An Uninspiring Thursday

Ultimately there's something more than faintly comic about swathing yourself in skin tight rubber and jumping into 14 degree water, it certainly doesn't make for flattering photos.

So serious training for the British Championships next month, well ok not particularly serious as I couldn't quite motivate myself to make training on time
no excuses today just simply late for the session, although not quite as late as last week.


You can tell from the warm up (I missed the first half) that it was a Matt the cash session as he loves swimming the 100's free, back and IM.

By extending my swim down while the staff were removing the lane ropes and with a bit of ducking and diving  (mostly under the untethered wave erasers) I covered an almost respectable French Riviera session (le touquet)

A more unremarkable than usual print out.











6 x 100 as 100 free @ 1.40, 100 back @ 2 mins 100 IM @ 2 mins
18 x 50s @ 65 secs medley changeover
8 x 25 @ 45s sprint 1st 12.5 metres on odd lengths, last 12.5 metres on even lengths.
300 pull swim down

2000 metres

Boring Tuesdays and Olympic Tickets.

I don't know about you but I was quite relieved when I checked my credit card balance on line yesterday and discovered that I hadn't yet been allocated any Olympic tickets. We're planning on pitching  a tent in Bob's brother's back garden for the duratio of the games.

Back at the pool this evening, there were about 25 of us turned up and spread across three lanes it made for some interesting swimming and meant that mercifully there were no long repeats.

Of note was the return to the fold of Daddy Dom who was responsible for the first set which took some explaining. I turned up a little late and missed the warm up not helped by leaving my chest strap for the toosmartwatch in the car.

The longish freestyle set gave you a bit to think about other than this is nearly 2000 metres.


Missed the warm up
18 x 50's @ 60 rotate through set sprint 1st 20m, middle 20m and last 20 metres from 1-6, sprint 1st 15m, middle 15m and last 15metres from 7-12, sprint 1st 10m, middle 10m and last 10 metres from 13-18,
200 swim down
2 x 200 free @ 3.40 negative split 100's
5 x 100 @ 2 mins progressive
2 x 200 free @ 3.40 negative split 100's
5 x 100 @ 2 mins progressive
8 x 75 no 1 (not free) @ 2 mins  count strokes reduce by 1 stroke per length on repeat 4-6 and 1 stroke per length 7 & 8
16 x 25 IM @ 35
100 swim down
4000m

Binge dines with the Thorpedo

Very fetching Binge


I've just returned from a trip to Manchester to take part in the first Great Swim of the Season "The Great Salford Swim". What a great event, I can't say that I am an expert open water swimmer but it was really well organised  and despite the ffffff freezing fourteen degrees and the miserable weather it was really enjoyable (once I got passed the first 150 metres).

I was ably assisted by teenage daughter whose day was made by our running into Matt Baker and Ian Thorpe in Costa who kindly cooperated with our requests for autographs and photos. I'm not sure what they had done to be sentenced to such a bleak afternoon at Salford Quays.

They were both lovely and Matt Baker is such a gent even signing the back of my coffee receipt for my mum who is his biggest fan. Needless to say the following image was uploaded onto teenage daughter's Facebook page before you could say "Social Network".

OK I suppose it's a bit of artistic license to say we dined with them when we were sitting two tables away but it made for a more interesting headline.

I also learned that I could not be a paparazzi because it took us about 30 minutes to pluck up the courage to ask for a photo and autograph and about 4 goes for me to work the camera on my phone as I was so in awe of the Thorpedo I kept pressing the wrong buttons.

As for the swimming; well I managed a sub 27 mins which put me in the top 150 finishers and 2nd woman in my age group. Romford's Kay Hamilton swam a blinder with a 22.06 for 23rd overall and 5th woman.

I took "toosmartwatch with me" for the trip and wore the chest strap. So I have a print out for the race see below.

The beginning was awful, cold, horrible, swimming over people, a fair bit of head up breaststroke and a touch of blind panic, why is swimming in a wetsuit so constricting? (that was a rhetorical question but I know you're all thinking cos you're a fat b***ard).  


Live Long and Prosper

 The route around the quays is interesting and the swim through the Mariner's Canal into the adjoining quay meant that the spectators could get really close to the swimmers.

After about 200 metres or so I eventually settled down and the only problem I had in the closing stages was that my fingers were so cold I couldn't close them, and was giving a vulcan greeting see photo  to the spectators on the bank side. Mind you I think the Vulcan death grip would have been of more use at the beginning.

So all in all the event lived up to it's billing, a Great Swim in Salford. You should all try one. Bring on the Great North Swim next month. As an afterthought I'm playing about with inserting video's here's the best one

I'm the swimmer with the pale blue underarms who goes spectacularly off course.

"Do or not do....there is no try"

I have this theory that when faced with an entry form for a swim meet the reasoning part of my brain goes AWOL and is completely overwhelmed by the part of my brain which comes up with such random thoughts as "1500m freestyle that'll be fun!" when, it should be at its most active screaming "no you silly cow it'll be anything but!" closely followed by  "particularly in a 50m pool."

I wonder if meet promoters are able to infuse their entry packs with subliminal old Jedi mind tricks? Because, I cannot even begin to explain why I entered the 1500m at the British Masters, and the 400m free which is not only in the same session as my 100 breast but is before it, and 3 other events which left my £48.50 poorer.

Every time I think about it, I can hear Yoda in the background cackling "stupid you are"


John Charles Pool, Leeds likely scene of an excruciatingly painful 23 minutes for Binge on 17 June










Anyway this morning's session was intended to be a fairly easy paddle in preparation for Salford tomorrow, but with no Fairy Snow Baby, Synchro Dad or Matt the Cash I found myself in the top lane with the Beckleberry brothers and I got a bit carried away with the session ......

Awesome Emma's woe from Thursday continued as she discovered she'd left her hat and goggles at GLC. (thinking they were Bart's I had given them to the FSB!) If the 100's free on 1.35 were difficult the last IM was mental not sure my poor heart was particularly impressed.

800 warm up as 200 back, 200 free, 200 brst 200 free
4 x 50 @ 60 steady count strokes*
4 x 50 @ 60s catch up
4 x 50 @ 60s stroke count reduce by 1 stroke per 25**
4 x 50 @ 60s catch up
4 x 50 @ 60s stroke count reduce by 1 stroke per 25***.
12 x 100  swam as 3 sets of 4 @ 1.50, 1.45, 1.40, 1.35
100 floppy
5 x 4 x 25 IM's @ 2.15 progressive
no 1 steady
no 2 sprint fly
no 3 sprint fly and back
no 4 sprint fly, back & breast
no 5 sprint all
200 swim down

3800m total

*   18's
** 16's
*** 14's

Masters Mayhem!

I have mentioned before that I live my life in a total state of chaos stumbling from one crisis to the next. Well clearly I am not alone even in the small cross section of people within my Masters squad, as Awesome Emma confessed this evening that she had inadvertently repeated my mistake of turning up at Dunston pool for a Thursday night session rather than Gateshead Leisure Centre.

I couldn't be smug though because as you can see from my rubbish session total, I'm about to inflict another tale of incompetence and woeful organisational skills upon readers of this blog. It all started with the brakes failing on Teenage Daughter's piano teacher's car (don't worry he's fine) leading to the cancellation of her lesson and a subsequent decision to come swimming with me.

Urging her to hurry up and get herself ready at 7.20pm she eventually saunters out of the house at 7.40pm, we set off, now 10 mins late, only to discover that "they" (a generic term which applies to any semblance of an authoritative body which conspires to cause me grief) were digging up the main road between home and the pool and I ended up in a mini localised traffic jam fuming as the minutes passed by and I saw my swim time diminishing.

We arrived at the pool and I dived in and followed Bart the Shark who was basking in Lane 2 behind Babyface Ciaran. I didn't even register the repeat times for the 100's and I was saving myself for the big set after the 50's build when the Fairy Snow Baby asked me "What time did you think that this session started Binge" "8 till 9 right" to the derision of my other swim mates! absolutely 100% WRONG!!!! 7.30 - 8.30 so it was swim down and get out;

Only to spend 10 minutes in the pool foyer discussing where training was tomorrow (Friday). The upshot? was that no one knew (god how bright are we?) and we were all advised to check the club website! Ah well taper for Sunday...

6 x 100 alternate 100 free @ 1.40 100 back @ 2.00*
4 x 50 build @ 70 seconds
200 swim down
1000m

* not even sure what this repeat was on just dived in and started swimming!

200,000 metres milestone passed

I was carried away last week and entered the Great Salford Swim .....mmmm 14°C really inviting since then I've spent the time asking myself why? no doubt I'll have more to say about this on Sunday. Is anybody else swimming?

A business trip to Glasgow put paid to a full session this evening but the eventual session was a bit of quality work. I really enjoyed the set of IM's. For the first time this year I felt quite good in the water and actually allowed myself to think that maybe I could swim fast again.

During the course of the session I passed the 200,000 metres mark for the year. That takes me 40% of the way to my half a million metres and although I've slowed pretty considerably since the mayhem of February I'm still slightly ahead of schedule according to my slog. 

2 x 50 @ 50 *
4 x 50 @ 45
10 x 100 IM @ 2 mins**
200 swim down
5 x 100 back @ 2 mins
6 x 50 brst @ 70 s
8 x 25 fly @ 45s
8 x 75 @ 1.40 kick
200 swim down
3300 metres

* warm up (arrived late!)
** 93-95s

In which Binge Hangs Over and Matt the Cash Cocks up

 I was feeling pretty inadequate this week having failed to make the pool since my last outing in Manchester. As usual I was full of good intentions to attend last Saturday morning's session but I ended up at a silver wedding anniversary party. (I know there's an element of "deja vu" about this post).

We dropped teenage daughter off at my parents and confirmed we'd collect her between 11pm and 11.30pm, you can imagine the wrath of my parents (I was and probably still am truly in the doghouse) when we didn't collect her till 2.45am. I was significantly the worse for wear and didn't wake up until 10.45 with a monster hangover.

Of course feeling inadequate is not an unusual state for me to be in, but this particular bout of inadequacy stemmed from spending last weekend following the exploits of a number of  "swimclubbers" who undertook the ultimate swimming challenge "2swim4life" at Guildford Lido . This involved swimming one mile each hour for 24 hours or there's always "2swim4life lite" which is a mere 12 miles. As if that wasn't enough the pool temperature was a brisk! 20 degrees.

Complete and total respect to everyone who took part in this event I think it rather puts my February Fitness Challenge exploits into the shade.

The above link on the Swimclub.co.uk website provides some interesting commentary on the challenge and was clearly a life affirming and inspirational event for swimmers and helpers alike.

Thanks to Ruth Cordero who took and published a fantastic series of pictures of the event.

Back to the more mundane matter of a Gateshead and Whickham Saturday Morning Session, firstly we had a record turn out with 10 swimmers battling the ravages of Friday night hangovers and the magnetic pull of the duvet to sample the Fairy Snow Baby's "it sounded worse than it was" session.

I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about the swim, but I was up and Bob was going so I piled into the car. We normally share the pool with the kid's squad so I dropped into our middle lane, with "Awesome Emma" and "The New Guy" (I can't remember his name and come to think of it he's not that new!).

Fairy Snow Baby and Synchro Dad snagged an extra lane when only 3 kids showed up, leaving me with a dilemma; do I stay in my lane and swim the 200's pull on a rather pedestrian 3.40 or try and stay with Bart the Shark and Matt the Cash and a repeat time of 3.15.

Yeah guess what I opted for....why do I do this? actually I managed them pretty comfortably on around 2.54-2.56 drafting off Matt the Cash. Matt valiantly led the lane out for the second set of 200's and completely bollocksed it up taking the 10seconds rest immediately after the first 50 much to the surprise of Bart and myself.

Bart was furious when he stopped a second time at 150. We both decided to write off the last 50 and saved our energy to castigate Matt the Cash when he finished somewhat sheepishly conceding that he had completely F**ked Up.

Don't panic I did the extra 50 swim down to make the 4,100 metres.

800 warm up as

     200 free
     100 breast drill
     100 back
     200 free
     100 breast drill
     100 back
6 x 200 pull with paddles @ 3.15*
6 x 100 back @ 2 mins
4 x 50 drill**
6 x 200 @ 3.45 as
1st 200 10s @ 150, last 50 hard
2nd 200 @ 3.45 as
3rd 200 10s @ 100, last 100 hard repeat
100 swim down***
4100 Total

* 2.54 - 2.56's.
** I'd lost the will to live here and wasn't paying attention to the repeat times.

*** It was really 150m to make up for the missing 50.