I started the week strong with an open water swim in Hampton, followed by the 4th Bars and Bells session where we learnt all the different exercises that are possible with Kettle Bells. Monday night was then a pretty intense coaching session for BRJ. I think most people’s response when they saw the set on the board was “oh crap”. This 6 week block is all focused on endurance so as we have gone on the sessions have been gradually getting harder and last week I really stepped it up a gear. My aim is to push the swimmers so what they’re doing is uncomfortable but doable and I seem to be doing that.
Tuesday I woke up and could hardly walk, something I did in the bars and Bells session was clearly too much and I shouldn’t be doing it because the pain in my legs was unbearable. I ended up cutting my PT session down to just half an hour so that we could do some cardio work. Other than that and the Huntingdonshire Concert Bands final rehearsal before our concert it was uneventful and a bit boring!
Wednesday was an unplanned but incredible open water swim and I haven’t laughed and smiled so much for ages. The sky and water were beautiful and clear, so clear we could even see the bottom of the lake, including and sadly all the pollution too. The biggest piece of pollution appeared to be a sign of some sort, we also saw what we thought was a pair of underwear! I joked it would be funny if we got the sign out and it was a no swimming sign since we would have to swim to it to get it! The first person got in and swam to try lifting the sign, it was too heavy so others helped and it did indeed end up being a no swimming sign! However,
I was loving the swim and managed to easily get to the 4th pole, normally I would take a photo but I went to get my GoPro and realised it was no longer attatched to my tow float! (Someone else used their camera).
Our swim back from pole 4 became a “search for an orange floating camera”. I will admit I was starting to panic about the fact I’d lost it, the closer to the exit point we got without seeing it, the more I panicked. Then all of a sudden I head “I’ve found it!”
Unbelievably one of the other swimmers had found it, but that’s when I heard them shout “the Moorhens stolen it!”. I wondered what on earth they were talking about; it turned out the Moorhen had infact taken a fancy to my GoPro and was swimming it back to its nest! Sadly, the GoPro wasnt recording because I reckon it’d have made an awesome video. Thankfully the wonderfully brave swimmer managed to swim into the deadly reeds and retrieve my camera!
In the end I managed to stay in the water for 30 minutes, which is the longest I’ve been in open water this year; I loved it!
Thursday I had a cracking swim in the pool –
200m warm up
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700m – various drills focusing on being “long and strong”
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10x100m on 2.05
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100m Easy/active recovery
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5x200m on 4.10
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200m cool down
I’m also pleased to say that my meeting with management at One Lesiure about there being no disabled changing room right now was very successful and productive. Along with discovering a solution on where I can get changed in an actual changing room and onto poolside this has also appeared on the disabled changing room door. It’s going to be a big job to get the disabled changing room back in working order but at least we have now been given a clear date that the work can properly start!
Fridays was another pool swim but this time it felt awful, like I was learning to swim and/or drowning in style. The only positive was that I was reasonably consistent doing 6x500m swims. On days like that I always try to be a bit more positive and just look towards the next training session rather than dwelling on the awful ones!
I woke up on Saturday feeling awful, exhausted and knew I had a concert in the evening so I decided going to the pool wasn’t the best move. Instead I got my Zen8 trainer out. The Zen8 trainer is a great way to train for swimming on dryland. I will be writing a blog about the trainer after I have used it a few more times.
As I said, I had a concert on Saturday evening and what a concert it was! I play for the Huntingdonshire Concert Band and on Saturday we put on a Big Band concert and it was great, we’ve only had positive feedback and the audiences response to our playing was amazing.
Sunday was a well deserved rest day at my parents, I slept most of the morning but in the afternoon took out the bestest boy for a lovely sunny walk.
This was a great week of training, not as much distance in the water as I would like to be at this point but the 2 open water swims and staying in for 30min is a massive step forwards. The lido opens on Friday so I can start adding in some longer swims and get my numbers and distances higher as the open water season starts!
