Another swim in the bath today 🙂 It really does feel quite hard work when the water is so warm. Lots of people to avoid in the lane too, so just a simple 3,000m front crawl swim to make life easier.
Total distance for the month: 5,400m
Total distance for this year: 257,500m
Distance compared to annual target: 4,500m under
Bit of a change of scene for today, particularly as I don’t normally swim on Sundays at all. Today it rained pretty much all day and I swam in a 30m outdoor pool that felt warmer than being anywhere else. Just a single lane was set aside for “competent swimmers”, though clearly interpretations of “competent” vary as far as “dancing from end to end on the bottom” and “requires armbands”.
Anyhow, I swam 2,400m straight front crawl doing my best to avoid the obstacles until the session ended at the life guards asked us to leave.
Total distance for the month: 2,400m
Total distance for this year: 254,500m
Distance compared to annual target: 5,500m under
Last swim of the month, and of the first half of the year, thanks to spending much of 30th travelling.
I’ve been unable to let this 1,500m thing go this week for some reason. No idea why. Perhaps just because I’ve got it into my head that sixty lengths non-stop is actually quite achievable. Anyhow, despite tiredness in my arms and shoulders I just had to give it another crack. And well worth the effort it was, coming in at under 28 minutes for the distance despite very slow and lazy open turns. Once I get the bilateral breathing sorted and can pick the time for my last breath going into the tumble turn then I reckon I could take anything up to five minutes off that. As for the rest of this week, I finished off with some kick and bilateral breathing practice, for a total of 3,200m.
Very pleased to make 55km for the month, and to reach halfway to my target after six months. I should probably redo my “distance under” measurement based on the six month figure now, rather than on the basis of “10km a week for 50 weeks” as I’ve done so far.
Total distance for the month: 55,100m
Total distance for this year: 250,100m
Distance compared to annual target: 7,900m under
I wasn’t sure I could do another non-stop 1,500m today as I could feel the tiredness in my arms and shoulders even before I got into the pool. I broke it down though, first aiming to get to 500m, then 750m and then 1km. At that point I could see the end of it and though the next 250m was a bit of a struggle, the final ten lengths weren’t too bad at all.
After that I did two more 500m swims, kick, bilateral breathing drills and finished off with 100m front crawl swim with bilateral breathing, much the same as yesterday, for a total distance of 3,200m again.
Again I had the pool to myself for the tail end of the session. It didn’t start that way though. It was quite busy at first and I came very close to taking out a tri swimmer who had drifted over towards me as she came out of a turn 🙁
Good to see that I’m less than 10km behind my target distance at this point of the year now, though I’m not sure I can swim on Friday so the figure might rise again. Another 3.1km tomorrow would see me to 250km for the first six months of the year, but who knows how I’ll feel by then?
Total distance for the month: 51,900m
Total distance for this year: 246,900m
Distance compared to annual target: 9,100m under
Today was pretty much a re-run of yesterday. I got into the water and just felt as though I should go for another 1,500m front crawl to start with. Again, it got tough towards the end, but I made it and then went on to swim another few sets up to 2,500m followed by some kick, drills practising bilateral breathing and finally some lengths actually swimming with bilateral breathing to take the distance to two miles, or 3,200m.
For the last twenty minutes of the session I had the entire pool to myself which was quite odd. Can’t object though. It’s pleasant to swim in still water.
Total distance for the month: 48,700m
Total distance for this year: 243,700m
Distance compared to annual target: 10,300m under
After a weekend off (which I spent poolside coaching swimmers at a competition — just can’t get away from it), back into the water today and I just had it in my head that having done 1km front crawl non-stop last week and then 1.25km non-stop the following day, I really wanted to make 1.5km non-stop today. I can’t pretend it wasn’t tough, but I got there, and faster than I’ve ever swum 1,500m before. After a short rest I did another 1km in three sets, followed by some front crawl kick and then pull, again practising bilateral breathing. I finished off at 3.3km with 100m swimming front crawl and breathing bilaterally; the first time I’ve ever been able to do it over any distance, never mind 100m. So, two major milestones today and I’m feeling quite pleased with myself.
My plan is to keep up the pull work for a little longer until I can comfortably start off breathing bilaterally without needing the drills and then start switching it about a bit, doing drills such as breathing to one side when swimming from the shallow end and breathing to the other side swimming to it, and breathing every N strokes (where N is an odd number greater than 1).
Total distance for the month: 45,500m
Total distance for this year: 240,500m
Distance compared to annual target: 11,500m under
Well, today was really quite hard. I could very much feel the tiredness in my arms from the week’s exertions in the pool. Fortunately for me the Friday pool sessions are shorter, so it was just a question of hanging in there. I swam 1,500m front crawl, made up to 2,000m with kick and pull bilateral breathing practice. I could perhaps have found time for another 100m but I decided not to push my luck with the pool staff.
Hopefully I’ll be able to make it over 50km for the month next week depending on how things go. That would easily make June my best month yet. I’m not sure there’ll be time to swim on Friday though, so I may not make much headway against my target for the year.
Total distance for the month: 42,200m
Total distance for this year: 237,200m
Distance compared to annual target: 12,800m under
Yesterday I handed in the final post-course work for my Swimming Coach (what used to be the Level 2 Coach) qualification. It’s been a very tough journey for me and one that I’m not sure I’d have started had I had a better understanding of what would be involved. Not that I haven’t enjoyed it and learned a huge amount that has definitely improved my coaching, but the course was perhaps not designed with those people such as myself who do not have a background in competitive swimming in mind. In many parts of the course there seemed to be a reliance on, well, not so much “assumed knowledge”, but perhaps “assumed experience” is a more accurate way to put it.
It’s also taken a long time to get through everything. Partly this was down to internal strife at the club, partly because some of the skills required by the course were largely assumed when I didn’t really have them and needed time to learn, but also lack of time generally for getting through the paperwork. Actually being on the pool deck coaching three evenings a week with occasional coaching at weekends and attendance at competitions combined with working for myself and all the usual guff that goes with having a couple of children at secondary school just doesn’t leave a lot of time or energy for doing anything else. On those rare free evenings I’d often sit down to try to get through some of the work but had reached the point where I couldn’t find the clarity of thought to do it to my satisfaction.
Anyhow, it’s all over now. I just have to sit back and await the outcome…
For a change today the pool didn’t feel cold when I got into the water. Either the cooler weather or the lower temperature on poolside (it apparently reached 43C on the pool deck last Sunday) made the water feel warmer.
Once again I stuck to front crawl, but it was a very tough swim today. Some combination of lack of sleep due to the hot weather and tiredness thanks to already swimming over 9km this week meant I struggled quite a lot through the first 1,500m, but eventually made 2.5km and made the distance up to 3km with some kick and more bilateral breathing practice. As there was a minute or two left I did another couple of lengths and almost fell straight into bilateral breathing without even intending to, which feels quite promising. I think there’s still more work to do there, but it feels like I might not be too far off now.
As a bonus I passed 40km for the month and I’m now only about a week behind where I would like to be against my target for the year of 500km (though I prefer to say it as half a million metres because it sounds more impressive 🙂
Total distance for the month: 40,200m
Total distance for this year: 235,200m
Distance compared to annual target: 12,800m under
It was so warm today that even at around 30C the pool felt quite cool when I got into the water. I thought it was going to be fairly quiet as there were only two of us queuing when the public session started, but it soon started to fill up and there were no designated swimming lanes so I stuck to the same sort of session as I’ve already done this week. Even then I still had to avoid other people a few times.
It was a good session, starting with 2,500m of front crawl including one stint of 1,250m non-stop, followed by 200m kick and 300m pull practising bilateral breathing.
Total distance for the month: 37,200m
Total distance for this year: 232,200m
Distance compared to annual target: 13,800m under
