Wednesday, May 30, 2012

The Long Weekend and Tuesday Evenings

Dear Swimmers

I just can't get over how great this weather is at the moment - I know we need rain but it is just glorious for swimming at the moment. You'll also probably appreciate the Claremont Pool being a smidgen warmer at the moment as well to account for those colder mornings we've been having.

Tuesday Evenings with Sandy, now 6.15pm to 7.15pm:

Sandy brought it to my attention that for some of you whom have been swimming in the 6.30pm Tuesday session that it's proving a little inconvenient having to rush through the latter stages of the session and also not be able to use the showers afterwards as the pool closes bang on 7.30pm. 

I brought this to the Pool Manager's attention and what we have decided to do is start this session 15 minutes earlier at 6.15pm. Sandy will be set-up in lanes 5 & 6 from 6.15pm and when Chris's group (Kirby Swim) finish at 6.30pm he'll migrate across to lanes 7 & 8 (and 6 if numbers warrant it). This should work in perfectly with when everyone finishes the warm-up in readiness for the main set and allow you to feel unhurried completing the session. Personally I find rushing to finish a session adds stress to what should otherwise be an enjoyable experience, so I hope this helps and allows you to pamper yourself in the showers afterwards with that 15 minute window this creates!

Sandy informs me that some of you sometimes struggle to get there for bang-on 6.30pm though, however, you can still turn-up from 6.30pm, get straight into the main set (as Sandy instructs, which is normally quite light and technique focused on a Tuesday anyway) and then if you wish, complete what you've missed in the warm-up in that 15 minute window that remains after the session officially finishes, obviously with the caveat that you'll sacrifice any showering time in doing so. I hope this is a good compromise for everyone?

Lastly, it's obviously tougher to get out of bed in the early morning during winter, so if you are down to attend the 5.30am or 6.30am sessions on a Tuesday, but for whatever reason miss them and then feel "guilty" later on (!) you are more than welcome to attend in the evening at 6.15pm instead and still complete the same session. This might be particularly useful for those working on long projects at the moment who would otherwise feel they've missed a session on a Tuesday morning with a sleep-in.

Please pass on this information to your friends.

The Long Weekend:

We're very fortunate enough to be spending 4 nights down in Gnarabup this weekend as a little getaway courtesy of Jane Davis from the 9.30am squad who has kindly loaned us the use of her beautiful Gnarabup Beach House however, we have decided not to cancel any of the sessions this weekend as I have it on good understanding that many of you will still be around this weekend and want to keep your swimming going. As such, this is how the sessions will pan out:

  • Friday 1st June - 5.30am & 6.30am Fresh & Fruity squads* with Sally Scaffidi
  • Friday 1st June - 9.30am Technique squad with Sandy Burt
  • Saturday 2nd June - 1pm Open Water Skills Session with Sally Scaffidi
  • Monday 4th June - 7am & 9.30am Technique squad with Sandy Burt

*just as a bit of a heads-up about this Friday, the session is going to be a cracker! As we can see here...




...I thought you'd like to see the idea behind this set. The session is nothing but 100m intervals and all 4 lanes will follow a similar format. The beepers will be handed out to the leader who will have to BEAT THE BEEPER as it will be set to a 25m cycle time, the idea being for example that lane 4 (in this example - will be different times on Friday!) will start off with 4 (top left corner of each box) x 100m with the beeper set to beep every 28 seconds (green writing) which means that the actual send-off time per 100m would be 1:52 in this example, typically giving you ~25 seconds rest on the first set. The idea is to hold your fastest maintainable time such that you get as much rest as possible between each interval. After 4 x 100m the beeper will be reduced from 28 seconds to 27 seconds and as such (assuming you hold the same pace as the first set of 4) you will get 4 seconds less rest at the end of each 100m. The beeper is very easy to change, just press the bottom left button once and this will reduce the time per 25m by precisely one second. As such it becomes increasingly hard to hold the same pace as your rest reduces such that on the final set you'll only be getting ~4 to 8s rest between each 100m. The crew this morning loved it and so I'm hoping you will to!

Quick tip - aim for about the normal threshold pace you've been doing on a Friday - try to avoid going off too fast, but equally, try not to be too conservative either - the effort will build during the set (as usual!).

Have a great weekend and I'll see you back on Tuesday at 5.30am - bright and breezy!

Paul

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