Binge imprisons child in car and wimps out of session. Wednesday 9th July

It was Wednesday before I managed to get back into the swim of things after the weekend's little jaunt. It should've been Tuesday but the Brazil v Germany game took over.

My head wasn't really in the session and I dived out after just under an hour. I was also very popular with my family as I had managed to lock teenage triathlete in the car (playing with her new phone) and Bob had to divert to Gateshead to save her.

My exit was carefully planned after EMSC 5.0 had left to go and watch the footie of course.

500 free
3 x 100 IM @ 20 sRI (no 1 Kick, No 2 Drill, No 3 Swim)
6 x 75 25 pull, 25 kick 25 swim
8 x 150 @ 2:50
100 steady
2 x 150 @ 1:40
2700 metres

Girls on Tour: The Trip to Trieste Day 3 July 6th

Our trip sadly came to an end but not without a great night out, starting with kir royal's and then  dinner in the company of our new found friends.

We left them watching the Dutch v Costa Rica, and set off on a shopping expedition. It was festival time and the shops were open till midnight.

It's great wandering around continental cities late at night, the cafe culture, the crowds, there were dance competitions going on and we spent a very pleasant couple of hours refining the art of the selfie.

Determining to squeeze the last amount of value out of our trip, after a leisurely breakfast (including cake) we had to sneak out for a last swim in the women only beach.

We thought we'd get there early (9:30) only to discover the world and his wife (or rather just all of the wives) were out on the beach. We found a spot to drop our towels about four metres from the water's edge and hobbled painfully across the pebbles into the sea (much to the local's amusement they were all suitably attired in Jelly sandals).

Made it (just)

We were also seriously overdressed in our speedos as most of the others were wearing bikini bottoms only. We did however cover another 1000 metres of head up breaststroke.
Not really sure that this will assist in the Montreal preparation but it was a very civilised.

The trip back for our flight was interesting, (in an adrenalin rush sort of way ) we thought 40 minutes for the ride to the airport, absolutely wrong!

The Taxi arrived about 15 minutes late to start with and the road out of Trieste to the motorway was nose to tail traffic. I was trying to suppress a growing feeling of anxiety and unease which was only slightly allieviated by the taxi driver playing opera at full blast. He spoke no English but obviously realised the urgency and where he could put pedal to the metal depositing us at the airport at 12:28pm the flight left at 13:00. We cleared security and made it to the gate by the skin of our teeth.

Girls on Tour: The Trip to Trieste Day 2 Lost in Translation Saturday 5th July

Saturday 5th July and we were off to the Bruno Bianchi Swimming Pool for the Masters Swimming Open Day.

The Italian day was focused on the over 65 years and they had thought about trying to arrange a Guinness world record attempt for the most over 65 year olds in a relay.

The day started with a tour of the  facilities which were incredible an indoor 10 lane 50 metre pool, Outdoor 50 metre pool and a diving competition pool.

We met our host and the delegates from the Netherlands and LEN and then attended a round table with representatives from different sports,
the medical profession and local government.

Now this was not as informative as you may imagine because it was conducted in Italian and my language skills just about manage to communicate in and comprehend English.

Shazza and I were assisted by the LEN rep Katharina (who spoke no fewer than 6 languages engendering feelings of complete inadequacy in me) and pretty much picked up the gist of it.

By now the swimmers had graduated to the outdoor pool for their relay, and we had the opportunity to chat about Masters whilst enjoying the spectacle, (note a 55 x 50 over 65 years relay team does take rather a long time and loses a touch of urgency).

Whilst photos and presentations took place we managed to sneak into the outdoor pool for a quick swim (a rather token 600 metres).
Our day concluded with a meeting to discuss the project and results and then Shazza and I hit the Beach.

Now the term "Beach" may well be introducing a note of hyperbole, as there was no sand and  amazingly it was segregated with women on one side and men on the other.

Anyway it was a gorgeous early evening and we covered a very civilised 800 metres (extremely  rough estimate) head up breaststroke before dragging ourself off for dinner.

Girls on Tour: The Trip To Trieste Day 1 July 4th

My training was significantly interrupted by a trip to the Italian City of Trieste this week.

The purpose of this road trip was to attend a swimming conference with our new Masters Swimming Officer Sharon Lock

The trip was funded by the EU and gave me the chance to catch up with Sharon, who is just as obsessed with swimming as I am and we managed to talk about Masters pretty much the whole weekend.

Of course because it was funded by that fat cat institution the EU we flew by that blue ribbon airline Ryanair out of Birmingham. I drove to Loughborough to pick Shazza up and we hit our first snag.

Techno geek that I am, on leaving SportsPark I asked Siri to "navigate to Birmingham Airport" only to be met by the retort "It is quite a way from here" well I bl**dy hope not cos we only had 3 hours until our flight took off!

My incompetent phone then tried to give me directions for the 4241 miles to Birmingham Alabama.

Hmm Great start! a change of tactics simply asking him to take me to Birmingham, West Midlands and we were off, we were so busy chatting that we missed the turn off on the motorway resulting in about a 12 mile detour.

Anyway after a very uneventful flight courtesy of Ryanair we arrived in the North Italian City of Trieste, checked into our hotel and hit the streets for a pizza for supper (well when in Rome?)

We spent all day Friday preparing a paper for funding to run a Masters Conference in November and we finally finished around 6:30. We then set off to look for a swimming pool to try and get some yards in. By the time we wandered down to the beach it was around 7:20pm and the whole place closed up at 7:30pm so botheration a swim free day.

Now as devotees of this Blog will know a swim free day (or month for that matter) for the Binge Swimmer is something I can take in my stride.But, I suspect that for Sharon it was a big deal and I felt pretty guilty that I had to be prised away from a game of Candy Crush on the iPad.

Not sure about the quality of the pool though as we wandered into a rather dilapidated 1930's art deco concrete structure which must have been very grand at one time in its history but was sadly in need of some TLC and some walls to turn on at the end of each lap.

So no swim session to blog about although on Sunday 29th June I put in a 3000 metre session with Newcastle but can't for the life of me remember what it was.

Very Short Saturday Set and even shorter post Saturday 28th June

A short Saturday set with the triathletes, forced upon me by the need to meet teenage triathlete for some shopping.

So I skived off early can't say I was upset about that.



200 steady @ 20 s RI
2 x 50 hard @ 10 ri
200 steady @ 20 s RI
2 x 50 hard @ 10 sri
200 steady @ 20 s RI
2 x 50 hard @ 10 sri
500 steady @ 20 s RI
4 x 25 @ 10s RI
400 steady @ 20s RI
4 x 25 @ 10s RI
300 steady @ 20s RI
4 x 25 @ 10s RI
200 swim down
2600 metres

Bl**dy Butterfly set (more like a drowning moth) Wednesday 25th June

Sorry I'm still on the catch up blogging bit so bear with me.

I was rewarded for making the trek to Gateshead this evening (25th June) with EMSC 5.0 living up to his especially evil credentials as he inflicted the following set on us.

The 20 x 25's fly were a bit of an effort particularly with the single arm drills which really confused my breathing patterns.

I have to say it was pretty ugly but I completed them (in a fashion) I was reminded of the reason why I rarely swim fly in competition!

600 free as 100 catch up, 100 finger trail, 100 DPS
8 x 75 @ 10s RI alt brst/free 25 k 25 d 25 s
4 x 25 fly @ 40 s Rt arm drill
4 x 25 fly @ 40s left arm drill
4 x 25 fly @ 40s ssddssdd
4 x 25 fly @ 40s sdsd
4 x 25 fly @ 40s swim
5 x 200 150 free steady, 50 no 1 hard in IM slot
5 x 100 IM @ 2:00
200 swim down
3400 metres

Tues 24th June & some catch up blogging which is short but not particularly sweet

I've had a massive fail in publicising how my Montreal training is going so I'll try and catch up over the course of this weekend.

Week 8 saw me hit the Tuesday Gateshead session for the second time, this month.

EMSC 5.0 was in great form and mixed it up with more medley stuff and some Breaststroke (have I ever mentioned I hate training breaststroke.)

300 free long strong
4 x 100 IM kick
400 shark drill
4 x 350 @ 6:00
8 x 25 @ 45 build 1-4 & 5-8
4 x 100 breast @ 2:10
8 x 25 breast @ 45s build 1-4 & 5-8
2 x 175 @ 3:00
3700