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Another session working on extending my stroke. The muscles are starting to complain now 🙂 Then 8 25s fly kick. I can pretty much reach 15m underwater from a push off on demand now, which is progress for me. Just need to speed it up a bit for starts and turns, but I’m also working on it with a view to swimming fly. Finished off with a few 50s with tumble turns at the deep end for a total of 2,500m.

I shall be miffed if I can’t do at least 1,600m tomorrow and push myself over the 50km for the month again.

Total distance for the month: 48,400m
Total distance for this year: 413,200m
Distance compared to annual target: 40,300m ahead

Much harder work today than yesterday, not helped by the fact that I was late into the pool in the first place. I did another 8 x 250m front crawl trying to keep my stroke long, followed by some fly kick (which does seem to be improving in terms of the distance I can get before needing to breathe), a few front crawl 50s practising tumble turns at the deep end and then a few more tumble turns at the shallow end, just swimming in from halfway and back. In the end I covered 2,400m which I was pleased with under the circumstances.

Total distance for the month: 45,900m
Total distance for this year: 410,700m
Distance compared to annual target: 39,800m ahead

Really enjoyed today. Swam 2km as 8 x 250m faster than I’ve managed since I got the hang of bilateral breathing. I really wasn’t working that hard either. At the tri session the coach said I needed to work on lengthening my stroke for the longer distances so I worked on brushing my thigh with my thumb at the end of each pull and relaxing the stroke rate a little. It looks like it went well 🙂 To follow that I did 250m fly kick, 250m as 5 x 50m front crawl working on turns at the deep end and then did some experimentation turning at the shallow end which always makes me nervous as I’m convinced I’ll hit the bottom on the way out. But as it happens I didn’t.

Total distance for the month: 43,500m
Total distance for this year: 408,300m
Distance compared to annual target: 39,400m ahead

And back to the evening tri fitness session, which was along the lines of:

4 x 2 lengths counting strokes

6 x 1 length swimming to halfway before breathing, 10 seconds rest
6 x 1 length sprint, 20 seconds rest
repeat these two

6 lengths pull
8 lengths swim
6 lengths pull

I’ve missed something somewhere, but can’t recall what it was, possibly because I had to shuffle things around. After the first set of sprints I just couldn’t control my breathing properly so I had to do a few lengths just to calm things down and get back on track.

In the end I covered 2,300m in total for the session.

Total distance for the month: 40,900m
Total distance for this year: 405,700m
Distance compared to annual target: 38,800m ahead

Quite a short swim today as the preceeding school session overran into the public session and I just had to make do with what was left of what is already a short session to start with. Not a big deal as I was starting to feel a little tired anyhow. Just managed 1,800m front crawl in the end.

Total distance for the month: 38,600m
Total distance for this year: 403,400m
Distance compared to annual target: 38,500m ahead

Woohoo! Today I passed the 400km mark for the year. Very pleased. A quick check from last year puts me just over 63km ahead of where I was on the same day. Today I did 2km front crawl as 8 x 250m, then worked on fly kick a but more and finished off with some 50m front crawl swims working on the turn, for a total of 2,500m.

Total distance for the month: 36,800m
Total distance for this year: 401,600m
Distance compared to annual target: 38,700m ahead

Pretty much the same as yesterday today. Not very inventive I know, but if I’m going to experiment with drills for coaching I do need to have some idea of how hard they are.

Total distance for the month: 34,300m
Total distance for this year: 399,100m
Distance compared to annual target: 38,200m ahead

Feeling a bit tired from the tri session, so I just kept it simple, as 2km front crawl followed by 500m of experimenting with fly kick drills that I’m going to set for my swimmers later in the week. Turns out that fly kick on one’s side is a bit more tricky than I imagined. Or, at least, the kick bit isn’t, but breathing as well makes it a bit more awkward. I wasn’t doing it with fins though. My swimmers will.

Total distance for the month: 31,800m
Total distance for this year: 396,600m
Distance compared to annual target: 37,700m ahead

Lost track of things a bit at the tri fitness session this evening. As sometimes happens I started swimming and was concentrating on technique and lost track of the lengths. Fortunately the people sharing the lane hadn’t got quite so distracted.

As a result I can’t remember much of the set. The warm-up was eight lengths, swimming a different stroke for the fourth and eighth lengths and there was some single arm front crawl involved, but other than that I’m not sure. All I know is that I covered 2,000m

Total distance for the month: 29,300m
Total distance for this year: 394,100m
Distance compared to annual target: 37,200m ahead