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After three long weeks the roadworks are all done and I can go back to my usual route to the pool. I really wasn’t much in the mood when I went today though, but after twenty lengths or so I got a bit more into the swing of things. Unfortunately the pacing of the swimmers in my lane varied wildly making turn practice a bit of a liability, so I left that for another day yet again and just stuck to front crawl, kick and bilateral breathing practice for 3.2km.

Total distance for the month: 10,500m
Total distance for this year: 322,600m
Distance compared to annual target: 16,000m ahead

An odd day today. I arrived at the pool with my daughter who had decided that she would like to come for a swim too only to find that the public session had been changed to “adults only” due to a lack of life guards. So we trogged off down the motorway one stop to another local pool, missing the traffic queues on the M5 due to an accident that required the road to be resurfaced by literally a few hundred yards (the tailbacks apparently reached twenty miles later on).

I’ve not been to this particular pool before. It only opened fairly recently. As one would probably expect of a modern pool the changing facilities etc. were fairly smart, but the pool itself was a disaster! At the shallow end it is 0.9m deep — almost shallow enough for me to sit in and still be able to breathe. At the deep end I don’t think it was much more than 1.1m. The only real positive was that they had decent lane ropes in and lane labelled for “fast”, “medium” and “slow” pace swimmers. My plan for the session had been to do some work on putting my bilateral breathing and turns together, but there was no way I was going to attempt that in such shallow water. In the end I decided to stick to working on my bilateral breathing, doing 100s breathing only to my weaker side whilst my daughter worked on her 200m fly. After 2,000m I decided to call it a day.

Total distance for the month: 8,300m
Total distance for this year: 319,400m
Distance compared to annual target: 14,800m ahead

My arms felt a little heavy after doing my warm-up today so I decided to change things around a bit. Not that I made it that much easier for myself, doing twenty 100m swims practising bilateral breathing. After that I was only good for a bit of kick and a swim down, for a total of 3,000m.

Total distance for the month: 6,300m
Total distance for this year: 317,400m
Distance compared to annual target: 14,800m ahead

Pretty much a straight repeat of two days ago. Did the first 1,500m in under 28 minutes which I think is fairly good going for gliding into the wall and lazy open turns. Adding another 1,500m on top was tough going though.

Total distance for the month: 3,300m
Total distance for this year: 314,400m
Distance compared to annual target: 13,800m ahead

A very enjoyable swim today. Into the water and I was off on a 1,500m swim straight away. Now I can do that in under 30 minutes I really need to start looking at getting the tumble turns in. I reckon that the glide into the wall, turn and push off might easily drop five seconds a length, which over sixty lengths ought to take me down to less than twenty-five minutes, assuming I can handle the removal of the little rest that each slow turns gives me 🙂

After that I did more front crawl, kick and bilateral breathing practice. At 3,200m I was feeling so good that I did another 100m and would have gone on, but for the fact that I really had other things I ought to be doing.

So, 59km for the month which I think is my best ever. I am quite chuffed.

Total distance for the month: 59,000m
Total distance for this year: 311,100m
Distance compared to annual target: 14,500m ahead

Something of a mix-up at the pool today as they’d changed the time of the assessments for the life guard training they’ve been doing this week, but neglected to tell anyone or update the website. We were eventually got it sorted, which is just as well given how awkward it is getting to the pool at the moment. Fortunately I think the road works should finish at some point this week and life will hopefully return to something approaching normal.

Anyhow, after warming up I did thirty 50s practising bilateral breathing, followed by some front crawl kick, for a total of 2,200m. An easier end to quite a busy week.

Total distance for the month: 55,700m
Total distance for this year: 307,800m
Distance compared to annual target: 13,200m ahead

A repeat of yesterday, but sadly in a cramped lane with too great a variation in swimmer speeds, making it quite difficult to build a rhythm 🙁

Total distance for the month: 53,500m
Total distance for this year: 305,600m
Distance compared to annual target: 13,000m ahead

Beat the lifeguard trainees into the pool today and had most of my swimming done before they arrived. Really enjoyed the session, too. So much that having reached 3km of front crawl, kick and bilateral breathing practice I did a couple of hundred metres more for the hell of it 🙂

Even if I hadn’t done the extra distance, today marks the passing of 50km for the month and 300km for the year which is really pleasing.

Total distance for the month: 50,300m
Total distance for this year: 302,400m
Distance compared to annual target: 11,800m ahead