Learning to swim/improving swimming

[mrcharly-YHT]

thanks. My shoulders are lacking in flexibility.

When I was young they taught us NOT to roll body. Guess things have moved on. I'll take a good look at that vid later.

[Greenbank]

I've said this before, watch this video before going to the pool and think about 2 or 3 things that you can take from it to practice:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3HhNlysFDs

Watch it again when you get back from the pool and think about what you didn't do, and what you'll do next time.

Lather, rinse, repeat. (Including watching it both before and after).

Simply doing that (and hours and hours of time in the pool) took me from 2:00/100m to 1:30/100m. (Although, with lockdown I've lost all of that and due to fitness I'm back to grinding out 20 minute 1k blocks again.) My aim is to get back down to 4k in an hour non-stop.

(That's all "pull", i.e. with a swim buoy between my legs. With legs I'll be aiming for somewhere around a sustained 1:20/100m to 1:15/100m.)

[Greenbank]

Four 1 mile sessions over the last couple of weeks where I was struggling to keep up 2:00/100m pace. But had a few days break and back in the pool today and was back down to 1:50/100m (albeit in 14x100m sets with 60s pauses between, the main point was that I was able to keep up the pace in the later sets rather than it falling off after 4 or 5).

More importantly distance per stroke almost back over the magic 1m/stroke mark (again, this is "pull", with legs I get the obvious extra "free" distance with each stroke).

Only 9 weeks to go until Marathon Swims 10k (which has yet to be cancelled/postponed as I expect it will).

[noggy]

So our local Aquatics centre has now reopened but only the 50m pool, not The warmer 25m🙄
No use to me as I’m a slow 1,500 m oldie who cannot cope with 50m having done 25 m pools all my life.
So go to the Shire booking website and finally get a 50 minute slot on Friday morning in Peterhead, a cool 40 mile away🤣
I’ve had two knees and hip replaced in last  3 years so am used to starting from scratch again.
Just be great to get back in the water.....
My nearest local pool, where I’ve swum for last c30 years may open “mid-October” due to operating issues. They’ve had 6 months FFS
ah well......

[ian]

Still no sign of our local pool opening.

[Davef]

So our local Aquatics centre has now reopened but only the 50m pool, not The warmer 25m
No use to me as I’m a slow 1,500 m oldie who cannot cope with 50m having done 25 m pools all my life.
So go to the Shire booking website and finally get a 50 minute slot on Friday morning in Peterhead, a cool 40 mile away
I’ve had two knees and hip replaced in last  3 years so am used to starting from scratch again.
Just be great to get back in the water.....
My nearest local pool, where I’ve swum for last c30 years may open “mid-October” due to operating issues. They’ve had 6 months FFS
ah well......

You could try the 50m pool. If it is really much colder you could try a thermal rash vest - but you will look like the Sacha baron cohen “Bruno” character.

[Greenbank]

So many people who don't know how to swim in lanes properly.

MOVE AWAY FROM THE SIDE OF THE LANE AS YOU APPROACH THE END!

So many people sticking right to the side and then turning and finding a queue of people treading water behind them as they can't get to the end of the pool to make their own turns.

Still, decided not to faff as much today (I usually do 16x100m sets with ~60s rest inbetween) so I bashed out a 1234321 pyramid (with 60s between sets) and still had time to do another 200m in the 45 minute session.

Hopefully I'll drag it up to a continuous 2k and then, if I really don't faff and the speed comes back, aim for closer to 3k in 45 minutes.

Still no news on Swim Marathons that's supposed to be happening in November. There's no way they can realistically hold it so they're going to have to push it to next year...

[Davef]

My big swim in Windermere was cancelled at the weekend - not because of covid but overly windy conditions. It was only cancelled at 5am so I still got to do the carb loading.

[Greenbank]

As expected, Marathon Swims 2020 cancelled: https://www.marathonswims.com/covid-19faqs

Donate entry fee, defer to next year or refund.

Will probably defer.

That takes the pressure off and I can actually build up swimming progressively rather than trying to ram in a 0-10k training schedule in 2 months.

[ian]

Still no pool here. I gather from my intelligence sources that the centre considers it financially unfeasible to reopen unless the council gives them some help, which the council won't (probably because they'll claim it belongs to the school, which belongs to Surrey, etc.)

And Crystal Palace is now closed for major refurbishment (somewhat out of the blue), so no 50-metre pool. Bah thrice bah.

[Greenbank]

Up to 1933m in my 45 minute slot, partly annoyed I didn't have time to sneak in a final two lengths.

100, 200, 1000, 200, 100, and then 333m until the whistle went.

37:37 swimming time out of the 41:52 from starting until the whistle, so with a bit less faff I should able to crank out just over 2k in each 45 minute session.

It's certainly feeling easier. I took the 1k part relatively gently and still managed a 19:41, but I hope to get this down to ~15 minutes eventually.

[Greenbank]

2133m in one big block, took it a bit slower (2:00/100m) and ploughed on through. HR_avg also up (to 154bpm) which is good as I'm generally a lazy swimmer.

Think my first 1k was another 19:41 again.

Now I need to sort out bilateral breathing again, I'm being lazy and breathing every 4 strokes and always to the same side, plan is to alternate the side on each length (so keeping to 4 strokes per breath). I also need to do less with the pull buoy and I tend to breath every 3 strokes when I'm doing normal crawl. Then I'll pick one of the swims to take the toys down (fins, hand paddles, etc) and do some proper drills rather than long slow distance.

9966m in 6 swims in the last 9 days. (One bleedin' length short of 10k.)

[Greenbank]

18.5km in September, that's getting there.

Looking to do 3 x 45-minute sessions a week that gives me ~5k/week. October won't make 20k due to half term but no worried about that.

Pushing the speed up. Able to do 200m blocks of pull at 1:45/100m. Will aim for 300m blocks and then 400m blocks. I'd love to put in a sub 7 minute 400m time of pull.

[ian]

Swimming pool final re-opened. Have a session booked tomorrow evening (terrible hours, mind, no sessions on a Thursday evening, just early morning).

Given that I've not swum since March, that means

(a) I'll glide through the water like Aquaman
(b) I'll sink like a manky supermarket trolley tossed in the canal.

[Feanor]

My coaching sessions re-started last week.

We're no longer allowed to use the shared pile of pull-buoys and kick boards ( they have been removed ); we all had to buy our own.
We have to wear pool shoes and masks right up to the poolside, but once we are in the water we can pretty much do anything we did before.

Our mixed coaching group have been assigned the family changing room, so nekkid showering is not really an option!

[ian]

Apparently there's no lockers and showering afterwards is not allowed. Not a big deal, as I live five minutes away, but it's a council pool so there's usually enough chlorine in there that it'll dispose of a corpse in about two hours.

[noggy]

Have used 2 council pools a few miles away. Excellent protocols and staff in both.
One. No showers or lockers🤣
#2 showers mandatory 👍 dedicated lockers. Sanitised every session👍
Same local authority 🙄
Anyway buck up to distance (speed🤣😂) 2* 1,500 session. A week. Shoulder no longer giving gip👍

Local pool reopening Monday. Cannot wait.  It’s a very compact changing room. So we’ll see how it goes

And same in chlorine use. Far too much or concentration to high🤮

[ian]

Nice to get back. Not too convinced with the processes to be honest, for some reason you can't use the changing cubicles on the way in (go 'beach ready' in their parlance, so when I turned up a cocktail they looked at me weirdly), which just results in everyone gathering in a confined space to wait. No shower on the way out, which given the area was empty also made little sense. But there was no one around, and the woman getting out the same time said 'do you think it's OK?' and I replied 'let's not ask.' I ain't no rule taker, I'm a muthafuckin' rule breaker.

Pool was no more or less busier than for a usual evening session and the same lanes, so really they could have opened months ago. Still crappy hours, but they were always were, just a bit crappier than before now. Got three sessions booked this week.

[Greenbank]

They might soften over time.

Before they reopened we were warned that the rules were: "arrive swim ready - no access to changing rooms before or after" but on actual opening day you could use the changing area afterwards (but not the showers). Then after a few weeks the post swim open showers were made available.

The male/female changing rooms are still completely closed, it's just the communal area with changing cubicles and lockers that can be used. The

Also they don't mind the odd person using the changing rooms before if they didn't turn up swim ready. If I do a spinning class before my swim on a Monday (day off today as gave blood yesterday) then I need to change and shower before I get in the pool.

My guess is that the rules are just to limit the numbers in the various areas. The changing rooms don't get packed out and with people waiting because the majority turn up swim ready and can undress at the side of the pool.

Then again, the company that runs the place (and the booking) have let the SSL certificate on their site expire and so no-one can book anything right now.

[ian]

The gathering is people already changed waiting to be let into the showers and pool area (there's only a communal changing area, sorry changing 'village'). Possibly less of an issue for a later session, this was the first session. They'd locked out all the cubicles. I didn't really see the point, they're easy to wipe down (and they're open in the other half of the changing room for post-swim changing). They're regulating numbers via booking anyway. Having to book means there are more people in the changing area at the same time than would be expected otherwise.

All said though, I'm glad to be back. Managed sixty without drowning.

[Greenbank]

We queue outside the building (even in the pissing rain) where they check us off the list of people who have booked.

We're then asked to wear a mask on the way to the side of the pool and to use the (automatic) hand sanitiser dispenser as we enter the building.

It's a bit of a convoluted walk through their one way system and we have to remove our shoes before getting to the pool side (there's a corridor with lots of chairs in it spaced apart to help the oldies), I wear flip flops so taking them off takes seconds and I can do it barely breaking stride.

Then walk one way around the pool where there are chairs at 2m intervals, dump stuff on a free chair, strip down to swimming gear, walk to end of lane and jump in.

There's nowhere really for anyone to gather other than outside and they've painted feet on the ground at 2m intervals there too to make it clear.

Looks like they've cut the numbers down to 30 people (from 45) split across 3 double width lanes (in a 33+1/3m pool) - slow, medium, fast[1]. 10 people in 66.6m gives a nice 4.5m spacing between people if everyone was going roughly the same speed (ha!).

1. "Fast"[2] which also seems to mean "Slow but is an Alpha Male in possession of a penis and is therefore unable to use a lane marked 'Medium' or 'Slow'".

2. I'm usually 2nd or 3rd fastest in the lane when doing 1:40/100m, with the fastest doing 1:30/100m. The slower 5 or so are doing >2:00/100m and are often overtaken by the faster people in the medium lane. I haven't been in the pool when any of the sub 1:20/100m people are in.

[slowfen]

1. "Fast"[2] which also seems to mean "Slow but is an Alpha Male in possession of a penis and is therefore unable to use a lane marked 'Medium' or 'Slow'".

These are the ones who get upset when asked to move. But have seen go a very interesting shade of red/purple when overtaken by a "young" girl , she 16 ands is regional/national standard on breaststroke

[Greenbank]

Took the fins just to give my legs a workout.

1:10/100m sprints. Oof.

[Greenbank]

Local council pool taking bookings for swimming from Thursday 3rd. Booked in a few slots already.

[Davef]

800m in a lake this morning. Air temp around 0, water temp 3.

First experience of “after drop” (your core body temperature drops several minutes after leaving the water).