Swimming with Billy

Bit late posting, but last weekend (Saturday) was the annual Cheshire Masters Sprint meet in Macclesfield. I've not entered before, but because there was a good sized presence from the Stockport "SwimFit team" I got encouraged to enter. Entry wasn't easy because being a member of Buxton SC (about 15 miles from Macc) I wasn't eligible to enter!?!? Nope I had to jump through a couple of hoops and register with another (a Cheshire) club to swim for, and so now I have dual swimming nationality (Buxton, Derbyshire and Marple, Cheshire). It does seem a shame that, because this is a "closed meet" that the number of swimmers is more limited. Having said all that the competition was fun and I even had a first - both winning a race and also my first DQ!! My back-to-breaststroke turn in the IM was not only rubbish, but illegal as well!! (sigh). The highlight for me was my 50M 'Fly - 30.57, getting closer to that sub-30s barrier...

Next up Southport in October.

Halton is in Widnes and to celebrate there 10th anniversary they held their first Masters meet and invited swimmers from their twinned towns (in the Czech Republic, Germany and Portugal). So this was my first "international" meeting. The one problem with this meet was that it was the first week back after the summer break - so speedie swimming (for me) was probably off the agenda. That said it was a really good event, and it was nice to chat with people from other countries.

I entered the maximum of five events, and some how got encouraged to enter 50M breaststroke. That was a laugh, because the lady I spoke to on the phone about that "helped" me pick an entry time of 36s, that seemed okay to me at the time (what do I know?) but it made me the fastest seed in my heat (er no...) and who came last...? Still 38.49 was pretty good for me

Of the events I enjoyed (for that read swam better) in the afternoon. I think the reason for that was that in the morning it wasn't easy to warm-up properly. Whilst the pool was eight lanes wide it was just bedlam. Now the afternoon was much better, probably because I had a good 20-25 minutes with a lane to myself, and that let me stretch my calf and leg muscles into a bit better shape.

The summer's over, SwimFit started back last week, and I've competed in my first competition of the new season. Phew just a few things to go at. But what did I do over the summer (swimming wise?). Well I had a plan, and thanks to the really quite workable lunchtime regime at Stockport, I managed to stick to it for most of the time. And what was that plan? Well I got some new paddles (another pair making a grand total of seven different types now) and I got a pull buoy.

No I have been really quite anti pullbuoys, and probably still am for just about every use you can think of. That's every use except... the one I was using it for. Basically I strapped my new paddles on, they're designed to help improve your catch (Early Vertical Forearm), stuff my pullbuoy between my knees and did lap-after-lap of catch-based sculling. I did sessions where I focussed solely on single-arm catch (dog-paddle) and others where I'd do double-arm sculling (a la Fly and breaststroke). To break these sessions up I'd do a few lengths "quality technique" swimming. So a typical session looked like:

Warm Up:
1 x 200 - 400 EZ
Main Set:
8 x 25 dog-paddle
4 x 25 FR
8 x 25 double-arm scull
4 x 25 Fly
repeat the above

And that was my summer break! But what did it do for me? What was I trying to achieve. Well firstly conscious that summer's not very long (especially when you include holidays and so forth), I wanted to concentrate on trying to get my forearm anchored much earlier in my stroke. A while back I drew on a sheet of A4 on of the main differences between me, those that are (considerably) slower than me, and those that are (considerably) faster than me. And one of the main differences, other than general balance, is how the stroking arm works. Basically "good" swimmers anchor much further out (in front of their heads) and keep that vertical position througout the stroke.

Now whilst my arm does anchor better than most slower swimmers, it is nowhere near as advanced as those I class as speedie. So working on trying to educate my stroke into having a more advanced catch seemed like a good idea.

This set of drills has had an additional benefit (even if I haven't made the switch in terms of catch position), and that is that it seems to have really helped my hand position. I used to pitch my hand out (at the wrist) as soon as my stroke started, but now that seems to have gone, so no more of Gary (triathlon coach) talking about "Mr Penguin Hands".

Has it made any (real) difference? Well I don't know yet. The problem is, as with a lot of this type of thing, is that I've got years of ingrained technique to deal with. I do know that my non-breathing strokes on butterfly "feel" better, now whether that equates to any speed benefits is yet to be seen.

Now I am back on the SwimFit program so it looks like there won't be as much time for this technique work. But as a bonus there will be time for some speed swimming (something that's been missing these past few weeks).

Anyway that was my summer. And only time will tell if anything stuck!