Swimming with Billy

Nothing to do with swimming this, but I am very excited (probalby proves how sad I am). But I rediscovered an old CD of mine. I've had the box for the last year-or-so but _without_ the CD, anyway yesterday I found it hidden in a totally unrelated box.

The CD's called "1990" and it's by a chap called Dave Sharman. If you like virtuouso guitar rock, then this album's a right cracker. I've got his second and heard bits off his other album(s) but none come close to 1990 - a stormer!

It's in the car for a "rock-fest" too/from work. Check out: http://www.davesharman.com/ and http://www.davesharman.com/. BTW - You probably have to be a 1980s/1990s man for this type of music - which I am so there you go!

I haven't written for about a couple of weeks, sorry.  Life goes on and sometimes it's just too much effort to get to the keyboard after a day in the office.  Anyway here's a review of what's happend. 

The old friend?  My fist gloves - a cool pool tool!

I had a really good swim on Friday night. I went swimming with the Buxton kids (seniors). This was their first week back in training since the Summer holidays and I guess it wasn't the hardest session they'll do this season. But I enjoyed it. As it transpired I was the only "old" person their - no other "Masters"/triathlete, so "tall" Tim and Jess joined me in "my" lane.

We started with Tim, then Jess then me, but swapped after the warm up to Tim, me then Jess. One thing that was really noticable in the session was just how easy it is to get pulled along by another swimmer's drag.

Tim is significantly faster than me but during the session it was really noticable just how fast (for "free") I could swim by trying to stay on, or near, his toes. Doing this meant that almost all of my main set swims came in faster than they would normally - and a couple near the end I even "worried" time by being right on his heels...

So the session was a bit of free to warm up with, and then a protracted medlay set, prior to starting I'd have worried about being able to complete this - but by the end it was a "breeze", okay may be not a breeze - but not has hard as I'd have thought.

Warm-up:
1 - 6 - 1 length swims with 10s rest between each.

Main set:
4 x 4 x 100 on 2:00, each 100M swum as 25 x IM, 50 x free, 25 IM, where the IM stroke would be 'fly for repeats 1 - 4, back for 5 - 8, breast for 9 - 12 and free for 13 - 16. It was a couple of the free ones that I was nipping at Tim's toes.

Warm-down:
4 x 50 EZ

What really supprised me was for the rest of the weekend I wasn't tired/aching!

Well the holidays have finished. I should/would normally be working from home now, but Mart doesn't start back at school until tomorrow so I was in the office today. So I went swimming today... And yes it was bedlum. Loads of kids (last play before school?) in the pool. At least they had a lane up, but it was full of stuggling adults that didn't want to be part of teh round in a circle group. So after a couple of lengths I gave it up and just mucked about: bit of kicking, bit of heads-up breaststroke (which is a killer) and a bit more kicking. Pointless really, but it got me out of the office...

Last one of the week, and last one of the school summer holidays.

So was it a good holiday for swimming or not? On the whole I'd say yes. It took them a little while to gear up for it (it always does!) but they got it right in the end. Was this by fluke? I don't know - certainly having the "jet skis" in opperable clearly helped. But I hope that there was more to it than just this, and they actually realised that there's more to summer holiday swimming than the kids.

Actually I had a number of people this week come up to me and say just how good it has been this time around, so here's hoping for the future...

Today's swim was really a repeat of yesterday's swim but this time with paddles. On the 1-4 (slower) swims I really tried not to get carried away with the pulling power of the paddles. Most of these came in slightly quicker (1:22/1:23) than yesterday and slightly less strokes (12/13), so hopefully I was doing it right. The faster swims were again quicker 1:12/1:13, and the last one was a blast at 1:08!

Warm up:
1 x 400 EZ

Main set:
20 x 100 on 1:45 with paddles 1 - 4 moderate, 5 fast

Warm down:
1 x 100 EZ
1 x 100 IM

Today I was looking to do a paddle-based set, but the pool was pretty full (with three swimmers in each of the "training" lanes) so my paddles just got left on the side. I was pretty tight from yesterdays swims but didn't feel too bad. So did a leisurely (6:00) 400M warm up and then a main set of 100M repeats. Swum in sets of five repeats (1 - 4 breathing to the left, and 5 to the right). On 1-4 I just tried to swim "neatly" with a maximum of 14SPL, on 5 I swam "fast". Sort of a fartlek set of repeats. I enjoyed this, but noticed that on my fast length I seem prepared to negoitate myself out of putting in the effort on the last bit of the repeat, annoying really. Also I had to weave around one, or other, swimmer (or do half a length breast stroke) sometimes.

Anyway I was pretty please by the way I held this together...

Warm Up:
1 x 400M EZ

Main set:
4 x (5 x 100M) on 1:45 1 - 4 breathing left, 5 - fast breathing right

Warm down:
1 x 100M back

All of my 1-4 swims came in on 1:25 - 1:27 and my fast 5's came in on 1:13 - 1:15.

Last night Gary was away and left us a set to do. None of the young speedies were there so Bruce joined me in the "fast" lane. He was certainly going at a good crack during our 100M set so perhaps swimming in this lane suited him.

I was slightly concerned as to how I'd feel during the set, because of my 2K paddle session at lunch time, but as it turned out I quite enjoyed it. I think mainly because I took it slightly easier (because there were no speedies?) and concentrated a bit more on what I was doing.

The set:

3 x 400M 60 rest, 60, 70 and 80%
8 x 100M on 2:15 with 1/4 hard and 2/3 moderate
16 x 25 on 0:45 odds catch-up, evens swim

The 400M repeats I came in on 5:50 down to 5:30. The 100M were all reasonably quick, all under 1:20 and a couple down around 1:13.

I spent some of the session (not much) looking at Bruce's stroke, one thing that sticks out initially is that his right arm doesn't extend completely (nowhere near) prior to going into his catch. Interestingly after I told him he concentrated on this _still_ didn't extend his arm - but thought he was doing...