
Total distance this year: 150,700m

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Swimming, 13th June 2019

Same USRPT set as earlier in the week today, and it went pretty well. All twenty-four reps completed under the 50s target time. I’ll do it once more tomorrow, then reduce the target time to 49.5s on Monday.

USRPT distance this year: 144,550m
Total distance this year: 148,900m

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A second observatory

Yes, yes, I know… I’ve not finished the first one yet. But this is just a bit of preliminary planning. This week we’ve had a new track put in to reach the barn we’re having converted to a holiday home:

I have a plan to add a “guest observatory” on the south (right hand side) of the track, but it will need power, so before laying the track I ensured we had ducting with a drawstring to pull a power cable through.

The intended site of the observatory is pretty much where this pile of rubble is now.

That’s about the limit of what I intend to do for the time being however. There’s plenty of other stuff to get done first.

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Swimming, 11th June 2019

Interesting day today. Generally when I swim on Tuesdays the pool is quite busy, but it was completely empty today. Two other swimmers arrived a little later and both started swimming lengths with tumble turns which is quite unusual. Must be the first time outside the swimming club training sessions that I’ve seen more than one other person in the pool who is doing it.

Anyhow, same session as yesterday, and the same result. For the moment I think I should be happy with that.

USRPT distance this year: 142,750m
Total distance this year: 147,100m

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Swimming, 10th June 2019

Same set as Friday, but this time I completed it. I think I’m going to swim it a few more times before making it harder. And quite how I make it harder is something I need to think about now. Perhaps twenty seconds is sufficient for a teenager to recover, but for someone in their fifties who hasn’t swum all their life, perhaps it’s asking a bit much. Further consideration required, I think.

USRPT distance this year: 140,950m
Total distance this year: 145,300m

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Building an observatory. Construction #74

Progress is still slow whilst I wait for more bits and pieces to arrive.

I’ve ordered an HP EliteDesk Mini to try out as a “pier-top” machine and weatherproof boxes for each pier which will contain most of the electrical stuff on each.

Weatherproof ABS boxes are relatively easy to find as long as you want solid doors, but because it’s sometimes reassuring to be able to see inside I was looking for ones with clear doors. The only source I found for boxes a convenient size for my pier was on Ebay. They’ve not arrived yet however.

I’ve also been running cabling from each pier to the warm room. I have three runs of 2.5mm “twin and earth” to each pier, the thinking being that I can either use two runs for the 12V supply and the other for a 240V spur, or the other way around with a 240V ring. The cable should be ok for up to 25A and I really can’t imagine I’ll be needing that for either.

Some data cables are also in place, too. From the two mounts furthest from the warm room I’ve pulled through a 5m HDMI cable, followed by a 5m USB2 cable, and then two lengths of cat5e (somewhat longer, to allow me to decide where the hub is going to go later). I’ve not done the last pier yet because I’ve been waiting for a shorter HDMI cable to arrive and I’m pulling them through in order of size of the plugs in the hope that will be the easiest way to do it. That last cable has in fact now arrived, but the weather has been so unpleasant here over the last twenty-four hours that I’ve not felt like going out and finishing off.

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Swimming, 7th June 2019

Because I’ve been struggling for some time with my current USRPT set I’ve decided to drop back to the previous turnaround time and see how things go. So I’m back to:

  • 400m f/c warm-up
  • 24 x 50m f/c, target time 50s, turnaround 75s
  • 200m swim down

I had two failed reps, which didn’t impress me too much, but I think need to start building from here again.

USRPT distance this year: 139,150m
Total distance this year: 143,500m

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