A repeat of yesterday, but with more tired arms 🙂 I’m just going to keep plugging away at this bilateral breathing until it gets easier, though I might try to find ways to make it a bit more interesting doing the practice.
Total distance for the month: 33,600m
Total distance for this year: 345,700m
Distance compared to annual target: 23,100m ahead
Much of this evening was spent in the beer shack, bottling the “Old Speckled Hen” that I started the weekend before last. It wasn’t ready to bottle last weekend, so I left it a couple more days and got it all done this evening. The final total came to 70 pints and it’s now back in the fermentation cabinet for a week or so before I move it to the cellar.
If there’s time this weekend I might try to get another brew under way, but I may need ingredients to arrive first.
Pretty much the same as yesterday’s session, practising bilateral breathing again. 2km from the off breathing to the left on odd lengths and the right on even lengths, then 8x50m kick and 4x50m full bilateral breathing with a tumble turn.
At the moment breathing to the right is tiring my right arm excessively. I think there’s an urge to pull harder on the breathing stroke to generate the body rotation which is actually probably not necessary. I need to work on that one so the stroke before the breath becomes more relaxed.
I think I have a similar problem with turns, actually. There’s a temptation to pull very hard on the last stroke before the tuck, but actually I’m really not convinced it’s necessary and I’m now trying to relax that last stroke and just use the speed into the wall to generate the rotation.
Total distance for the month: 31,000m
Total distance for this year: 343,100m
Distance compared to annual target: 22,500m ahead
Given the coach raising the issue of my lack of bilateral breathing last night I decided I’d spend some time working on that today, so I started with 2km of front crawl changing breathing side after each length. After that I wasn’t much good for anything else serious, so I did some kick and a swim down to take the distance to 2,500m.
Total distance for the month: 28,400m
Total distance for this year: 340,500m
Distance compared to annual target: 21,900m ahead
Well, today was a bit of a monster! In the evening I planned to do the tri fitness session that I’d attempted to go to last week before deciding I was too ill, but I wasn’t sure what to expect or if I’d definitely have time to go, so I did a shortened session earlier in the day just to make sure I got some swimming in, covering 2km.
When I got to the tri session in the evening I was a bit early, so did eight lengths just to get myself moving. When the coach arrived she said “We’ve not done one of these for quite a while, so I thought I’d set a distance session for tonight”. Bit of a baptism of fire, really:
8 lengths warm up as 2 x ( 3 lengths swim, 1 length kick), then
20 lengths
16 lengths
12 lengths
8 lengths
4 lengths
2 lengths
all front crawl, with 30 seconds rest between them. Followed by
4 x 1 length sprint with 45 seconds rest
6 lengths swim down
And this is in a pool which for some strange reason is 331?3 metres long.
There seemed to be a lot of aggression directed at the water compared with what I’m used to making the water very choppy, so I opted to stick to breathing to my favoured side (for which I was chastised by the coach). It was also observed that my stroke is a bit short at the back end, so I need to work on that. Generally though it went very well. I missed the sprints due to lack of time, but managed everything else. It will be interesting to go back next week and do a “more normal” session.
So, 2.8km in that second session and 4.8km for the day. Far more than I’ve ever swum in a single day. I am quite chuffed. Perhaps tomorrow won’t be quite so easy though 🙂
Total distance for the month: 25,900m
Total distance for this year: 338,000m
Distance compared to annual target: 21,400m ahead
I’ve not had the opportunity to spend a day in the beer shack brewing for a while and stocks are running low (for some values of “low” 🙂 so last weekend I decided it was time to get some more beer under way. Graham Wheeler’s take on Morland’s Old Speckled Hen has always been a favourite, so I scaled up the recipe to 40 litres and got to work. I decided to put all the grain through the mill, even the remaining stuff I have that I bought ready-crushed. The hops I was a little generous with as whilst not past the “use by” date they weren’t quite as fresh as I’d prefer.
Getting into the rhythm of things took a while — clearly more practice is required — but after a false start with the boil when I realised I’d forgotten to put in the hop filter everything went pretty well. Once chilled the OG was a smidge under 1050.
Bottling should take place this weekend I think. I’ll check the gravity tomorrow and see. Then I’ll get a few more batches under way. I fancy something along the lines of a Hobgoblin and a London Pride. Time to order some more ingredients…
Another day when my arms felt very tired. I think being ill at the start of the week took more out of me than I realised at the time. I was planning on doing some turn work, but that went straight out of the window. As for yesterday I just slowed the pace down and concentrated on technique.
I swam 50m free with one of the club’s open age group girls in the evening. That was embarrassing 🙂 Still, she is a third of my age and probably half my weight. What could I expect?
Total distance for the month: 21,100m
Total distance for this year: 333,200m
Distance compared to annual target: 18,600m ahead
Was really looking forward to swimming today, but once in the pool my arms just felt so tired that I really couldn’t make much progress and struggled to swim more than 200m at a time. Neither did it help that I was sharing the lane with someone who clearly wasn’t keen to share. So I just tried to keep it simple and do technique work and some kick.
I’m coming to the conclusion that for front crawl turns I should look at trying to use only the inertia of my body to power the rotation in the turn, as opposed to using the last pull to provide the power. I want to experiment with this idea a bit. At present I find that my arms tire much more quickly when I’m doing tumble turns and the only reason I can immediately see for that is the amount of effort I’m using to generate the rotation in the turn. Something for another time, anyhow.
Total distance for the month: 18,300m
Total distance for this year: 330,400m
Distance compared to annual target: 17,800m ahead
Feeling much better today, I got warmed up and did some kick and then went into a set of 50m front crawl swims with bilateral breathing and tumble turns. Generally it went very well although I messed up a few when I got confused over which side I should breath on. Generally though I was very pleased with the progress I’ve made since I temporarily stopped working on my turns because I couldn’t quite get the timing because I was only breathing to my left. The turns feel faster and actually I think I’m faster through the water too. In the end I covered another 3.2km.
Total distance for the month: 15,800m
Total distance for this year: 327,900m
Distance compared to annual target: 17,300m ahead
On the recommendation of a friend I had planned to go and watch a tri fitness (swimming) session on Monday eveningto see if I fancied doing it for a bit of a change to my usual swims, but there’s been a lurgy going around and it seems like I caught a mild dose of it. Between the car and the entrance to the pool I suddenly felt far too ill to swim and had to go straight back home 🙁
By Tuesday lunchtime I was feeling a little better so decided I could get to the pool and do an easier session, if multiple 100s can count as “easier”. It was much the same style as recent swims, but with plenty of 100s practicing bilateral breathing thrown in. I did at least cut back on the distance though, covering only 2,100m.
Total distance for the month: 12,600m
Total distance for this year: 324,700m
Distance compared to annual target: 16,100m ahead
