Oops a bit late updating this after Thursday night's session, but here's the feeble excuse, came back home, downloaded the session from my way too clever HRM (Heart rate monitor, hereinafter referred to as toosmart watch!) filled out my jazzy spreadsheet which is snappily entitled "Masters metres memory 2011" provided to me by both Katie Bun and Ruthie but developed by Trondi, to save my typing I will refer to it as "swim log". If anyone reading this would like a copy, email me at bingeswimmer@googlemail.com or if you leave me your contact details in the comments section of this blog I will happily email a copy to you.
Anyway after all of this obsessive behaviour, (I am beginning to worry if there is a swimming equivalent of OCD) all I had the energy for was to scoff a Marks and Spencer's curry, referee an argument between daughter and husband about chemistry homework and collapse into bed.
Thursday's session was notable for one thing; the reappearance of Terry Edwards, I don't think I've seen him for about 6 years, but he strides onto the pool deck (half way through the warm up!) large as life (a little larger than I remember him, although that is truly the pot calling the kettle black as he has worn much better than I have.)
Terry and I go way, way back having swum together in the newly formed Gateshead Metro club in 1974, he's a couple of years older than me and I used to think he was so cool because he had a pair of Patrick trainers (which he maintained were the epitome of style,) whilst all of us teenagers were nagging our parents for a pair of Adidas Rom or Samba. You will appreciate that this was in the Prehistoric Pre-Nike era. Terry and I have swum as Masters together during the 90's and early 2000's until the arrival of a family gave rise to the current hiatus in his swimming career. It was great to see him and the crack was as good as ever. We'll see if he makes it back after his skiing holiday.
I was completely devoid of any imagination for a session tonight so the Fairy Snow Baby chipped in with this rather cheeky little work out; see below. It was a deceptively sneaky piece of training, the 50's and 75's don't sound much but actually it was 2000m in total and a pretty good chunk of work.
200 Free
400 alternate 100 back 100 brst
8 x 50's freestyle @ 55
8 x 75 @ 85 25 s 25 IM drill 25 swim
8 x 50's freestyle @ 60, 55, 50, 45*
8 x 75 @ 90 cycling through IM order, 25 fly, 25 back, 25 breast then 25 free, 25 fly, 25 back etc
4 x 150 @ 3mins 50 pull, 50 kick 50 swim
300 swim down
Total 3,500 metres
*I am somewhat embarassed at the slow rate at which I am currently swimming, and whilst the turn around time of 45 secs was really tight and meant that I had no rest before pushing off for the next one you only actually have to do one and then you're back to a reasonable rest on the next repeat.
Saturday, 22 January 2011
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Musings on the Great North Swim with 480,300 metres to go
The crack at the pool this evening was all about this years Great North Swim, 4 or 5 of us had entries for the event last year and we were gutted when it was cancelled because of an outbreak of blue green algae. Presumably to avoid a similar situation they've moved the event to June, however it's been scheduled on the same weekend as the British Masters Championships. The Fairy Snow baby and I eventually decided that we would swim on the Friday and Saturday at Leeds and make the dash overnight to catch the lunchtime GNS wave on the Sunday.
So back to training for this year's event (amongst other things) and still working on just getting back into the groove and trying to keep everyone interested, no big numbers in terms of distance or sets.
600 Warm up change stroke every 25 m
3 x 200 IM @ 20s RI kick, drill, swim
3 x 200 pull @ 3.40
4 x 100 @ 1.50
4 x 100 @ 1.45
4 x 100 @ 1.35
4 x 50 kick hard 1st 25, easy 2nd 25 @ 90s
8 x 50 @ 65s add 1 stroke per breathing cycle per 50*
8 x 50 catch up @ 60s
8 x 50 dps** @ 60s
300
4,700 metres
* This wasn't as difficult as it sounds because you could breath in and out of the turn, I probably shouldn't have started breathing every 6 strokes though.
** DPS distance per stroke, shorthand for taking as few strokes per 25 as possible.
So back to training for this year's event (amongst other things) and still working on just getting back into the groove and trying to keep everyone interested, no big numbers in terms of distance or sets.
600 Warm up change stroke every 25 m
3 x 200 IM @ 20s RI kick, drill, swim
3 x 200 pull @ 3.40
4 x 100 @ 1.50
4 x 100 @ 1.45
4 x 100 @ 1.35
4 x 50 kick hard 1st 25, easy 2nd 25 @ 90s
8 x 50 @ 65s add 1 stroke per breathing cycle per 50*
8 x 50 catch up @ 60s
8 x 50 dps** @ 60s
300
4,700 metres
* This wasn't as difficult as it sounds because you could breath in and out of the turn, I probably shouldn't have started breathing every 6 strokes though.
** DPS distance per stroke, shorthand for taking as few strokes per 25 as possible.
Thursday, 13 January 2011
eff off I'm doing breaststroke....... with 485,000 metres left.
Having resolved the problematic piano lesson, I was free to work late and then make the Thursday night session at the new pool in Heworth. For any of you familiar with the aquatic establishments in Gateshead you will know that they have had a huge capital investment programme in swimming pools, Replacing pools in Felling and Blaydon and refurbishing the other three pools in the town.
This is the replacement for that concrete monstrosity which was Felling pool. Sadly the new pool is only a 4 lane 25m but that is a dramatic improvement on the initial plans for a 4 lane 20m pool. There is also an additional surfing thingy! learner pool and kids pool with a fountain and waterfall. I've never managed to make training there since it opened at the end of last year but very nice it is too, a great temperature, decklevel and wave eraser lane ropes so it makes a welcome change to swim in calm water rather than plod through the storm surge in the old Blaydon and Felling pools.
There were only 6 of us turned out for the session and only 3 of us were survivors from Tuesday night. I am also feeling a little smug because I managed to persuade my heart rate monitor to work properly and it finally downloaded all the pretty graphs. I'm not sure if it's not too clever though, cos when I downloaded Tuesday's session the calendar told me that I shouldn't swim on Wednesday (it was red) and today Thursday was amber and it told me that I could train but I should avoid high intensity work or races. I instinctively knew that, cos my body was telling me that I was too knackered to put any effort in, so it was a fairly steady swim and quite uneventful although I did react quite poorly to a suggestion that the 12 x 25's should be swum butterfly, "eff off" was my supportive comment "I'm doing breaststroke."
9 x 100 @ 2.10 warm up 100,free, 100 back, 100 IM x 3
6 x 100 25 swim, 50 catch up 25 swim @ 2.05
6 x 100 @ 2.05 breathing 8 strokes for 1st 25, 6 strokes 2nd 25 and breathing every 4 for last 50
12 x 25 breast @ 45s
12 x 50 @ 65s working on turns
300 pull swim down
Total 3300m
Cumulative total 15,000m
This is the replacement for that concrete monstrosity which was Felling pool. Sadly the new pool is only a 4 lane 25m but that is a dramatic improvement on the initial plans for a 4 lane 20m pool. There is also an additional surfing thingy! learner pool and kids pool with a fountain and waterfall. I've never managed to make training there since it opened at the end of last year but very nice it is too, a great temperature, decklevel and wave eraser lane ropes so it makes a welcome change to swim in calm water rather than plod through the storm surge in the old Blaydon and Felling pools.
There were only 6 of us turned out for the session and only 3 of us were survivors from Tuesday night. I am also feeling a little smug because I managed to persuade my heart rate monitor to work properly and it finally downloaded all the pretty graphs. I'm not sure if it's not too clever though, cos when I downloaded Tuesday's session the calendar told me that I shouldn't swim on Wednesday (it was red) and today Thursday was amber and it told me that I could train but I should avoid high intensity work or races. I instinctively knew that, cos my body was telling me that I was too knackered to put any effort in, so it was a fairly steady swim and quite uneventful although I did react quite poorly to a suggestion that the 12 x 25's should be swum butterfly, "eff off" was my supportive comment "I'm doing breaststroke."
9 x 100 @ 2.10 warm up 100,free, 100 back, 100 IM x 3
6 x 100 25 swim, 50 catch up 25 swim @ 2.05
6 x 100 @ 2.05 breathing 8 strokes for 1st 25, 6 strokes 2nd 25 and breathing every 4 for last 50
12 x 25 breast @ 45s
12 x 50 @ 65s working on turns
300 pull swim down
Total 3300m
Cumulative total 15,000m
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
don't use the term floppy in male company......and only 488,300 metres to go this year
What started so well last week floundered on the rocks of a teenager's piano lesson and the usual domestic communication snafus which are all too common in our household. Even when experience constantly tells me otherwise, I continue to operate under the assumption that if I know something then Bob (husband) must know it as well, (even if I haven't remembered to tell him.) It does make married life interesting! and whilst Bob often employs this standard operating procedure as well, interesting is perhaps not the adjective he would use to describe the inevitable carnage.
Having gone a week without a swim I think I also need to refine my resolution to make it a bit tougher so that the period between sessions is no longer than 1 week. Provided that I manage to make another session this week then although I'm a bit light on the distance I'm still hitting my commitment to swim twice per week.
So down to business, there was a good turn out for this evening's session tonight with 18 of us making the pool side. "I'm Chris fly me" our very own Jetpoodotcom pilot confessed to me that he not only had read this Blog but he had actively searched for it. Now, I'm not really sure what that says about him but I'm reassured that when I jet off on my summer holiday the person driving the plane can at least a. read and b. use google. That wasn't the only feedback I've received this week, the excitement of making it into print in last week's post had obviously invigorated the Park Ranger who not only led the lane the whole session but stayed in until the bitter end.
The programme this evening continued last week's theme of easily digestible chunks i.e nothing more than 600m sets, and to try and trick the rest of our squad into thinking they weren't doing 9 200 repeats I broke them down into 3 separate sets with a different emphasis on each set. We're talking survival swimming and trying to work on stroke length and breathing patterns rather than speed.
12 x 50's Freestyle @ 55s Warm Up
3 x 200 pull @ 3.40, 3.30 steady pace with a decreasing rest
3 x 200 @ 3.45 reducing stroke rate by 1 stroke on every 25 on the 2nd and then the 3rd repeat
3 x 200 @ 3.45 adding an additional stroke per breathing cycle on the 2nd and then the 3rd repeat.
6 x 100 IM @ 2.10
6 x 100 free @ 2.00 progressive no 1 floppy*, no 2 steady pace, no 3 fast 1st 25 steady pace 75, no 4 fast 1st 50 steady 50, no 5 fast 1st 75 steady last 25, no 6 fast.
12 x 50's @ 65s 1-4 back, 5-8 breast, 9 -12 free.
12 x 25's swim down & mixed drills **
Total 4500 metres
Cumulative Total 11,700
* by floppy I mean simply swim easy without any effort, however the use of this term obviously threatened and unsettled the only bloke in the girlie's lane (and given my age I use this term very loosely) as Beckleberry commented, rather defensively I might add "you shouldn't use that word in male company"
** the fairy snow baby accused me of using drills from the 1970's coaching manual, now I know for a fact he spent most of the 70's in the baby pool and improver groups so I don't think he's qualified to comment and anyway they were fun if rather inappropriate for a swim down!
Having gone a week without a swim I think I also need to refine my resolution to make it a bit tougher so that the period between sessions is no longer than 1 week. Provided that I manage to make another session this week then although I'm a bit light on the distance I'm still hitting my commitment to swim twice per week.
So down to business, there was a good turn out for this evening's session tonight with 18 of us making the pool side. "I'm Chris fly me" our very own Jetpoodotcom pilot confessed to me that he not only had read this Blog but he had actively searched for it. Now, I'm not really sure what that says about him but I'm reassured that when I jet off on my summer holiday the person driving the plane can at least a. read and b. use google. That wasn't the only feedback I've received this week, the excitement of making it into print in last week's post had obviously invigorated the Park Ranger who not only led the lane the whole session but stayed in until the bitter end.
The programme this evening continued last week's theme of easily digestible chunks i.e nothing more than 600m sets, and to try and trick the rest of our squad into thinking they weren't doing 9 200 repeats I broke them down into 3 separate sets with a different emphasis on each set. We're talking survival swimming and trying to work on stroke length and breathing patterns rather than speed.
12 x 50's Freestyle @ 55s Warm Up
3 x 200 pull @ 3.40, 3.30 steady pace with a decreasing rest
3 x 200 @ 3.45 reducing stroke rate by 1 stroke on every 25 on the 2nd and then the 3rd repeat
3 x 200 @ 3.45 adding an additional stroke per breathing cycle on the 2nd and then the 3rd repeat.
6 x 100 IM @ 2.10
6 x 100 free @ 2.00 progressive no 1 floppy*, no 2 steady pace, no 3 fast 1st 25 steady pace 75, no 4 fast 1st 50 steady 50, no 5 fast 1st 75 steady last 25, no 6 fast.
12 x 50's @ 65s 1-4 back, 5-8 breast, 9 -12 free.
12 x 25's swim down & mixed drills **
Total 4500 metres
Cumulative Total 11,700
* by floppy I mean simply swim easy without any effort, however the use of this term obviously threatened and unsettled the only bloke in the girlie's lane (and given my age I use this term very loosely) as Beckleberry commented, rather defensively I might add "you shouldn't use that word in male company"
** the fairy snow baby accused me of using drills from the 1970's coaching manual, now I know for a fact he spent most of the 70's in the baby pool and improver groups so I don't think he's qualified to comment and anyway they were fun if rather inappropriate for a swim down!
Tuesday, 4 January 2011
Go-Go Fairy Snow..... and only 492,800 metres left
Owww and ouch! I am now really suffering as in a rare display of mental resolve and dedication I made the Gateshead and Whickham session at the new Blaydon Pool tonight, and with the help of some well timed encouragement from the original Fairy Snow Baby ("FSB") (it's a very old and involved story but he now masquerades under the name of David Chaney) I stayed in for 95 mins during which time we covered 4000m.
I can't really complain too much cos I set the workout, typical Gateshead Masters session no prior consideration, everyone just arrived on the pool side and after a brief consultation discovered I was the only one who had a cunning plan as to how we could amuse ourselves for the next couple of hours.
The work out was very loosely based around a one sided 600 m Hungarian. Regrettably I am too tired and probably incapable of explaining this concept properly, suffice to say that for any non swimmers who may have stumbled upon this Blog and for some unknown reason have continued reading, please just take my word for it that I am not talking about a very tall one legged Eastern European.
600 Warm up
2 x 300 pull @ 5.45s
3 x 200 progressive @ 3.45 No 1 easy, No 2 hard 100 easy 100, No 3 hard 200*
4 x 150 @ 3.30 drill (25 swim, 25 catch up 25 fists**, 25 kayak, 25 catch up, 25 swim)
6 x 100 @ 2.30 working on 4 dolphin kicks off the wall and 2 strokes before take breath on each 25***
12 x 50's @ 70 s up IM order, down free
16 x 25's @ 5s RI Swim down trying to stretch your stroke out and reduce your stroke rate to counter act the fact that for the last hour your stroke has been shortening as you become progressively more tired.
Total 4000m
Cumulative Total 7,800m
My limited thought processes behind this programme were; that this was the first time back after the Christmas break for everyone, (I don't think I'm giving away any state secrets if I divulge that I am not the only Binge Swimmer in my Masters squad, although even if I say so myself I am by far the most accomplished.) so we needed to have a bit more to think about as we were swimming, other than the pain and tedium of churning out length after length, whilst getting progressively slower with an ever increasing stroke rate. Also I have previously referred to my gnat like attention span and therefore I didn't want to do any single swim which would be too long or too many repeats of anything so basing the set around 600 seemed just about right.
For the sake of completeness the swim down should probably have been 24 x 25's but I originally only planned to do 8 so the 16 suggested by the FSB seemed a good compromise and rounded the set out quite nicely. I have added some notes covering my personal struggles and thoughts on the session which may assist if anyone has even more limited imagination than me and wants to try it out.
* the problem with this bit was there was no such thing as easy,
** I should really have known better than to include this drill in the first session back cos fist swimming is bloody hard work, (the full stroke equivalent of kick according to The Park Ranger (Kelly)),
*** the last 25 of each repeat should have been own choice kick, but I was having serious senility issues and kept forgetting the kick bit
Night Night
I can't really complain too much cos I set the workout, typical Gateshead Masters session no prior consideration, everyone just arrived on the pool side and after a brief consultation discovered I was the only one who had a cunning plan as to how we could amuse ourselves for the next couple of hours.
The work out was very loosely based around a one sided 600 m Hungarian. Regrettably I am too tired and probably incapable of explaining this concept properly, suffice to say that for any non swimmers who may have stumbled upon this Blog and for some unknown reason have continued reading, please just take my word for it that I am not talking about a very tall one legged Eastern European.
600 Warm up
2 x 300 pull @ 5.45s
3 x 200 progressive @ 3.45 No 1 easy, No 2 hard 100 easy 100, No 3 hard 200*
4 x 150 @ 3.30 drill (25 swim, 25 catch up 25 fists**, 25 kayak, 25 catch up, 25 swim)
6 x 100 @ 2.30 working on 4 dolphin kicks off the wall and 2 strokes before take breath on each 25***
12 x 50's @ 70 s up IM order, down free
16 x 25's @ 5s RI Swim down trying to stretch your stroke out and reduce your stroke rate to counter act the fact that for the last hour your stroke has been shortening as you become progressively more tired.
Total 4000m
Cumulative Total 7,800m
My limited thought processes behind this programme were; that this was the first time back after the Christmas break for everyone, (I don't think I'm giving away any state secrets if I divulge that I am not the only Binge Swimmer in my Masters squad, although even if I say so myself I am by far the most accomplished.) so we needed to have a bit more to think about as we were swimming, other than the pain and tedium of churning out length after length, whilst getting progressively slower with an ever increasing stroke rate. Also I have previously referred to my gnat like attention span and therefore I didn't want to do any single swim which would be too long or too many repeats of anything so basing the set around 600 seemed just about right.
For the sake of completeness the swim down should probably have been 24 x 25's but I originally only planned to do 8 so the 16 suggested by the FSB seemed a good compromise and rounded the set out quite nicely. I have added some notes covering my personal struggles and thoughts on the session which may assist if anyone has even more limited imagination than me and wants to try it out.
* the problem with this bit was there was no such thing as easy,
** I should really have known better than to include this drill in the first session back cos fist swimming is bloody hard work, (the full stroke equivalent of kick according to The Park Ranger (Kelly)),
*** the last 25 of each repeat should have been own choice kick, but I was having serious senility issues and kept forgetting the kick bit
Night Night
Monday, 3 January 2011
Confessions of a Techno Numpty (oh and 496,800 metres to go)
Well 2 swims in 3 days, not a bad start to the year in terms of actual sessions, but a rather poor 1300m swim, giving me a cumulative total of 3,200 m for the year so far. I am pretty hopeless at swimming on my own having the attention span of a gnat.
I'll confess that in our household we are all gadget freaks and over the last two sessions I have been testing out my latest toy; a heart rate monitor. This was a Christmas present from long suffering husband. Now in a different cyber universe this might be viewed in quite a romantic light, you know a gift which records everyone of my heartbeats, but trust me that's not the case here. The watch downloads the results of the session to your personal training diary on the manufacturer's website and then produces pretty graphs of how your heart rate varies. In a very sad way I find this all fascinating and quite a good motivational tool.
All great in theory but I was just a bit disgruntled when tonight's session didn't load properly, and in actual fact I spent more time trying to get the damn thing to work than I did actually swimming the set which was:-
2 x 400 @ 8mins and 7.30 mins
200 free @ 4 mins
2 x 100 free @ 2mins
100 swim down
Total 1300 m
Cumulative Total 3,200 m
I do know that each swim was progressively faster as I ratcheted up the speed on the Endless Pool after each repeat and my heart rate progressively climbed at the end of each repeat, starting from a steady 135 at the end of the first 400 to a max of 166 at the end of the second 100. Not that any of the swims were particularly fast just that I'm really unfit and struggling.
Back to work tomorrow and my first real test a proper swimming session with my club tomorrow night.
I'll confess that in our household we are all gadget freaks and over the last two sessions I have been testing out my latest toy; a heart rate monitor. This was a Christmas present from long suffering husband. Now in a different cyber universe this might be viewed in quite a romantic light, you know a gift which records everyone of my heartbeats, but trust me that's not the case here. The watch downloads the results of the session to your personal training diary on the manufacturer's website and then produces pretty graphs of how your heart rate varies. In a very sad way I find this all fascinating and quite a good motivational tool.
All great in theory but I was just a bit disgruntled when tonight's session didn't load properly, and in actual fact I spent more time trying to get the damn thing to work than I did actually swimming the set which was:-
2 x 400 @ 8mins and 7.30 mins
200 free @ 4 mins
2 x 100 free @ 2mins
100 swim down
Total 1300 m
Cumulative Total 3,200 m
I do know that each swim was progressively faster as I ratcheted up the speed on the Endless Pool after each repeat and my heart rate progressively climbed at the end of each repeat, starting from a steady 135 at the end of the first 400 to a max of 166 at the end of the second 100. Not that any of the swims were particularly fast just that I'm really unfit and struggling.
Back to work tomorrow and my first real test a proper swimming session with my club tomorrow night.
Saturday, 1 January 2011
Only 498,100 metres to go!
New Years Day and the quest starts in earnest. It’s amazing the things you do to avoid the things you have to do, I found myself this afternoon baking gingerbread and contemplating washing the car for goodness sake! If procrastination was an Olympic sport I'd be giving Michael Phelps a run for his money in the medal stakes. Anything to avoid that New Years day dip.
Anyway I eventually dragged myself to the pool and before you all start being impressed by my dedication to the cause, I’ll mention that I am a sad individual and I own an Endless Pool (albeit a very underutilised one (she shamefully admits)) which is in a room off our living room so it’s hardly a chore. You can tell how regularly I've used it by my waistline, my lack of fitness and the fact that I never switched the pool heating back on after our return from our summer holiday until after I started this blog on Thursday.
Well the water temperature reached a pleasant 28 degrees yesterday so I couldn’t put it off any longer and in an effort to swim off the effects of way too many Kir Royals and glasses of red wine last night, I took the plunge and was surprised to survive a 40 minute session of which 30 minutes was actual swimming time (well 29mins and 56 seconds but whose counting.)
The session was pretty unimaginative and all front crawl, oh yeah and the odd 300m in the middle was because I lost count of my strokes.
2 x 250 @ 4.30s
1 X 300 @ 5.00s
2 x 250 @ 4.30s
6 x 100 @ 2.00 pull
Total 1900m
As you can imagine swimming in a flume the distances are a bit rough and ready, so I count my strokes and reckon that 100 strokes is 100 metres give or take, this is probably a bit of an underestimate as I usually take about 80 strokes per 100 in a 25m pool, but as there are no turns and push offs from the wall I reckon that adds about 20% as I usually manage to clear the flags before I breathe.
Secretly I have to confess there's something really satisfying and just a little bit smug about being able to swim on days and at times when usually you can't access a pool, but that still hasn't been sufficient motivation to persuade me to use the Endless Pool regularly. Maybe that will be another positive spin off from this blog....... as another flying pig is sighted in Deepest Darkest North West Durham
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