New battery

I'd hoped to swim today but work was too much work. On the walk home the Garmin Swim flashed up 'Low Battery'. Although this has been the first warning I don't want to lose data so swapped the battery this evening. I had spare CR2032 cells in stock as they are one of those sizes that fit a multitude of gadgets nowadays.

The swap was easy as per the instruction manual.

The estimated battery life is 1 year, my first use is recorded as 14th July 2015 so that's a pretty reasonable prediction. I've barely used the light which I'd assume is a substantial drain.

I hope the seal is OK, the O-ring is slender!

September 2016 Week 4 Session 1

Today's interval session was a great success. Warm-up in under 5:00 minutes and then all 16 fast lengths at better than 2:00min/100 pace. I managed a few lengths in around 35s corresponding to a pace of 1:45min/100m. I'm impressed that my strokes/length averaged 20 for the first 12 fast lengths although in the final set it rose to 22. This shows that I was managing to apply some power.

The rests were a bit longer than scheduled to ensure that I had a clear length but I don't think that is all that important.

September 2016 Week 4 Session 2

I messed up the sessions today and did session #2 instead of #1. That maybe wasn't a bad thing as the pool was quiet and so i could get on with the long routine. For the first 4 sets I managed a slight negative split across 1600m as intended.

Going into the second block my arms were tired and I set off very slowly. I managed a pace increase for 3 sets but the 4th and final was slow. I was finished!

September 2016 Week 3 Session 3

It had a been a fair day at work and I couldn't find an excuse not to go for a swim. At least I knew the session would only take an hour or so. The 100m intervals were once again set at 39s/length and for the first 5 fast sets I managed to stay within a 2:00min/100m pace. Once or twice I could have gone a little faster but had to slow to wait for, or go around slower swimmers.

Gradually I managed to pick up the pace to 1:54min/100m which is supposed to be the maximum at the moment but I can't maintain it. After two sets at this pace I started to fade until by the end of the session my best was 2:07min/100m. Both of these parameters are better than I managed in Weeks 1 and 2 so maybe there is progress.

I'm getting better at managing the TempoPro and watch as I only lost timing for one set today.

September 2016 Week 3 Session 2

This was a pretty rubbish session. The pool was fairly busy when I started although I don't think I can really blame that for my poor performance. Really I find it hard to up the pace after three 400m sets. Before I could start the second superset of 4x400m I was moved as the swimming club were arriving. This meant that there was a range of abilities pushed into two lanes.

Washing machine-like swimming from slowtwitch

The club swimmers combined with densely packed recreational lanes made the water a turmoil of arms and waves. I didn't enjoy the swim and left before completing the second superset as I couldn't focus on my pace. At least I did an hour's swim.

September 2016 Week 3 Session 1

That went well! I jogged to the pool and managed the warm up in under 5:00 minutes. Then it was on to 16 sets of fast/slow and for every set I managed to beat 40s/length, the best being 30 seconds. This is the first week of this block that I've achieved this basic goal.

September 2016 Week 2 Session 3

Last week I couldn't match a 38s length timer so set a 39s interval today. I just managed to keep below 2:00min/100m for four 100m sets but in the second half of the session my pace faded away markedly. My last fast 100m set was done at 2:12min/100m pace which wasn't great.

This chart from Swimming Watch Tools illustrates that I am managing a higher cadence now and as some lengths have a low stroke count at a high turnover there are some faster paced lengths in the session.

I could feel that my arms were tired by the end of the session and even striving to gain pace I made negligible headway. However this intensity is the goal of the session; I really need to keep up the frequency of the programme to maintain the overload.