Metric mile again

I felt in the mood to do a slightly longer swim today especially as I wasn't sure that I wanted to drive to Doncaster tomorrow (put off by last week's failure). My plan was to take it easy so set off at 59SPM, raised to 60 after 7 lengths and then 61 after around 25 lengths. Even with the slight increase in cadence my pace faded slightly but not terribly and nor did I feel worn out by the end.

I lost count of lengths and the watch didn't record accurately but pushed on for another 15 or so to exceed 1500m. My timings were:

1000m 24:10 minutes equating to 2:25min/100
1500m 36:37 minutes including a 3 second pause and thus 2:26min/100m

I'm very pleased with this as a personal best by a little at 1000m:

19/07/19  2:25 min/100m
02/02/18  2:28 min/100m (24:39 minutes)
18/01/18  2:32 min/100m
05/03/17  2:42 min/100m
04/01/16  3:02 min/100m
26/02/15  3:40 min/100m

A month ago I tried too hard to do a PB 1000m and didn't manage to sustain a decent pace. The metric mile was a PB too:

19/07/19  2:26min/100m
09/03/18  2:30 min/100m
16/02/18  2:32 min/100m
06/02/17  2:38 min/100m
04/01/16  3:02 min/100m
05/03/15  3:35 min/100m
26/07/14  3:52 min/100m (estimated)

All this was done with RHS breathing whilst trying to make an attempt to rotate nicely. Very satisfied.

Twist to the left

In today's swim I practiced floating with my legs high although they still fall. Importantly I also did some lengths with breathing to the left although with the aid of a small pull buoy. Doing this certainly felt stiff and awkward and I struggled to get flow into my stroke. At least it was manageable, I could feel my core muscles working! To complement this I did a few short sets of 3-3-2-2 breathing favouring the right side finishing with a full 100m set.

Starting to drill

My latest swim coach, Craig, has stressed the usefulness of drills to help body position and enhance hip roll. Yesterday I worked on simply floating and keeping my chest down and legs high. I think I've improved since being shown it on Monday.

Today I took the fins and did quite few lengths of kicking on my side. After a few seconds of each length I was aware the water on my cheek which is a goal I was striving for. It seems to take a little while to set myself up. After a few lengths I managed to do it reproducibly on both sides. I found single sided strokes a lot harder especially to the left as on each stroke I tend to pass through a brief time of sinking which would coincide with breathing in a traditional stroke.

Even though I've not swum far I am tired and feel that I've used a different group of muscles.

To London

This weekend we were in London for a birthday party and I took the opportunity to visit London Fields Lido on the Saturday morning. There's a thought-provoking article here about the pool's place in the community and whether it represents the aspirations of most of the Hackney people. As a non-Londoner that's impossible for me to say but this weekend it was busy, the new facilities well-designed and the fee reasonable. Importantly their timetable is easy to understand and features plenty of lane-swimming opportunities, unlike many pools where 'just swimming' is ousted by aquarobics, school classes, over-95s only etc etc.

For me a 50m pool is hard work with each length being a little more effort than is comfortable. But with the water slightly chill the only option was to keep swimming, even with very brief pauses to catch my breath. In every lane there was a distinct drive to keep up the pace so no time to slacken. However swimmers were polite and tried not to push in front or chase unreasonably.

My pacing was poor, for some bilateral breathing single lengths I was below 2:15min/100m but after 1500m I couldn't achieve 2:30min/100m for a 100m set. Oh well, such is fatigue and hopefully some training effect ensues!

Of course I don't have any photos poolside so here's one from the Olympic park.

The slide looked 'interesting' but needed to be booked ahead