Another day with the pool rather too warm, but I think I did better than yesterday apart from the last few reps when someone decided they’d share the lane I was using and swim very slowly. It’s not particularly enjoyable when the water is too warm and I was very hot when I got out. I’m sure that really doesn’t help.
USRPT distance this year: 165,800m
Total distance this year: 188,700m
Back to my usual pool today, to find it anything but usual. The water temperature was apparently 31C, which is a bit much for swimming hard. Given the enforced break from my usual sets I’ve decided to take this week just to get back into the swing of things and try to keep the pace below 49s, but not get too distressed if I can’t. I’ll restart proper USPRT swims next week.
USRPT distance this year: 165,800m
Total distance this year: 186,900m
Holiday time! And whilst I have access to a 30m pool, it’s busy, doesn’t always have lane ropes and observance of lane etiquette is poor. Oh, and there are no lane lines on the bottom of the pool, just a short black line 2m from each end. And no pace clock either.
Proper USRPT training therefore went out the window, and the lack of lane discipline meant that tumble turns were dangerous, so I decided I’d make the best of a bad job and swim a set as follows:
I did the same set each day as an attempt at changing the pace of my usual training. Between the 30m reps I paused for ten breaths before starting the next rep, though often that got messed up if I needed to leave before a slower swimmer got in the way or it was obvious that I was going to catch someone up before they finished the length they were on. Not ideal, but probably the best I could do and it did at least mean that I was swimming. On a few days I did a few more reps because I lost count.
USRPT distance this year: 165,800m
Total distance this year: 185,100m
Arrived at the pool today to claims from the lifeguards that it was 40C on poolside. I can believe it, too. Walking out of the changing rooms felt like running into a wall of hot air. The water was far more pleasant (and for ten to fifteen minutes I even had it to myself).
I can’t claim the set was easy today, but it didn’t feel quite as punishing as it has been. I’ve been experimenting a little with my body position and I’m finding that if I swim in a position where my head feels just a little deeper in the water then my legs seem to lift slightly and I think I’m probably more streamlined. Whether that’s the reason or not, it does seem to make reps in the 47s easier to achieve, whereas I tend to drop back to 48s otherwise.
Anyhow, whole set completed again, no fails, very happy. My only concern was whether the older lady who decided to swim next to me and wander all over the width of the lane was going to be in the wrong place when I launched off the wall on the turn.
USRPT distance this year: 165,800m
Total distance this year: 169,950m
A much better day today. Hard to believe it was only 24 hours after such a poor performance yesterday. I’d not claim it was easy — I was definitely having to push hard from about sixteen reps in, but I made every one. Very pleased.
USRPT distance this year: 164,000m
Total distance this year: 168,150m
It feels as though courier companies are now in the business of removing parcels from the sender’s location after which point no-one (other than the recipient) really cares what happens to the delivery.
I had a DHL delivery scheduled “before the end of today”. By 11:57am it had been logged as “Delivery attempted; recipient not home”. This despite the fact that between the time it was logged as being with the delivery courier and when I was found to be “not home” there were no fewer than two and as many as five people at the property, including the builder who is working outside at the front of the house, and because there was a lot of going in and out the front door was actually open all day.
I reckon courier companies actually over-commit on what they can deliver each day and if they get behind schedule they just abandon some deliveries, marking them as “recipient not home”. In fact I’d further suggest that this may well be corporate policy given that it seems to happen on a regular basis. But then I guess that’s what you get when they make it a scramble to the bottom of the barrel to see who can deliver most cheaply regardless of the consequences. Collecting parcels from businesses who want to send them is usually easy, and if you don’t then you don’t get paid. Delivering them to the recipient is more tricky, so if it looks like it might become unprofitable, well, that’s the recipient’s loss…
Well, an utter disaster today!
For a number of reasons, I think. My head wasn’t really in the right place today for a start. Too many other things going on and I wasn’t properly focused as a result. Also a work call dragged on over lunchtime meaning I was absolutely starving by the time I got to eat and probably didn’t have enough time after I did eat to allow my body to restore its reserves of energy.
As a result I felt as though I was constantly swimming tired and whilst I could still make the times, it was a real struggle to do so repeatedly 🙁
Hopefully tomorrow will be better…
USRPT distance this year: 162,200m
Total distance this year: 166,350m
I felt a little better than yesterday when I hit the pool today and it showed in my swimming. The same set, but this time no fighting and whilst it was hard, I didn’t feel at any point that I couldn’t complete the full set. Bodes well for next week, I hope.
Just shy of 165km for the first half of the year. I wonder what the second half holds…
USRPT distance this year: 160,450m
Total distance this year: 164,800m
Lovely day to be in the pool today as it has suddenly become very warm without giving us a chance to get used to the heat, but I’ve not slept very well in days now and I am feeling a little ragged 🙁
Nonetheless, not wanting to give myself excuses not to swim, I set off with the new set:
This session was always a struggle. I managed to get to halfway without a failure, at which point continuing really became a matter of willpower. I set myself a target of making the next four, which to my slight surprise I did. Then the next four, at which point things went really crazy and every one was less than 48s despite trying to slow them down a bit to give myself a chance of making it to the end. Reps twenty-one and twenty-two started to get quite tough and by twenty-three there was almost nothing left in the tank. Just enough to get me to the end of the set though, at which point my legs were giving out and there was no power left in my arms. Can’t ever be unhappy about completing the set though 🙂
USRPT distance this year: 158,650m
Total distance this year: 163,000m
Another trip to the pool with my son 🙂
Given yesterday’s debacle I decided to stick with the same set again. It wasn’t long though before I felt I was struggling. I just didn’t seem to have the energy to push off the wall as hard as I could and I’m sure I was breathing harder between reps than usual.
At halfway it started to feel quite tough, but I managed to push on to sixteen reps, then twenty, and after twenty-one there was no way I was going to allow myself to fail. So happily I completed the entire set, even if my legs did feel like jelly at the end.
I think next time the target time has to come down to 49s. I think I only had one rep over 49s today, so I really ought to be able to improve on that when I’m feeling more energetic.
USRPT distance this year: 156,850m
Total distance this year: 161,200m
