Saturday Session Debunks Conspiracy Theory of an Alien Plot to halt Binge's Quest

My recent abortive attempts to gain access to a public swimming pool were rapidly leading me to believe that there were darker forces at work to thwart me in my quest to complete half a million metres in 2011.

My delusional thoughts of Alien intervention or CIA or worse still Amanda Heath inspired plots disappated as I arrived at the new old pool this morning in glorious sunshine. I was reassured that I was on the right track as I met up with I'm Chris fly me the jetpoodotcom pilot and Matt the Cash in the car park and both of whom then proceeded to inflict some serious mickey taking on me "You're here at the right place and time!" 

It was our first session there having swapped from Heworth Pool and the bonus is we have 3 lanes instead of 2 and it cuts off about 15 minutes from my journey so I didn't have to get up until 7.35am. Things are looking up. I was seriously impressed the refurb job is terrific, the old Dunston Pool looks brand new. New entrance area, new changing village, open plan walkways around the small pool, completely retiled, new gyms and shortened from 27.5 yards to 25 metres.

Probably my first decent session for about 4 weeks, bit of an inauspicious start as we stood around with the kid's coach debating which direction and which way around we were all going to swim. Having ultimately settled on the direction we then decided we'd start from the deep end so we could see the clock. The guys promptly dived in and swam the wrong way round (couldn't work out they were at the other end!)

16 x 50 alt free ba, free br @ 60s & 65s
400 free @ 6.45
4 x 100 IM @ 2.00
2 x 200 free @ 3.40
2 x 200 IM @ 3.50
4 x 100 free @ 1.45
400 IM @ 7.50
8 x 50 free @ 55 secs
50 swim down
12 x 25 IM order, kick, drill swim @ 40s, 35s & 30s
50 swim down
4000 metres

Binge Swimmer 9.8 for intention -10 for execution

There's obviously a bit of a theme going on here, even if it is completely unintended. Monday saw the opening of Dunston Pool in Gateshead, and the introduction of a new set of training times and some changes of venue.

Fairy Snow Baby duly emailed me the amended schedule and the thought of checking out the new (old) pool was the clincher in jumping in the car to make training tonight.

You know what's coming don't you. I arrived at the pool and wandered into the new glass entrance hall with open plan stair case, I got as far as the first floor before a receptionist asked me where I was going..... "The pool, masters session? not here not tonight, she said brandishing a newly printed timetable.

On no is this some kind of record? being denied entry to 2 pools in less than a week it did feed my creeping paranoia. Dejectedly returning home I opted for a Tesco set in the Endless pool and checked my email to discover that this evening's session was actually at Gateshead Leisure Centre...doh! but you can't say I didn't try.

800 warm up
4 x 100 @ 1.45
25 swim down
1225 m

Binge Swimmer maintains raison d'etre

Have you missed me? I am acutely aware that my mission to swim twice a week crashed and burned last week. No sooner had I blogged the immortal words, I need a proper challenge for April and thought that 45,000 metres was doable, my swimming came to a big fat stop.

 As usual I was full of good intentions, but ultimately I was defeated by an inflatable session in the Pingles Pool, Nuneaton. I was seriously out of my comfort zone for a Friday, which as regular readers will know is a regular personal slugfest consisting of  Beer Pizza TV & Sofa, because I had to attend a meeting at ASA HQ.

The evening rapidly deteriorated because it was "Loughborough Singles" night in the hotel (god that was desperate!). Following on from this exciting start to the weekend, I travelled to Nuneaton for a silver wedding, (sadly we are both that vintage when a lot of our university contemporaries are notching up this particular achievement.)

Killing time in Nuneaton before the celebrations kicked off, I thought that I might manage a dip and made my way to the local pool. I arrived there at 1.48pm on Saturday for a quick swim, to be advised by the girl on the desk that I couldn't go in until 2pm and even then I wouldn't be able to swim. (I was beginning to display signs of paranoia, how could she tell by just looking at me?  do I look like a non-swimmer? wasn't my World Swimming Championship's T shirt and Speedo knapsack complete with mouse hole a dead give away?.....)

Of course she had noticed that I didn't have a horde of kids with me, and rightly discerned that I might be looking for a bit of a serious swim.  The next time I could swim would be 9am on Sunday morning, knowing that I was destined for some serious celebrating that evening I immediately rejected that option. With hindsight this might've been the most sensible decision I made all weekend, it was certainly wiser than, yes please I'll have another glass of red or yes I'd love another pudding!

So consequently the only swim I managed was an Endless Pool session, I had intended to swim 1000, 800, 600, 400 and a 200, but was interrupted by Husband advising me that teenage daughter was available to be picked up. Now quite why it was more convenient for me to stop swimming, get out the pool change and go and pick her up, rather than Bob, tear himself away from the television programme he was watching is something that will continue to elude me....

1000 Warm up
800 free
500 free
Total 2300m

Spreadsheet outsmarting Binge Swimmer

Teenage daughter's netball match and a totally batty aunt's 80th birthday party were this week's obstacles (okay then really feeble excuses ) to adding some serious yardage to my total. If I'm trying to find a silver lining then at least I didn't stop completely like last year.

So March was even worse than January and as you can see from the "Slog" above only one reasonable week. I mentioned last week that I need a proper challenge for April and after giving the matter some considerable thought I 've arrived at 45,000 metres which may be harder than I think because with Easter and that wedding and a weekend away and 4 days in Manchester I can foresee a struggle to cover that distance.

My second session this week was a rather hurried Endless Pool dip less than 30 minutes....hardly counts as a swim at all and extremely unremarkable.....

3 x 200 @ 3.45 progressive
2 x 100 @ 2 mins
2 x 100 @ 2.15
4 x 50 @ 60s free
2 x 50 @ 60s breast
25 (Just for KB)
1325 metres

Was this the world's most boring post?

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.