www.tanstaafl.co.uk

Tough one today. Another five seconds off the recovery time, so starting reps on 1’35s. Doubly tough because that interval means the hand positions for the starting times on the pool pace clock are jumping all over the place. Perhaps I was just a bit tired from the weekend, but I was fairly reliably a second to two seconds slower per rep than last week. I think that’s a sign that my body is now having to work quite hard. I did manage to keep going for the entire session however, even if my technique was definitely getting a touch ropey on the last few. Tomorrow could be a different story 😀

It was busy at the pool today. Probably more than I’ve seen it since the first day they were allowed to open. Every lane was at least half full. Despite that the fast lane was working pretty well and I only almost squashed someone twice. Repeating yesterday’s session was physically tough and I was certainly struggling at the end, but possibly mentally easier knowing that I’d already done it once. Anyhow, got through it, just. Perhaps the steroids helped 😀 (The doctor reckons I may have rhinitis, as a result of which I’m on a steroid spray for the next week or so to see if that clears it up.)

So next week will start with another five seconds off the rest interval. I’m already expecting pain 🙂 Judging by how warm I feel and my unsettled sleep patterns my body is working quite hard to adjust to the new regime, which can only be good.

Right, off to the pool this lunchtime, bang out thirty reps of 50m at the same pace as earlier in the week, but five seconds less for the rest interval. Easy peasy!

Err, no 😀

The first fifteen weren’t too bad at all. After that it got a bit hard. By twenty it was quite tough and by twenty-five I was really fighting to keep going and dropping down to 51s or 52s per 50m. I did manage it though, even if I sneaked the last one in whilst everyone else was getting out of the pool and then couldn’t get out myself because I was too tired 🙂

So overall I am quite pleased, but I think it’s going to be tough to do it again tomorrow.

There was almost no-one at the pool today, either. At most six, I think. I shared the fast lane with a boy in his mid-teens who was perhaps a couple of seconds slower per 50m than me. But he didn’t stop at all. Keeps you in your place…

I did get some bad news whilst I was there. My favourite life guard is leaving tomorrow. She’s been there three or four years including being full time since last summer so has been around a fair bit when I’ve been swimming or coaching, but mostly she’s my favourite because I’ve never seen her not smiling. She’s off to university in the next few weeks however, so won’t be working there any more.

Well, today was “interesting”. On the positive side the lifeguards were being much more proactive about moving people between lanes when they really didn’t fit in. I still needed to “make my own space” quite a bit though, and I did nearly squash a couple of swimmers on the turns. Overall it was better considering there were five swimmers in the lane and I was trying to swim to a set schedule though, so I thanked the manager for his efforts when I saw him on the way out.

The first ten reps were pretty good and I even dipped down into the 46s for some reps. After that I could very much feel the tiredness building in my arms and keeping the pace up became as much of a mental struggle as a physical one. However, I did manage to keep going and despite dropping into the 50s a few times I did keep things going to the end of the session, by which point I was a total pile of jelly 😀

So I have a day off tomorrow, and then on Thursday I shall be attempting the same thing, but with a repeat interval of 1’40s instead of 1’45s.

Having had a couple of weeks to get my gills wet, today I decided to return to swimming against the clock. Perhaps a bit ambitious, but I made it relatively easy for myself just to get a peg in the, err, ground, planning to swim repeats of 50m in under 60s, starting each rep at a 1’45s interval. As it happens, I swam the first 50 in 47 seconds (which isn’t that far off where I was pre-lockdown) and kept in the 47s and 48s until rep twenty when the tiredness started to creep in and times drifted out to 50 seconds. I finished the session though and every 50 was below 51 seconds, so I was pleased enough with that. Tomorrow I’ll attempt the same set and if I can repeat it successfully then I’ll reduce the repeat interval by five seconds for the next time. Ideally I’d like to see the repeat interval come down to about 70s, meaning I could do, say, twenty-five reps of 50m and then some single lengths flat out for the remainder of the session. I think that will take a fair while though.

I even shared the lane with a swimmer who was just a touch slower than me, but swimming longer reps, and we managed to avoid each other very nicely. Made a pleasant change.