Swimming with Billy

It's been an interseting week this week. Firstly my local pool is shut for repairs(?!) which has meant less swimming than normal, but only just because I managed to go to a Masters' practice in Stockport. That was a "play" session, because they were doing a circuit. It was tiring because we had a session of playing pool-catch treading water with a 5kg medicine ball.

Otherwise my swimming's been all with the Stockport Swim Fit team. The added wrinkle being that Craig (main coach of the Swim Fit program) has been swimming with us which has been good fun (trying to beat the teacher and all that). Yesterday I "raced" him with a 5s head start over 50M and managed to "win" (well I clocked 30.0 from a push and he 27.low from a dive).

But today was better because we did sprints - now earlier in the week (Tuesday/Thursday) we did lactate with active recoevery stuff, and I end up going back into my shell on those sets. But today was primarily sprint work with the main set being three lots of:

4 x 25 sprint
1 x 100 EZ
1 x 50 sprint
1 x 100 EZ

The odd 25s were from the blocks as was the 50. Now the first two sets I swam with Martin (speedie) and the last with Jim (a not so speedie triathlete, though he wore his new fins which turned him into a speedie).

I was really pleased with todays session because almost all the 25M I swum sub 14 and most 13.4 - 13.6 with one 13.1 (I think). And the 50M I swum 29.7 - 29.4. Now I am not sure the last time I swam that number of fast sprints and consistently hit my marks (i.e. below 14 and below 30) probably never!

And what caused this? Not totally sure but Craig was trying the Steffan Nystrand straight arm recovery approach to sprinting. And after the first couple of 25M I thought I'd try it. Now I wasn't being overly analytical whilst swimming (I can't at speed) but the times speak for themselves - I was consistently fast for me.

I did notice a few things interesting:

• my body stayed flatter in the water (i.e. legs and trunk not sinking too much)
• my trunk swayed latterally slightly - but this felt less than my normal latteral "wiggle" with my normal stroke
• my pull felt a touch stronger
• I made all my times

I am not sure any of the above is scientific, and it could all be the placebaux(?!) effect, but I definitely swam more than "okay". I've never tried a straight arm recovery before but I am tempted to give it some more playing with, especially in the run up to Doncaster next month.

So I finished today quite "stoked" which is a good thing I guess!

Again I've not posted for a while (the work-life balance thing isn't very balanced!!). But today was a hard (double) session. With the SwimFit boys there were three of us: me, Martin (super speedie) and Craig (normally coach and super speedie) all doing a "lactate" set. And boy did I find it hard.

Basically it's a set we used to do quite often last year, but haven't done for a while.

Warm up:
400M choice
Pre set:
8 x 25 kick (two lots of: fast 10M, build to fast, EZ, fast)
4 x 25 free (as above)
Main set (three times through):
100 on 3:30
75 on 3:00
50 on 2:30
25 on 2:00
The first and third set were free, the second fly (and that one we did in reverse!). To say I was knackered at the end was an understatement. But the highlight for me was the 75 and 100 Fly as I "beat" Craig. Okay so I don't think he was trying but... I won (well came second by a long way as Martin was miles ahead).

And then this evening we had a "grim set" with the Buxton tri group. Firstly we did a 400 timed effort (after only 200M warmup!!??) and then whilst the rest of the group did something else, me and Steve (probably the fastest triathlete swimmer) did a special set. Now that was grim:

Warm up:
200M choice
Timed:
400M
Main set (eight lots of):
1 x 100 free on 1:45
1 x 50 fly on 1:00 (Steve did free here)
Warm down:
400M choice

My targets were sub-1:20 for the 100M repeats, alas I could only manage a pretty static 1:22-1:23, I did sneak one in on 1:18 I think. And the Fly was awful - I managed it but it weren't pretty!! Steve's instructions were to be close to 1:30 on his repeats and to "beat" me on the 50M repeats. I think the last one was close!

As for the timed swim that was awful, the only saving grace was I turned halfway in 2:59, but let's leave it at that!!

Last weekend was the Rotherham (long course) Masters and I had a rude awakening. Admittedly it's been coming for a while but it has brought into question some of my training practices and pyschology. The 100M fly and free both were pretty dire swims, perhaps that's not quite so fair of the free but certainly the fly. Basically in both events I start pretty well (fast) but in the last 30-40M I die. Gary (Buxton coach) summed it up on the free where I was a long way ahead after 25M, still reasonably far ahead after 50M, just ahead after 75M but not ahead at 100M. He thought I looked on for a 1:02 until the last 25M. So clearly there's a problem there.

Now this was borne out yesterday when at Stockport we did an 8 x 100M on 2:00 set with the instruction to "hold around PB+10". That would mean 1:13 for me. Now I swum this set "pretty well" I had a plan and stuck to it. The plan was: swim the 1 - 3 and 5 - 7 on around 1:16 pace (well I started 1:18 but settled on a 1:16 average) and to push it on repeats 4 (1:08) and 8 (1:05). I also swam the hard swims breathing to the right and the other six to the left. Now straightaway that explains some of the disparity in times - my turns and general (fast) speed isn't the same when breathing to the left. However I was pretty happy (after all 1:03.?? is my current P.

At the end of the practice Craig asked for my times and when I told him, he looked a touch disappointed (basically the school report said "could/should do better"). What he really wanted was 1:08 pace for all the swims.

Whilst getting changed I started to wonder about great things. Clearly there's a no-brainer here - if I want to swim "fast", then I've got to train faster (or more outside my comfort zone) so on this type of set I've got to start pushing myself. No one else is going to do it. The second thing is why do I go into self preservation mode? Because that's what I do on these intense sessions - I workout how much energy I want to expend and put in a plan to do that. Now that expenditure might be a real intense set, so don't think that it's all a plan _not_ to expend effort.

But there is a definite self-preservation exercise going on here. And I think that because I train that way, hey what do you know, it happens in races. So when I hit that "wall" at 60M+ my normal tactic of managing/negotiating my energy/effort levels kicks in and a "die".

Last Sunday was the first time I felt, as a Masters swimmer, a team player. It was the Rotherham Masters swum at Ponds Forge in Sheffield. I've never been to Ponds Forge before and have rarely swum in a 50M pool, let alone one that's 10 lanes wide! It's so wide that the diving pool (behind the main pool) is the same width as the 50M pool which makes it a 6-lane 25M pool in its own right!!

Now I swum with Gary (coach), Diane (assistant coach) and Tim from Buxton (Rick cried off ill at the last minute), but I also swum with Craig (coach), Martin (speedie) and Dave (super speedie) from Stockport. We'd all entered different events but with enough crossover to keep the competative bit interesting.

I swum 50 and 100 free and fly, and the team 4 x 50 relays. The main thing I took back from this whole event was just how I die over "long" distances (by that I mean 100M !!). As Martin said, "Bill, when you die, man you DIE". And there's the problem. The 100M fly wasn't pretty, the first 50 was okay the second... let's not go there! And as for the 100M free as Gary said: leading by a long way after 25, still leading after 50 and (just) after 75 but 100... nope, not even close. Apparently I looked like I was going to do around 1:02 which would be a PB by some way, but I ended up with a 1:05.

Of all the events the to 50M were "best", in the fly I "beat" Gary (just) with a 31.43 and in the 50M free I went 29.3 which without a turn I guess is pretty similar to my 28.45 short course PB. But it's a long way short of Tim (27.6), Martin (27.02) and Craig (25.08).

But the whole event got me thinking about why I die in the "second half" of these events. Interestingly I don't die on 200M or 400M swims just the shorter distances.

Anyhow the scores on the doors: