www.tanstaafl.co.uk

Bit of a scrappy day today. There were a couple of other swimmers in the fast lane who were significantly slower than me which made things a bit awkward and to add to my troubles I was actually feeling quite tired. Fortunately I still only had a single failure and that was when I caught up with both of them at the turn and had to open turn to make sure I didn’t hit anyone.

The 25m set wasn’t much to write home about either, with a couple of fails. I think my body might just have had enough for this week.

Another really good day today, at least as far as my 50m set was concerned. Like the previous session I still had one failure, but this time on rep fourteen rather than rep ten.

I was completely exhausted by the end of the set though and after that my 25m set didn’t go particularly well. I can live with that though.

Another quiet day in the fast lane after being busy for several weeks. Most of the time there were three of us, but for some of it only two.

I reduced my interval by five seconds and was expecting it to be a very tough 50m set, which actually it was, but despite feeling as though I might die at any moment once again I just didn’t seem to be able to swim slowly. I did have one rep over 43s in the first five, but I didn’t actually have to skip any until rep ten and that was the only one (and immediately after that I swam one of the fastest reps I’ve ever swum!)

As a result I was expecting the 25m reps to be really quite painful, but whilst they weren’t the fastest I’ve ever done I did still manage to complete the full set just before the end of the session.

Day off tomorrow. Then we’ll see what happens on Wednesday.

Whilst the pool has been quite busy over the last few Sundays, today it was really pretty quiet, with only three of us in the fast lane.

I wasn’t sure I really had my head in the right place when I drove to the pool, but somehow it all seemed to work out once I got there. It was one of those days when I just didn’t seem to be able to swim slowly, and to my great pleasure I completed the 50m set with all reps under the target time. In fact my average time was exactly the same as the previous day I swam, but on that occasion I had to skip one rep.

Unfortunately that did have a bit of an impact on my 25m set and I ended up having to skip two reps and ran out of time for the last one.

Still, very pleased overall, especially as it took two months to get back under my target time on the last occasion that I reduced the interval time, and not even a month this time around. Tomorrow I will of course reduce the interval time again and we’ll see how that goes.

Sigh. So yesterday was great. Today I just felt soooo tired. Perhaps because I worked hard yesterday, but most likely because I didn’t sleep at all well last night.

I really struggled to make the target time today with two failures, one on rep six! 🙁

I didn’t even bother doing the 25m set. At that point I was just too worn out to carry on. It seems unlikely anything good would have come of it.

Today was a rather different day from last time I swam. It seemed to be one of those rare occasions where I couldn’t swim slowly even if I tried. For the first time I made it through the first five of my 50m reps without dropping outside the target time, and whilst I was expecting, based on previous performance, that a failure would follow shortly, it just didn’t. At least, not until rep thirteen when I couldn’t tumble turn because I could up with another swimmer as we came to the wall and for safety I had to open turn instead. Event then I was less than a quarter of a second outside my target. Whilst I didn’t feel that I had to skip the next rep I did so anyway, probably mostly because I was actually feeling quite tired, but it did also move me away from the swimmer I’d caught up with. Even so the only occasions when my average time has been faster have been when I’ve had more failures or a longer rest interval, so I’m very happy with that.

Even better news was that my 25m reps were just as good. In fact I’ve never swum so fast and completed all the reps in the set. Perhaps I’ll think about reducing the rest interval for those now.

I’m quite looking forward to tomorrow now.

Allegedly the boilers at the pool are fixed, though it certainly doesn’t feel like it when you get into the water. Fortunately it’s not too bad after a few lengths.

I missed Sunday’s session thanks to the pool being closed because of a shortage of life guards so I was hoping today would go well. As with last Monday however, there were a few people in the lane who were really circulating rather slowly and I didn’t always feel that it was safe. I did in fact almost swim over one swimmer because I didn’t realise how fast I was catching up on them. To be fair, some are very good at coping with faster swimmers. Oddly they’re often the faster ones themselves. It’s hard not to feel as though it’s the slower ones who have the attitude that they’re going to swim how they damn well like and it’s everyone else’s problem to avoid them. Unfortunately that won’t really cut much ice if I can’t see you and end up colliding with you going almost twice your speed. Especially as I’m not that far off twice your weight as well 🙁

Anyhow, it went ok-ish and nobody died. Under the circumstances I did the best I think I probably could have done. Hopefully it will be better on Wednesday when I go next.