FFC Results...Binge Swimmer humbled by 83 year old....and loses the plot.

Sorry Guys did't quite find the time to blog yesterday's session so I'm playing a bit of catch up. The February Fitness Challenge results were released yesterday and I was feeling quite smug and satisfied with my 5th place until I read on to the 80-84 years age group.. Awesome you can check out the results here

Tuesday's session at Gateshead was probably the worst one I've swum this year, I suffered from quite a nasty attack of cramp and completeley lost the plot in the set of 50's and eventually gave up and got out. I am feeling quite ashamed at giving up so easily. My first out and out scive in 2011.

500 warm up as 50 free 50 drill
5 x 4 x 75 free @ 85, 80,75 and 70
5 x 100 brst kick @ 2.30
4 x 4 x 50 @ 60 55 50 50*
200 swim down
3500 metres

* Completely lost the plot here

Darlington Masters...not so masterful

My 2011 season kicked off at Darlington today and I was a bit disappointed with my swims, I wasn't expecting brilliant results but after all the work I've done I was hoping they would be slightly faster than last years and they weren't. Some of them were downright awful; in summary Breaststroke okayish, Freestyle bleargh, and Backstroke and IM s***e.

I'll have to wait until the results are published cos I wasn't really too switched on to what I was doing. That's one of the problems with ageing isn't it, your failing eyesight because I couldn't read the electronic scoreboard properly at the end of the event.

I am however not totally discouraged, all I've really done is slow aerobic plod stuff and there's plenty of time to work on the speed. I just need to keep my motivation going and to hold onto the thought that had I not done all of this work then I probably would have swum totally rubbish......not very positive but about the best I can come up with at the moment.

I am also back in that nether world of counting today's meet as one of my two swims for the week, I need to seriously think of a yardage challenge for April to try and keep this going, so I've got till Friday to nail my colours to the mast.

1,000 Warm Up  600 swim, 200 for turns, 4 sprints (ish) for starts*
200 free      2.37ish
50 free        33.
100 brst      1.29.6/7ish
100 free      1.13.something or other
50 back      bl**dy awful
50 breast    40.6ish

100 IM      don't even go there

1750 metres

* and dog paddle up the gap between the end lane rope and the wall cos I'm too lazy to climb out and walk back!

**  oo  (trying to be politely profane)

*** hit !

Hoya Hammer Owa Here Hinny!

Not quite the nightmare at work this week but still awful enough to put me off swimming. I was therefore determined to make this morning's session at Heworth, to catch up with the gossip at Gateshead. I feel like I've been neglecting them, and there is increasing evidence that they missed me.

As Bob, turned up at one of his triathlon sessions last Saturday to be met by a bereft Synchro Dad enquiring "What's happened to Binge Swimmer" much to the bemusement of the assembled Durham City Triathletes who have amazingly up until this point (I had to stop myself putting heretofore there) been able to function completely oblivious of the attractions of Binge Swimming.

Predictably however I was late this morning because I had to negotiate cleaning/scrubbing/bleaching the toilet lid in our bathroom before I left. (and before you think too much information) It's a long story which involves teenage daughter and a L'Oreal Mahogany Casting Gloss, and a desire to have hair like Cheryls... she'd done a reasonable job of cleaning up but then discarded the dye stained gloves on the loo lid! (and before you think it she's not worth it!).

Consequently when I arrived at the pool Awesome Emma and Bart the Shark were warming up, I dropped in between them and after about 200 metres Synchro Dad appeared. You can see from the print out below we then had a lengthy discussion about what we should do.

Obviously the promotion to the top lane has gone to Bart's head because he came up with the 2000 medley set. Endorsed with "It's what we did in Poland" he then added the obligatory Geordieism "man" which had us all creased up at the accent which is simply flawless and then creased up at the effort of swimming a continuous medley set of 2000m.

Bart was definitely on form cos in our second lengthy break he proceeded to regale us with his other Geordieisms which included the immortal line in the title of this post. With the Darlo meet tomorrow in mind we threw in a few sharpeners at the end, that final 100 took my pulse rate to 96% of my max (according to the toosmartwatch).


400 Warm Up
2000 as continuous *
4 x 100 IM
2 x 200 IM
1 x 400 IM
2 x 200 IM
4 x 100 IM
4 x 100 @ 2 mins **
2 x 200 @ 2.15 broken 10s @ 50 ***
8 x 25 IM order on 45s
200 swim down
3600m
Home Coffee Croissants .... and home made Rocky Road.....mmmhhh

* I reckon this was about 36 minutes
** went 80, 81, 81 and then lost it a bit with an 84.
*** 78, 81.

Binge Swimmer does it twice again ... although not for long!

Clearly Binge Swimmer wasn't prepared to give up her secondary goal of swimming twice each week in 2011 quite that easily.

With each tick of the clock counting down the seconds to the end of the week and a big fat failure looming as midnight approached (well ok it was half past six!). she threw caution to the wind and with courage born of desperation headed to the Endless Pool for a Tesco Session.

Actually as you can see it was such a short sesh that if Tesco had a barrow in the Metrocentre this would be it.

You'll also notice that I've written this in the third person because I can't quite believe that I've just done this clearly I'm beginning to take this swimming lark seriously, I'm also not sure really whether it should count.

Fortunately however, this is my challenge and not subject to the judgement of the Court of Arbitration for Sport. In other words what I say goes goes and on a strict interpretation of my challenge.... well I'm still hanging in there because it's good enough for me and of course "every little helps"

And here's the proof

500 Warm up free pull
2 x 200 @ 4 mins
100 free
100 brst
Total 1100

Weekly Total 3500 metres

Do Something Funny that Costs Money

What a week I've had, starts off with a horrible two day case from hell  in Newcastle County Court on Monday, lose wallet in multi storey car park on the Quayside, programme the wrong car registration number into my phone so that I park the "wrong" car, inevitably receive a ticket!

Wallet fortunately returned to me by kind stranger, Monday night barely sleep, working on maybe not so clever or persuasive submissions to Judge. Tuesday park car, with right registration number this time, lose wallet (again) (I know I couldn't make this up), win all the evidential points at the hearing but lose the case!

Call in at the local Ford dealers on the way back to the office because the now correctly parked car is making a funny noise and I decide I can no longer ignore the battery warning light which has been flashing at me for the last four weeks. Spend 75 minutes, watching day time TV and  reading "Chat magazine" and "What Car" special, which is curiously only about the new improved Mondeo, waiting for a mechanic to tell me "wheelbearing and corroded battery leads", book car in for work to be done on Friday. Thursday realise that there are no kind strangers around to return my wallet this time, so spend unproductive 97 minutes cancelling all of my credit and debit cards.

Friday drop car off at garage take a taxi to work, on the way back realise that I do not have the technology to pay for the repairs. Walk into the office to discover that our senior partner has set himself up in our waiting room to serenade the unsuspecting clients with sea shanties complete with ukelele accompaniment (I know the credit crunch has hit us hard John but busking!) all in the name of Comic Relief.

Somehow I survive the strangest and most surreal day when I am alternately pelted by a red furry ball that cackles with laughter or entreated to buy a tombola ticket with a chance to win a variety of red "goodies", (and I use that term advisedly).

My streak of bad luck continues when instead of Malteasers I win: a bottle of red Fairy liquid, A red umbrella and a red aerosol of "Charlie" deoderant. Have a truly mad afternoon and eventually lift my head and breath a sigh of relief that this week's over at 5.24pm........

Only to realise that I've forgotten to collect my car, the garage shuts at 5.30 and it's 13 miles away.

And not a trip to the swimming pool in sight my most miserablest week since starting this blog and I've also only swum once this afternoon.....so my plan to swim at least twice a week is now in tatters.....

There were only three of us this afternoon, Keith, Nigel and myself and having fully rested (more by accident then design) over the last week, and with an eye on Darlington Masters Meet next Sunday, I thought we'd try and pick the pace up a little with some hard efforts! as you can see from the spikes in the  print out below.


500 Pull Warm Up @ 10 mins
400 IM Drill Fly @ 8 mins
300 Pull @ 6 mins
200 Alt ba, brst *
100 broken 5 secs rest @ 33 10secs rest @ 66 No 1 stroke**
66 broken 10s rest @ 33 No 1 stroke
33 sprint
200 easy
12 x 33's @ 60s prog 1-4, 5-8, 9-12
200 swim down
2400m

*long rest psyching up for the next bit!
** swam a net time of around 1.29 ish which I was quite happy with.

The Leaky Goggle

Bit of a technical problem in training this afternoon, a leaky goggle, which drove me crackers during the session and resulted in a bit of blurred vision, so much so that when I was paying for my swim on the way out I handed Queenie Reed 30p instead of £1.20, and then walked away.

I wouldn't make a successful con artist trying to  short change QR though (well she is an executive at HSBC bank) so not suprisingly she noticed my cunning plan and I was rather embarassingly called back before I could make a clean getaway.

Oops

Bit of a mish mash of a swim session, it was a Clarkie/Binge collaboration. The breaststroke set was pretty hard work as my 164 heart rate testifies.

400 Warm up 33 free alternate 33 back & breast
6 x 66's free @ 90s steady 1st 33, build 2nd 33
6 x 100 pull @ 1.50
6 x 66's @ 1.45 brst steady 1st 33, build 2nd 33*
6 x 33's kick @ 60s
6 x 33's free @ 45s
200 swim down
2400 m total
Weekly Total 12,000 m (comfortably back in a green week)

* probably swimming between 62's and 65's for these

Poo Free Pool & Too Much Information.

I fully intended to swim on Thursday evening, and I was therefore profoundly disappointed (honest) when I received an email to say because there was a problem with the pool, it had been closed and training was cancelled.

Of course there was no elaboration on what the problem actually was, so you know how nature abhors a vacumn, well my fertile imagination and slightly grubby mind immediately began filling in the blanks with images of little round number 2's rolling around on the bottom of the pool.

I know from my time as a life guard a lifetime ago (during student vacations) that generally these items sink; although there was one particularly memorable incident when an offending child produced a floater which managed to make its way in an ever fraying glop from the shallow end to the deep end before it could be scooped out with a bucket. Aah technology...

Anyway I hasten to add in the form of a disclaimer I have no evidence whatsoever that Heworth Pool was closed by a Poo Alert on Thursday and it was certainly not evident when I arrived there this morning. The pool was its usual pristine self.

As for the sesh, no sign of Synchro Dad (probably out cycling to Katmandu before breakfast) which left Fairy Snow Baby and myself to work out the work out so to speak. We are pretty much on the same wavelength when it comes to swimming and what we should be doing (probably because we've been swimming together for the last 30 odd years). We opted for distance (it's easier than speed!) and between us came up with almost half an 800 Hungarian, we ran out of time in the 25's

I'm definitely swimming better than I was when I started this blog and although the short interval 100's were very hard I managed them on 1.40. We completed 4600m in about 1 hour and 26 minutes (because I started my watch whilst we were dithering in the side as to what we were going to do) so I'm beginning to swim well under the 2 mins per 100 average swim speed.

800 warm up 75 swim 25 drill
2 x 400 @  6.45 pull paddles *
4 x 200 @ 3.30 pull
8 x 100 @ 1.40 swim
16 x 50 up IM down free @ 65 s 
16 x 25 @ 25***
200 swim down
4600m
* swam about 6.12's for these
**these started as medley changeover but morphed into up medley order down free as I wasn't getting any rest.
*** rest was in scant supply here and was sort of a slow flop around the wall and then push off.

Fairy Snow Baby talks tough....

Shock horror I turn up for training to night and not only had the Fairy Snow Baby thought ahead but he produced a printed session. I mean to steal a Ron Weasleyism "bloody hell" that's nearly organised.  However a closer perusal of the sheet and he had us doing 5.8k and a couple of nasty sets which were going to nip a bit.

Obviously the Fairy Snow Baby got out of the wrong side of bed today or has been eating more than his share of red meat. The first thing he did was promote Bart the Shark into the top lane, where he was always destined to be.

You might notice there's no heart rate print out tonight because this not too smart swimmer, forgot to take her toosmart warch, and in a stunning moment of senility I put the chest strap on and it was only when I went to start toosmart watch just before I dived in I realised I wasn't wearing it...

6 x 150's @ 2.30 warm up
8 x 100 @ 1.40s 
8 x 50's back @ 1.10
8 x 100 @ 2 mins IM
8 x 50's brst @ 1.10
4 x 100 @ 1.35's 
8 x 50's fly drill
4 x 100s @ 2 mins reverse IM
6 x 75's pull @ 80s
50 swim down
5000m*

*The FSB's scheduled 5.8k disappeared in a mass of chat between the sets. (I was extremely grateful for the extra rest.)

Binge Swimmer Marches On.....Feebly

After a fairly disastrous weekend, which involved my opportunities to swim clashing with amongst other things; a haircut, Bob running a triathlon coaching course, a miserable teenager whining about not wanting to be left home alone (even when she was in bed asleep for the whole time I would have been out the house,) and one of my more feckless waif and stray clients succeeding in getting herself arrested in Darlington, (and there I was beginning to believe that she'd finally gone straight, I'm such an eternal optimist); I finally managed to make it to a swimming pool. (You can't believe that's all one sentence can you!)

Now although I've swum three times this week, because Monday's session was in last month, (I know that sounds strange)  my stupid spreadsheet wouldn't count it in this week's total and therefore I was unable to turn my swim log for this week green aarghhhhh the humiliation my first red week since the 16th January. I'm slipping.

You see how hopeless I am when left to my own devices, I clearly need the pressure from the FFC to instill that steely determination and motivation to keep going. Ah well it's my turn to be "home alone" so I'm blogging in glorious solitude with rubbish music blaring out at levels that Elfin Safety inspectors may well deem dangerous... no one to complain about it though...Glorious.

There were only 4 of us at Consett this afternoon, where it fell to me to set the work out, I knew this was likely as I drove in to the pool to be passed by the Incumbent Christine cycling in the opposite direction, curiously not on her incumbent bike. Now I am trying to get myself out of slow plod mode so I added the set of 100's with the decreasing time interval.

During the swim both Clarkie and I were more than a little concerned during the first set of 100's that we might have to adjust the last set, but before we got the chance "Nightshift" pushed off, (despite all his moaning at the beginning; he was flying), and we could do nothing else but blindly and very painfully follow, completing the last 4 repeats, (although you can see from the print out below it was all way above my comfort zone.)

400 warm up*
3 x 4 x 33 @ 3 mins
4 x 100 @ 1.45  **
6 x 33 @ 40 s recovery
4 x 100 @ 1.40s  **
6 x 33 @ 40 s recovery
4 x 100 @ 1.35s  **
6 x 33 kick @ 60s
200 pull swim down
2800 m

* you can see I had a 400 theme going on
** these were all under 85 even the last one.

March Madness and only 357,000 metres to go.

Phew February Fitness Frenzy Finished, and I'm given an immediate dose of reality when all of the tasks I've sidelined whilst I concentrated on swimming and blogging recently came back and started to bite me in the bum. So it wasn't until last night when I finally made it to the pool for the first time this month.

I endured a bit of ribbing from my team mates (particularly Synchro Dad) because of my absence on Tuesday, but I think the rest had done some good as my times were starting to pick up and I was quite pleased with the hard set of number one (I know it was hardly a set 2 x 25's and 2 x 50's) and the 3 x 100 @ 90 at the end.


Here's what we did

10 x 100 Warm up 100 back, 100 free, 100 IM @ 2mins, 1.40mins, 2 mins
12 x 75's,  25 No 1 @ 30s  50 free @ 55
25, 50, 75, 50, 25 pull @ 30, 55, 80*
25, 50, 75, 50, 25 kick @ 40, 1.20, 2.00
1 mins rest
25 no 1 @ 40
50 no 1 @ 80
50 no 1 @ 80
25 no1 @ 40
1 mins rest
25, 50, 75, 50, 25 kick @ 40, 1.20, 2.00

25, 50, 75, 50, 25 pull @ 30, 55, 80

3 x 100 @ 90s  83, 85, 84's** 

200 swim down

3400 metres

* there is an obvious pattern to this but the boys just didn't see it!
** very pleased that there were only 3 of these