His Majesty EMSC 7.0 and the test set!

Somewhere this morning I am sure I became ensnared in a time anomaly, at one point it was 11:30 and the next time I looked at my watch it was 12:26 and too late to make the Consett session.

No bother there's always the Newcastle session later this afternoon. I was just about to set off for Gosforth when something started to niggle at me. City of Newcastle and Newburn had recently morphed into Newcastle Swim Team and sure enough Sunday training was now at the Outer West Pool!  Original name right!

A bit of googling identified this as the old Newburn pool, I think I last swam there in 1989! Anyway I set off and promptly got lost! I was absolutely sure it was on the other side of the A1.

I eventually located the pool after a tour of such salubrious (sorry still in Swansea mode) suburbs as Cowgate, Westerhope. Kenton Bar and Etal Lane. Amazingly (I was only 12 minutes late)

His Highness the Royal EMSC 7.0 sniggered as I walked onto the poolside and advised me that I had selected a "test set" afternoon. Honest he was actually rubbing his hands in glee! Peter French was leading out our lane and he said that they do this roughly once a month and over the last 12 years he's probably swum around 100 of them. "It just charts my demise" he added. Know the feeling Peter!

As test sets go it didn't seem that bad although not being able to go under 80 for 100m max is a little depressing, maybe next time. Anyway a poor week with only two sessions and only 7000 metres swum, will need to make that up at sometime.


5 x 100 pull with paddles @ 2:00
12 x 33 @ 60
as 1-4 3 steady free 4th max 15 metres
    3-8 3 steady no 1 4th max 15 metres
    9-12 steady free  4th max 15 metres
Test Set
3 x 100 steady @ 1:50  95, 96, 96
166 swim down
3 x 100 threshold @ 2:00  88, 90, 90
166 swim down
3 x 100 (200 pace) @ 2:10 86, 85, 83
166 swim down
200 active rest
100 max  1:20
300 swim down
2,800 total