Feeling quite tired after a busy weekend, so I just decided to work on technique today and went back to my tumble turns. The biggest issue is timing, really. As my speed through the water increases so the point at which I initiate the turn must move further away from the wall. Getting that right is still tricky.
I ended up doing:
400m f/c warm-up
16 x 50m tumble turn practice
200m f/c swim down
USRPT distance this year: 39,900m
Total distance this year: 83,950m
No time to swim yesterday, so today I was back in the pool to try for a second success at
400m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 54s, rest interval 21s
200m front crawl swim down
Again I didn’t feel at my best, but did managed all 25 reps and did so a little better than last time, definitely slowing in the last five but staying under 53s for the entire set so I think I can be pleased with that.
USRPT distance this year: 39,900m
Total distance this year: 82,550m
Another attempt at:
400m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 54s, rest interval 21s
200m front crawl swim down
I found the going pretty tough for this one, but managed all 25 reps despite sinking quite deep into the 53s for the last few. I think perhaps I am not on my best form. My children both have a cold at the moment and I’m feeling a little snuffly myself which probably doesn’t help.
USRPT distance this year: 38,650m
Total distance this year: 80,700m
Ok, so Spring has been some time coming this year with cold and wet weather for quite a while, but it’s significantly improving now and to celebrate our first chicks hatched out this weekend.
I have a mixture of Marans, Cream Legbar, White Leghorn and Bresse-Gauloise in the incubators. Hatching seems a bit variable though the Marans (the black and white ones in the above photo) are doing well. The Bress-Gauloise I’ve not tried before so it will be interesting to see how they turn out.
Strangest incident this week was finding these two trouble-makers in the road at about 9pm in the evening. I’m not aware that anyone is keeping cattle anywhere near that stretch of road, so I’ve no idea where they came from.
For many years now my favoured bottle-capping tool has been this two-handed capper that I bought longer ago than I can remember:
It can be a little awkward and isn’t ideally suited to employment by a handy young assistant, but it does make a very neat job of crimping the cap on:
Recently I decided to try a lever model to see if it was any easier (and faster). This is the Brewferm TT:
The height is adjustable for different bottles by releasing a spring-loaded pin from the post and sliding the body of the capping mechanism up and down. This works fine, but isn’t great if you have a selection of different size bottles as regularly appears to be the case in my beer shed. The biggest problem for me though is that it doesn’t appear to put the caps on very well. Certainly they’re crimped over slightly, but nowhere near as much as my two-handled capper:
Finally I gave this much heftier one a go. Sadly I can’t recall where I bought it our who makes it:
It does a great job of capping the bottles and even has a little magnet inside the crimper to hold the cap rather than leaving you to place it on the top of the bottle
Unfortunately it almost always seems to get the cap jammed in the crimping mechanism and lifts the bottle off the base when the lever is released leaving the bottle requiring a sharp pull to release it. If I could fix that it would be great.
But for the time being I’m back to the old faithful because it “just works”.
After a week in the fermenter I checked my recent brew. Fermentation still looks to be going on at a reasonable rate:
And a quick check with the hydrometer shows it’s got a bit of a way go to yet:
So I’ll be leaving it a few more days before doing another check to see how it’s getting on.
I’ve had an unintentional break of about a week since my last swim because work has been rather busy, but today I was back at my next attempt on the 54s reps of 50m:
400m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 54s, rest interval 21s
200m front crawl swim down
I started out fairly quickly, but struggled as I reached the middle of the set, failing on rep 14 and sitting out rep 15. After that I managed to complete the rest, but one or two came very close to 54s. Back to the start for next time then 🙁
I didn’t have time for a proper swim-down either. Had to be back for a conference call, which I made with two minutes to spare 🙂
USRPT distance this year: 37,400m
Total distance this year: 78,850m
Back for another go at the following:
400m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 54s, rest interval 21s
200m front crawl swim down
Felt better today and the pool was near empty so I just got on with it. Times for the individual reps weren’t particularly quick, with lots slower than 50s, but I still made them all.
USRPT distance this year: 36,250m
Total distance this year: 77,200m
if I’d been this cyclist. From my dashcam for the trip to take my son to his swim training this afternoon, “white van man” clearly couldn’t wait until it was safe to overtake and instead just pushed this cyclist right to the edge of the road leaving very little space alongside.
Can it really have been necessary to overtake right then. He’s on my side of the road, leaving nowhere near enough space alongside the cyclist and all to overtake perhaps ten seconds earlier when there must have been half a mile of empty road behind me giving more than enough space to perform a safe and considerate overtake.
Perhaps I should go back to 1080p so the number plates of these vehicles are clearer and drivers can be held to account for such idiotic manoeuvres.
