Easter break gives perfect excuse not to swim! (and eat chocolate)

Oops a week without swimming and then the Easter break so no swimming on this coming  Sunday and Monday.

Thanks to that week in Lanzarote at the beginning of the month see from here to here, I'm pretty much on track for the mile a day challenge.  But the Speedo keep going day after day challenge  looks a bit dodgy! because it will be 3 swims in 10 days leaving me a bit to do.

Those nice Speedo PR people supplied my with some cool photos of their products to enhance my ramblings. They were obviously concerned that their Endurance+ brand was associated with the image from the last post.

(although I wonder if they expected me to add my own twist!)

No Matt the Cash or Fairy Snow Baby at this morning's session, and no kids either, so the 10 of us who turned up spread out over the 6 lanes. We were even able to designate our own antenatal lane for Awesome Emma and Marie-Helene who are valiantly keeping going despite burgeoning bumps.

You can tell I came up with the session can't you (the pull with paddles and the 125's are a bit of a give away)

600 warm up change stroke each 25
3 x 200 @ 3:40 100 drill, 100 build
8 x 25 free @ 35s progressive 1-4 & 5-8
10 x 100 pull with paddles 4 @ 1:35, 4 @ 1:40 2 @ 1:45
8 x 125's @ 2:30 50 pull, 25 kick, 50 swim
200 swim down
3,600 total.

Saggy Bums and Cleavage?

The second day of the new Speedo Endurance+ test, it's a different cut to my normal suits and my initial thought on donning it yesterday was "no saggy bum" (or maybe that was a reflection on the amount of weight I'd put on during my holiday.)

Not sure about the top half of the suit though as there's a liner in the which gives me a cleavage! something which is pretty alien to me in general never mind in a cossie.

So Sunday session and not a 100 in sight what's wrong with Evil Mutant Swim Coach 1.0? As you can surmise from the warm up I was a bit late and Clarkie enquired if I was "making up for being early yesterday?"

Having had 10 days out I'm struggling a bit and trying to pick up the pace in the final set was just a tad difficult.


133 swim
200 swim 66 pull 33
3 x 100 @ 1.45 as no 1 3 x 33's @ 35, no 2, 66 @ 70 33 @ 35, no 3 straight 100
66 @ 70
133 @ 2:20
200 @ 3.30
133 @ 2:20
66 @ 70
60s rest
200 @ 3.30

133 @ 2:20
66 @ 70

133 @ 2:20
200 @ 3.30
60secs rest
1 x 66 @ 70
20 secs rest
2 x 66 @ 70
20 secs rest
3 x 66 @ 70
20 secs rest
2 x 66 @ 70
20 secs rest
1 x 66 @ 70
133 swim down

2733 

Binge sells out to commercialism (there's no such thing as a free suit)

It's taken me a good 10 days to find my way to the pool after my week chasing Joolz and Noolz. 

I arrived home to find a pack of freebies courtesy of Speedo, an endurance plus suit, a pair of goggles and  swim cap. I have to take the Speedo keep going swim after swim challenge 20 swims in 30 days and then evaluate the suit.

I felt a bit guilty that it's taken me a week to start the challenge but the water test began today so hopefully it'll provide a bit of motivation to keep going.

How's your weather, unusually we've escaped the worst of the snow but it was bl**dy freezing and the wind was blowing a hoolie. Bob and arrived a couple of minutes early (shock horror) and walked to the entrance where the receptionist refused to open the doors leaving us freezing on the pavement.

Needless to say we beat a hasty retreat to the warmth of the car (well it is hot magenta!) see here for explanation! I couldn't quite summons up a response to her cheerful good morning and wide smile when we walked in 3 minutes later....Fume spit some customer service training needed me thinks.

Matt the Cash was into quality again but sadly I wasn't and simply ploughed through his set. The 100's breaststroke.

700 warm up change stroke each length
8 x 25 @ 35 progressive 1-4 & 5-8
4 x 100 @ 2 mins fast
4 x 75 @ 2 mins faster
6 x 50 @ 90 secs sprint
100 swim down
6 x 75's kick @ 90s
4 x 100 breast @ 2:10
150 swim down
3000 metres

Girls on Tour day 7 (BInge takes Girls On Tour Title)

I have of course spent the whole of this boot camp (special thanks have to go to Judith’s divorce blog for such an apposite description of what I had previously thought of as a holiday) hanging off the back of Joolz and Noolz, (who are even more seriously competitive than me).

I therefore chose our last evening, (when it was too late for them to do anything about it,) to hit them with the earth shattering news that I had actually done 56 minutes more swimming then both of them HA!

I had spent a good 600 metres of this evening’s session calculating this on the basis that they had swum every 50m at the very least 4 seconds faster than me and then very kindly (don’t believe it was out of the goodness of their hearts they were just after more rest) waiting for me to finish before they started the next repeat.

So Binge wins the Lanzarote challenge! the elation of this victory was so great I even forgot to buy a Magnum as I walked past the supermercado! Drat

Now this may seem a little unfair because I’d just made the challenge up and it was clearly playing to my strengths basing it upon how long we spent in the water actually swimming. I mean anything to do with speed or efficiency (i.e proper swimming aims) both of which the dynamic duo possess in spades just wouldn’t be fair on me would it?

Last session tomorrow morning....sadly

AM

200 free easy

2 x 50 back

200 easy

2 x 50 breast

200 easy

2 x 50 fly drill

200 easy

Main set

400 pull with paddles

2 x 200 IM

4 x 100 50 swim, 25 drill, 25 kick

8 x 50’s IM order

4 x 100

2 x 200

400 pull with paddles

300 free swim down

4200

PM

400 free warm up

3 x 200 swim 50, drill 50, kick 50 swim 50 @ 4:00

8 x 50’s @ 75s mixed drills and strokes

8 x 50’s free sprint 1^st 25 of every 4^th length

200 pull steady

8 x 50’s breast sprint 1^st 25 of every 4^th length

200 pull steady

8 x 50’s free sprint 1^st 25 of every 4^th length

200 pull steady

3000m

Girls on Tour Day 6... Are Triathletes Aliens?

Day 6 and things are going down hill fast, maybe I should have had something a bit more nutritious before this afternoon’s session than an ice cream (stracciatelli for the ice cream aficionados amongst you), a drink of water and some crisps. 

After most of the day spent sitting on a sunbed I now have some quite tender and very hot pink bits.

This morning’s session was fairly uneventful but this afternoon the world and his wife turned up for a swim as we hit the pool. 

Why do they all have to have horrible strokes and wetsuits and bin-lid paddles! and bl**dy hell will someone teach them to tumble turn! 

In fact instead of the latest Garmin on their wrists will someone invent a bloody gyroscope to make them swim straight.

We spent about 30 minutes weighing up the quality of the “athletes” in the 2 unallocated lanes, which included at least two people running up and down in water, what is the point of that!

We decided that some of the strokes were so dodgy that it would be an elf and safety matter if we got in with them so we spent a further 20 minutes sitting on the side. Joolz obviously was anxious to atone for dipping out of yesterday’s quality set and started the warm up swimming 25 meter reps at the far end of lane 8.

I had clearly lost the will to live as can be deduced from my comments below so I struggled out of the pool and into the supermercado to console myself with yet another Almond Magnum

8 x 50’s free 25 swim, 25 drill @ 10s RI

4 x 100 free 25 drill, 50 swim 25 kick @ 20s RI

8 x 50’s swim prog 1-4 and 5-8 @ 20s RI

200 free steady @ 3:45

200 free 25 hard 175 steady @ 3:45

200 free 50 hard 150 steady @ 3:45

200 free 75 hard 125 steady @ 3:45

200 free 100 hard 100 steady @ 3:45

200 free 125 hard 75 steady @ 4:00

200 free 150 hard 50 steady @ 4:00

200 free 175 hard 25 steady @ 4:00

200 free hard @ 4:00

8 x 100 IM’s (25 fast IM order cycle through the strokes) @ 2:15

200 swim down

4000 metres

PM

Pre warm up mutter and bitch at the stupid triathletes with the audacity to try and swim in our lane. It’s a swimming pool for gods sake, 

3 x 200 as

Easy Swim

Drill 4 x 50’s

Easy Swim

4 x 50 brs drill @10s RI

4 x 50 brs kick @ 10s RI

2 x 100 pull with paddles @ 1:50

400 free pull with paddles

4 x 50 brs drill @ 10s RI

4 x 50 brs kick @ 10s RI

2 x 100 free pull with paddles

400 free pull * despite having to rescue the session

4 x 50’s lost the will to live and can’t remember what this was

2,800 metres

Girls on Tour Day 5 Evil Mutant Swim Coach 4.0 shows his true colours (and my 300th post)

I’ve mentioned before that me and quality sets simply don’t mix (see here) well although Evil Mutant Swim Coach 4.0 is not here he obviously thought it would be fun to try and test us a little bit.

Hmm not amused my heart rate went through the roof and toosmartwatch was telling me that I was clinically dead.

The only bit of compassion from EMSC 4.0 was that it was our only session yesterday but who can sprint 200m breaststroke! after that and a pulse rate of about 97% of maximum I thought the best thing to do was to give up so I wimped out the rest of the set.

Warm Up

200m free easy pace

4 x 50 alt free and breast drills @ 20s RI

4 x 50 alt free and breast kick @ 20s RI

300 free steady pace

2 x 50 alt free and breast drill

2 x 50 alt free and breast kick

2 x 50 alt free and breast sprint

Main Set

2 x 100 brst sprint @ 3mins RI

2 x 100 free sprint @ 3mins RI

200 free build

200 brst sprint (haha!)

200 free

2200 

Girls On Tour Day 4 A bit of lane rage?

It's all somewhat predictably getting a bit much we've been reduced to a shadow of our former selves as you can see.

For the third day in a row we've done two sessions, more or less sticking to Evil Mutant Swim Coach 4.0's plan and covered over 7k which is a lot for me.

This evening was a breaststroke session which we were forced to curtail as we were sharing our lane with two triathletes and initially a woman who was running up and down the pool vertically.

She clearly doesn't get it does she it's called a swimming pool! In fact she wasn't the problem because she disappeared after we'd lapped her twice in the first 200.

What is it about Triathletes and swimming, they have no lane discipline and can't work out when other swimmers are likely to push off to start a repeat.

Joolz and Noolz took to ploughing over them, I quite enjoyed sitting on the feet of one of them, I was doing breaststroke kick and he was doing front crawl, and got an immense amount of satisfaction holding my kick board over his ankles.

I had to have a power nap this afternoon, much to Noolz's amusement as she took some very unflattering photos, and when she snuck up to take some more I screamed and jumped out of bed. It was extremely effective in giving her a heart attack..... tee hee hee hee (Muttley snigger)

AM

300 free easy pace @ 20s RI

2 x 50’s bk steady @ 10 s RI

200 free easy pace @ 20 s RI

4 x 50 2 x bk, 2 x br @ 10s RI

100 free easy pace @ 20s RI

6 x 50 2 x bk, 2 x br 2 x fly @ 10s RI

Main Set

400 pull paddles

2 x 200 (drill 50m IM 150 free easy)

4 x 100 @ 1:45 pull with paddles

8 x 50 @ 65 25 medley fast 25 free steady

4 x 100 @ 1:45 pull with paddles

2 x 200 (drill 50m IM 150 free easy)

400 pull paddles

20 x 50's @ 70 25 brst kick 25 free, 25 brst swim 25 kick

5000 metres 

200 easy free

4 x 50's 25 brst kick 25 free swim

200 easy free

2 x 100's 25 kick, 25 drill brst 50 free

200 easy free

8 x 50's @ 65 s free 25 fast, 25 easy 25 easy, 25 fast   

4 x 100 @ 2 :10 alternate 25 brst fast 75 free easy, 50 brst fast 50 freeeasy

8 x 50's kick I lost it here

4 x 50's brst pull with paddles

200 swim down (we were kicked out)

2600 session

7600 daily total

Girls on Tour Day 3.... Alien Encounter

So some people have no staying power, as I was abandoned in the Sports Bar last night by the dynamic duo who begged off claiming they were knackered, admittedly whilst I finished off yesterday’s blog and caught up on some work (Binge the saddo).

Ok I’m about to take you on a journey to the twilight zone because the Lanzarote temporal anomaly descended on apartment 246B this morning; not satisfied with deserting me in the bar last night Joolz decided that we should all get up an hour early!!!!!

The alarm on her phone went off (allegedly) at 8am and as I struggled to consciousness, she just happened to mention it was 8 o clock and offered to make coffee.

Now I know for sure that I am not a morning person and at the back of my mind there was a thought trying to surface, that it was a bit dark outside but you’ll appreciate that my synapses weren’t properly firing on all cylinders. No problem for Noolz who soon put her right as she started crashing around in the kitchen that it was only 7 o clock!

There seems to be a limited number of logical explanations for this firstly there is a temporal distortion in our apartment, or secondly she was abducted by aliens in the night who reset her phone. (Come to think of it an alien implant would explain why she swims so bloody fast) of course she could have done it all deliberately to satisfy her more sadistic tendencies.  (She obviously has a great future as a coach should she want a change of career)

Another day in paradise.

AM

400 Easy

100 brst kick

300 Easy

100 IM steady

100 IM Kick

1 x 200 IM steady

2 x 200 Free @ 3:45 holding 3:10s

4 x 50 fly (drill) @ 10s RI

1 x 200 IM Steady

2 x 200 Free @ 3:45 holding 3:10s

4 x 50 back @ 10s RI (becoming intimately acquainted with the lane rope)

1 x 200 IM steady

2 x 200 Free @ 3:45 holding 3:10s

4 x 50 brst @ 10s RI

1 x 200 IM steady

2 x 200 Free @ 3:45 holding 3:10s

4 x 50 free @ 10s RI

4500 metres total

PM

300 free easy pace @ 20s RI

2 x 50’s bk steady @ 10 s RI

200 free easy pace @ 20 s RI

4 x 50 2 x bk, 2 x br @ 10s RI

100 free easy pace @ 20s RI

6 x 50 2 x bk, 2 x br 2 x fly @ 10s RI

Main Set

400 steady pace @ 30s RI

4 x 100 25 sprint IM 75 easy free @ 30 s RI

4 x 50 IM order sprint  @ 1:30s

2 x 200 IM kick 25, swim 25 @ drill 25 swim 25

100 swim down

2700 metres

Daily total 7,200 metres