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I felt very tired today so I opted for “easy” and just did front crawl rather than the session I had planned. I think I might carry on that way for the rest of this week just to get back into the rhythm of things. I don’t seem to have done too well over the last couple of weeks. Once I was in the water and got going I did actually feel much better and worked on my “early vertical forearm”. There’s a little stiffness across my shoulders this evening, but it’s in no way extreme. Just the muscles knowing they’ve been doing work they’re not used to I reckon. More turn practice, too.

Total distance for the month: 2,500m
Total distance for this year: 60,100m

Forgot to take my session plan, so I just swam 2.7km front crawl and did turn practice. My turns are definitely improving. Breathing on the stroke before the turn is becoming more rare and I’m becoming more comfortable with turning off whichever arm I need to use, and also coming off the wall fairly straight as a general rule. I think what I need to be working on now is more control of my arms in the turn — they can get a bit wild sometimes, and better breathing control during the actual body rotation. I’m probably exhaling too much which leaves me gasping for air by the time I’ve surfaced and managed three strokes.

I’m also attempting to get a more pronounced early vertical forearm. I can feel a significant difference when I get that right as there’s far more pressure on the forearm during the pull, but it’s also quite tiring as I’m probably transferring the load of the pull to muscles that aren’t quite so used to it. I am wondering if a side benefit of “EVF” is that it stabilises the arm making it less likely to drift excessively under the body during the pull (especially on breathing). That’s a problem I seem to see very often with my age group swimmers.

Total distance for the month: 25,400m
Total distance for this year: 57,600m

Not as much as I wanted for this month, but we’ll see how it goes next month.

Couldn’t swim the previous day due to clashes with other stuff, so again I fell back to the old standard of front crawl and turn practice. Swam 2.8km front crawl in the end, practising my turns along the way.

Feel as though I’ve not really got near as much swimming done as I should have this month, but I guess with the mess of half term it may be excusable.

Total distance for the month: 22,700m
Total distance for this year: 54,900m

Didn’t swim on Monday as I didn’t feel particularly well. I’ve missed a fair bit recently what with half term changing the pool times. Today half the pool was roped off for some training thing that was going on and unfortunately the rest was very busy at the time I got in so I decided to stick with front crawl. I covered 2,600m including some turn practice. Interestingly I seem to be getting to the wall “on my other arm” now. When I initially started to learn to tumble turn I pretty much always got to the wall with my left arm pulling to initiate the rotation. Yesterday I found it was almost always my right arm. Hopefully this is just because my stroke is improving and I’m taking one fewer to complete a length. That does seem to be borne out by the fact that I used to be taking a breath as I was under the flags and now when I take that breath the flags are slightly behind me.

Total distance for the month: 19,900m
Total distance for this year: 52,100m

Last swim of half term week as it turned out. Half the pool was in use for lifeguard training so there wasn’t much room. I just did 2km front crawl again to keep the momentum going.

Total distance for the month: 17,300m
Total distance for this year: 49,500m

Time is limited this week because there are holiday clubs taking place at the time I normally swim and the pool is also running a lifesaving course that needs to use the pool a fair bit. I didn’t get to swim yesterday for that reason and today just managed to fit in 2km front crawl.

Total distance for the month: 15,300m
Total distance for this year: 47,500m

Another Swimfit session that worked out as:

12 lengths front crawl
8 lengths breaststroke
4 lengths backstroke
1 minute rest
12 lengths, moderate pace alternating front crawl, backstroke, breaststroke, 15 seconds rest
8 x 1 length front crawl, 1 length backstroke, 1 length breaststroke all fairly fast, 30 seconds rest
5 x 2 lengths fast front crawl, 30 seconds rest
8 lengths front crawl easy

I made up the distance to 2km with some front crawl turn practice.

Struggled with this set though. I think I shall repeat it next time I do a Swimfit session.

Total distance for the month: 13,300m
Total distance for this year: 45,500m