This weekend, paddling and a 10km Relay Event!

Dear Swimmers

Hope you're having a cracking week. I've been getting some funny looks on the pool deck this week with my granddad socks and sandals - apparently I look every bit the Pom but I just can't bear to get my feet cold on the chilly mornings...and no, I haven't heard of closed-toe shoes! ;-)

OK, so this weekend we have the following things going on:

• Saturday = 1pm squad swim at Claremont Pool - focusing on open water skills and drafting etc - this is always a top session, so if you can make it down, please do!
• Sunday = again we're looking for paddlers to assist the Channel swim crew...this week we're planning a little 16km adventure from Mosman Park to the Bell Tower along the Swan River and we would dearly love it if anyone could assist us with some paddling support this week. Time of departure is likely to be ~6.15am - please let me know if you're keen??!!
• Monday = due to the Public Holiday, the 7am and 9.30am sessions today will be cancelled, we'll resume as normal at Tuesday's 5.30am session.

More Paddling Fun:

On the 26th June the 8 of us who are preparing for our respective Channel Swim attempts will need to complete a 6hr cold water swim in the Swan River to qualify for the event. Shelley Taylor-Smith will be the coach in charge and will help us sign-off on this necessary qualifying step. We are desperately seeking some equally mad paddlers to assist on the day, even if you can't stay for the full 6 hours. It'll probably be cold, it'll probably be gloomy and you can bet your last dollar it'll be very steady and potentially a tad boring for a paddler (I'm not really selling it, am I?!) but it'll be helping us in our quest for raising money for the Breast Cancer Care Foundation through our website www.channeldare.com and any assistance would be massively appreciated. Also, anyone keen to come down and simply offer some moral support (even if its whilst walking the dog), then we'd really love that too! Please let me know if you'd be keen in any capacity. Thanks!

The 10km Relay Challenge at Claremont Pool:

On Sunday 10th July we are proposing to run a 10km relay event where teams of 4 to 8 will complete 100 x 100m efforts in a relay fashion whilst the 8 of us preparing for the Channel event will try and "race" you as we cover the distance solo!! We are looking for 6 teams of 4 to 8 to participate and again help us raise money for Breast Cancer Care. if you're currently searching for a bit of challenge to keep you motivated this winter - this might be it! No need to reply to this one just yet, but details to follow soon! Start getting your teams together now!

Cheers

Paul

P.S one other weird(ish) request is that we're looking for some accommodation (preferably a large house close to Claremont) that can be rented for the nights of 24th September to 8th October (inclusive) and will sleep 4 to 8 people. We're inviting a s select bunch of the coaches that we've worked with in the UK over to Perth in this time frame to do a further 2 weeks work shadowing with us and need to look into accommodation options for them. If anyone has any ideas (even if it's motel / hotel ideas or a house a little way out of Claremont) please let me know. Thanks!

Paddlers needed this Sunday if available?

Dear Crew

Very excited about my first session back tomorrow (Friday) so hope to see some of you then!

Also, Saturday afternoon's 1-2pm squad session at Claremont Pool will be a drafting "ripper" - make sure you're there if you can make it!

Sunday - we're seeking 2-3 paddlers for our Sunday swim in the river for the English Channel crew. We'll be meeting at Claremont Jetty at 6.15am for a 6.30am start (so it'll be still a little dark and worth bringing some lights) and will be swimming for ~3hrs. If anyone can assist for some / all of it - please let me know by replying to this email. Thanks!

Paul

Sincerest apologies from Adam re. Friday morning...

Dear Swimmers

I send my sincerest apologies from over here in the UK due to the lack of coaching cover in place on Friday morning's 5.30am and 6.30am sessions. Whilst I have been informed that you experienced some horrendous weather that morning, this was not the reason for the absence of a coach on pool deck. 

Unfortunately Coach Adam and his young daughter suffered a severe bout of gastro on Thursday night / Friday morning and despite us having put a system of cover in place in the eventuality of a coach not being able to attend a session, this all came on at ~3am on Friday morning and sadly was too short notice to arrange a replacement coach at that point. Adam reportedly passed out after being violently sick, so we do sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this caused any of you. I am told that the session was already up on the board from Wednesday's 9.30am session with Sandy and that those few who did brave the conditions chose to follow this. Nice work!

We do absolutely pride ourselves on the consistency and reliability of our squad sessions down at Claremont Pool and whilst this situation could not have been avoided on this occasion I do appreciate that you may have travelled some distance to be at the session and were probably at least a little miffed to not have a coach there ready and waiting to take you through your weekly "Fresh & Fruity" challenge. Rest assured this will not happen again.

If anyone does have any feedback or comments they would like to add, please feel free to contact me directly at swimsmooth@me.com and I'll do my best to address these direct.

On a brighter note, here's me this morning with dual Olympic Gold Medallist and World Record holder in the women's 800m freestyle Rebecca Adlington after we did some filming and analysis of her stroke for a charity event in aid of the Marie Curie Cancer Research Fund. All I can say is "wow!" what an amazing stroke and superb experience for me and Adam - without doubt a huge highlight of not only this trip but my whole coaching career!

...and here's Adam with another celebrity, Louis Theroux - investigative journalist and general funny man - Adam's hero:

Cheers

Paul

Open water swimming - UK style!!

Dear Team

Well, with just 3 days to go before I fly back to Perth on Monday, I thought I'd drop you a line to let you know how things have been going over here in the UK this last two weeks. It's been pretty full on from both a work and training for the English Channel perspective, but has been a lovely change and I'd like to thank you all for personally allowing me this 3 week period to go and spread the Swim Smooth word further with Adam. I do really hope you've enjoyed working with all the varied coaches that we have put in place in my absence and I look forward to catching up with you all upon my return to the squad next week. My first session back will be Friday 27th May for your reference but I'll see some of you before that at Shelley's session on Wednesday.

COACHING:

It's been a monster schedule, but as I sit here writing this we have just two full 1-day Clinics to go and both of these are at the same venue in Hillingdon, NW London. So it's 8 down, 2 to go!

We've been literally all over the UK, starting off in the Midlands, then up to North Wales, into Yorkshire and Lancashire, then up to Scotland and back down to London via York and Oxford. We've met many great people along the way and have now put a total of 48 independent coaches through our 3-day Coaches Education Courses, essentially teaching them our techniques, specifically within video analysis and stroke correction. You'll all get to meet a dozen or so of these coaches when they travel over to Perth in October to participate in an intensive 2 weeks of further work shadowing with us.

We will have put 120 swimmers through their paces by the time we get back to Perth next week and have seen a fascinating range of styles too! We will be meeting a very special swimmer on Saturday as part of a charity event in London that we have been asked to attend in aid of the Marie Curie Cancer research group, but that's all I am permitted to say at this point I'm afraid! ;-)

Here's some photos of us with some of the coaches and swimmers:

...and here's me pretending to be Mel Gibson at the William Wallace (Braveheart) memorial in Stirling last weekend - they may take our lives, but they'll ne'er take our freeeeeedom!!!!

SWIM TRAINING:

As soon as we landed in the UK I was straight over to the Loughborough Pool where all the top British swimmers train in order to maintain my Channel swimming fitness whilst away from the plentiful pools of Perth. I managed to get in a good number of sessions in between the courses that first week and with the coaches on our courses too, which was great.

It was then "oooppp north" to Yorkshire and North Wales where I had an invite from a good friend and north of England Triathlon Officer Morgan Williams to try out his Blue Lagoon open water swimming venue in Doncaster. Given the location I expected it to be more of a Murky Puddle than a Blue Lagoon, but I could not have been more wrong! This disused limestone quarry was the freshest water I have ever swum in and at ~13 degrees was great for an 8km session followed around by Morgan on his ski paddle.

The next day I had a very funny and embarrassing experience at a pool in sunny Bolton when I decided to hit the pool for a quick couple of K's whilst Adam was packing up the car. The pool was busy and very noisy when I strode out in my bright pink bathers, only to have three lifeguards rush over to me and usher me back into the change-rooms as I was just about to unwittingly gatecrash their weekly Ladies Only session. Adam says I should have told them that Pam had ordered me as their entertainment for the evening! You have to laugh about these things I guess!

Up in Scotland it was a little trickier to get in some quality training given that the pools restrict the numbers in their lanes to 6 up there and as such I had to intermittently get out of the pool to let other swimmers in. A little frustrating. After taking PRO triathlete and 2010 UK Ironman winner Fraser Cartmell for a stroke correction session in the University pool though, I did manage to knock out a rather enjoyable session with the coaches similar in structure to our good old Saturday 1pm session. I had alongside me Aidan Mullans (former Irish international swimmer with a 15'25" 1500m PB to his name) who gave me a good whopping over the short sprints. It was a lot of fun.

Upon leaving Scotland we could not pass up an opportune moment to hop into the Fourth of Firth for a quick dip - it was freeeeeeezzzzzzing!!! 7-8 degrees and no wetsuit!! I didn't last long, but here's the temperature contour to prove it:

It's funny, as two hours later we stopped in at a pool in Darlington where I used to race quite frequently as a young teenager and the training pool temperature was over 30 degrees - yuk! You can't get much more of a contrast than that!

This morning we drove down to Marlow and I hopped into the Thames whilst Adam walked alongside me on the bridal path for morale support. I'd guestimate that it was ~13 degrees in there, but it was a beautiful experience, see why here:

So, I'm now back at the hotel tapping this out after a second swim today at the unheated outdoor pool at the venue we're using this weekend for our last two clinics. It was certified today as being 14.6 degrees in the lovely art deco 50m lido and I had no worries whatsoever staying in. This was a massive confidence booster as have all the other really cold swims that I have done. So whilst I might have traded off a bit of by endurance and fitness with not getting as much volume and intensity in, hopefully I've made it up with some excellent cold water adaptation and some great pie eating opportunities allowing me to pork up as you see in this picture in the cold pool:

On Monday, I'll have my final cold water swim with Dr Greg Whyte, Olympian and coach to the Little Britain comedian David Walliams. We'll be hopping in the Thames again and I'm hoping that he'll be able to tell me how close to my optimal porkiness I am now for my Channel attempt on the 5th September 2011 - 15 weeks to go!

I'd just like to formally thank everyone who's made this trip such a success and particular thanks go out to all the coaches who've been hard at work running my sessions for me in Perth and also to our newest member of the Swim Smooth team, Francene, for liaising and keeping me up to speed with everything whilst I've been away. 

Lastly, thanks to Adam for being such a great support, top notch business partner and most of all great mate! We've had a blast!

Cheers

Paul

Busselton Results

Dear Team

Whilst I was gutted to have not been down in Busselton this last weekend for the 2011 Busselton Half Ironman, I've received some great reports back about how people went at the race. 

All told, we had 46 members of the swim squad racing down in Busselton, with a very notable result coming from Guy Crawford in the PRO wave who had the fastest swim split of the day and 1200+ competitors and then went onto record a staggering 2:08 bike split, leading onto the run and eventually finishing 6th overall. A mightily impressive result! How did he do it? Well, his albatross-like arms may have helped somewhat - see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX_B2tITgdk&feature=player_embedded

Also check out Guy's race report and photos here:

http://guycrawfords.blogspot.com/2011/05/busselton-703.html

Apparently the swim conditions were a little lumpy out there. This is what Guy had to say about how he modified his stroke based on a 1-2-1 session we did together 3 weeks ago:

"I lifted my head heaps so my feet were a bit lower in the water..., tryed to increase my stroke rate and concentrated on my hands.... 3 things.. Hands, feet, stroke rate and i felt awesome.. i was swimming hard, but ready to go if some-one came round me.. just had that extra gear... Bryan Rhodes sat on my feet for the whole swim..."

Guy is a bit of a Kicktastic / Smooth which means that in a wetsuit he has a tendency to feel a little too high at the back and feels a slight loss in coordination and power from his kick if the wetsuit lifts him too high out of the water. In an email from Shelley Taylor-Smith who raced as part of a charity team, she also commented that her wetsuit made her incredibly buoyant. For these super-star swimmers, there is a danger of having too much buoyancy in a wetsuit and as such they have to adjust their strokes accordingly. For Guy this meant looking a further forward to bring his legs down a bit. He also elevated his stroke rate to give more fluidity and rhythm to his normally very long stroke which helped in the lumpy waters. 

Anna-lee Hazell also had a fantastic swim to come out of the water in 26 minutes and record a big PB. Whilst Anna-lee thinks of her stroke as being somewhat "silly" and high tempo, it is very well suited to rougher open water conditions. Like Shelley, Anna-lee swims with what we affectionately call the Swinger style, as is the case with most of the world's top open water and triathlon swimmers.

Whilst these guys often feel that the wetsuit lifts them a little too high, three swimmers from the squad in particular had great swims because of the lift that they gave them: Stuart Murray (35 mins), Mark Dutton (38 mins) and Darryn Sargant (41 mins). Just two weeks ago we looked at Darryn's stroke in the pool with and without his Blue Seventy Axis wetsuit and the results were staggering: 23 seconds per 100m (!) faster in the suit!! This equates to being +7 mins faster in the suit over the Half Ironman distance, which is a tremendous effort. All three swimmers have a little bit of Arnie in them, meaning that they gain massive amounts from the floatation of a wetsuit to help overcome their normally sinky legs.

Everyone's results from the squad can now be seen here:

http://swimsmooth.com/pauls_images/Busso_2011.pdf

...and if you'd like the Excel version, go to:

http://swimsmooth.com/pauls_images/Busso_2011.xls

...as this contains the HTML links to each athlete (by clicking on their name) so as to see their full splits including transitions and also their individual race photos.

Enjoy and see you all soon!

Paul

P.S The Clinics over here are going exceedingly well thanks. 4 down and 6 to go...we're even managing to get a good bit of our own training in too which is a bonus!

Channel Dare Movie Night

English Channel Dare For Breast Cancer Care
 
Please come and help our raise money for Breast Cancer Care WA, by joining us for the screening of
 
Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides  in 3D!
Starring Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Geoffry Rush and Perth model Gemma Ward!
 
Friday 27th May
At Ace Cinemas 500 Hay Street Subiaco
Complimentary wine and cheese from 5.30pm followed by the movie commencing at 6.30pm
Tickets are $25 and can be pre purchased from one of the swimmers, or by internet transfer and collection on the night upon supllying recipt of transfer.
 
Ceinwen Williams
BSB: 066112
Account:00769129

 

Hope to see you there, thankyou for your support!

 

www.channeldare.com

The Winter Program

** Please note, there will be NO Saturday 1-2pm squad session at Claremont Pool on Saturday 7th May owing to the Busselton Half Ironman event. The session this Saturday (30th April) will be running and I'd love for you to attend if you can! **

Dear Swimmers

Hope you are all well and had an egg-cellent Easter Weekend - sorry, couldn't resist!!! ;-)

In this newsletter we will cover: the new Winter Squad List; May Coaching Cover & PAYG Card Instructions; and Future Trips. Whilst a little longer than usual, please take the time to read this newsletter as it contains some very important information about the winter program and a personal cheque for $1million....

...OK, so the last part was a little fib! ;-)

Winter Squad List:

Thanks to everyone who promptly completed their Winter Squad Application requests. You can now see which sessions and which lanes we have booked you in for over the winter period commencing Monday 9th May to Sunday 2nd October:

http://www.swimsmooth.com/pauls_images/wintersquad_2011.pdf

If any of your details appear to be incorrect, please let Francene know on francene@swimsmooth.com

A few things to remember:

1. You are NOT committed to having to attend every single session, every single week. The purpose of asking you for your requests is to ensure that the lane space is managed as best as possible to avoid over-crowding. Undoubtedly there will be days over the winter when you would rather roll over in bed and stay nice and toasty, but be assured that we'll always be down there come rain, hail or shine (just not severe thunder and lightening storms when the pool has to close!) and so there will be plenty of motivation to stay fit over the winter!! 
2. Given that we offer maximum flexibility by offering payment on a PAYG basis, we have built in a "Buffer List" for each lane. If you are listed on the Buffer List you can still attend the session. Ideally we'd have 8 to 10 swimmers per lane. Some sessions there might be only 4 or 5 swimmers per lane, but equally we have to try and offset this by offering a buffer of 3 or 4 swimmers so that on occasion the lanes might be a bit busier, especially on fine mornings. Hopefully this all works out in the "wash" for everyone and is fair and reasonable, in fact even at the peak of the summer, I can only recount 3 or 4 total sessions where the lanes did get a little squishy with ~11 swimmers per lane, so not bad going for a PAYG system. It's all about good management and your help in completing the online application form has been of massive use to us in this regard - thank you.
3. Swimmers whose names are listed in italics are those of you who have informed us that your attendance is likely to be a little sporadic over the winter due to business or holiday trips.
4. Swimmers listed on the Red Reserve List are NOT yet permitted to attend that particular session. We have given priority to those whom have been attending regularly and consistently over the last couple of seasons, so I do apologise if you've missed out for the moment. We have added your details in the order in which you applied and will be in touch directly as and when space opens up. Thanks for your patience at what is proving to be a surprisingly popular time.
5. Please make a note of which lane we have allocated for you per session as due to both the amount of lanes we get and also the variability in ability levels within the squad, you won't necessarily always be in the same lane. By sticking to your lane (at least in the warm-up) this will help the coaches run the session nice and smoothly and will help to improve your own enjoyment of the set by being in the right lane for your speed. 
6. I have also detailed the typical pace per 100m or cycle time per 50m at the top of each lane allocation for each session. This information is mainly for the coaches using the Wetronomes but to simply show you what approximate pace you should be aiming for in that given session allowing for some sessions being harder than others. The Wednesday session features a cycle time per 50m - the difference between this and a pace per 100m time is that the cycle time actually includes your rest time as well, i.e. the faster you swim, the more rest you get. The pace per 100m time is that actual pace I'd like you to swim and will typically work as one beep recovery between each interval.
7. We have decided to NOT cancel any of the Summer Sessions, at least not at this stage. We plan to see how they go over the first month of winter and make any adjustments as necessary. This means the Monday 7am session, the Tuesday 6.30pm session, Wednesday 5.30am session and Saturday 1pm session will all still be running (see http://swimsmooth.com/perth_timetable.html ). The Monday, Tuesday and Saturday sessions will all be reduced to 2 lanes (given the expected lower numbers) with the ability to go to 3 lanes if we absolutely need to. If you think that you might like to attend any of these sessions knowing that they'll still be running, please let Francene know at francene@swimsmooth.com

May Coaching Cover & PAYG Card Instructions

As you know I will be away from Perth for 3 weeks in May. I will be leaving after all the sessions on Monday 2nd May and will be back to coaching on Friday 27th May. It would be really very much appreciated if you could attend the squad sessions in my absence as you have originally planned to do so. We have some great coaches and fantastic sessions lined-up for you, so whilst the weather might be turning a tad cooler, at worst it'll be the equivalent of a nice summer's day in the UK! ;-)

Myself and Adam are heading back to the UK to run two 3-day Swim Smooth Coach Education Courses for 24 coaches from literally all over the world, tutoring them in our stroke correction and training methods. Unfortunately we had to turn down over 30 applicants due to lack of available space on the courses. These two courses will be run at the prestigious Loughborough and Stirling Universities and form part of our grander scheme to develop a fully functional Swim Smooth coaching network around the world. We are being endorsed by both the British Triathlon Federation and Triathlon Scotland for these Clinics and will also run six 1-day swimmer's courses in conjunction with these. Amazingly every Clinic filled up entirely within 90 minutes of announcing them and we have over 100 swimmers on our various waiting lists. All the hard work of the last few years appears to be paying off, however, it does mean that I have to leave you guys here in Perth for this 3 week period in the very capable hands of our local Swim Smooth coaches. 

I will be meeting with all the coaches this Saturday to discuss your feedback and requests from your online application forms and to ensure an excellent delivery of the sessions which I have written for delivery in my absence. Any feedback or issues you might like to raise whilst I am away can either be addressed directly with the coach on duty or if you prefer with our newest member of staff, Swim Smooth's Operations Coordinator, France Leaversuch. Francene can be reached on francene@swimsmooth.com and will keep me up to speed with how things are going in Perth whilst I'm over in the UK. 

I am very proud to be leaving you with each of these coaches and know that you'll have a great time with them and I'm sure you'll welcome the change to my Pommie accent on pool deck for a short while! Your coaches will be:

• Shelley Taylor-Smith: 7-times world marathon swimming champion and open water endurance specialist. Will get the very best out of you!
• Adam Mullens: super-star surf swimmer, unreasonably handsome and dashing (!) and last week's Albany Harbour Swim overall winner. Will ensure a fun session!
• Sally Scaffidi: top WA triathlete, excellent open water swimmer and uber-motivator on cold mornings. The Biggest Loser fitness trainers have nothing on Sal!
• Nikki Rogers: Sorrento SLSC coach, Commonwealth Games gold medallist swimmer and technique guru. Will fine tune your technique!
• Sandy Burt: top Australian age group Half Ironman specialist, regular Tuesday Swim Smooth coach and bronzed adonis. Takes no prisoners!
• Francene Leaversuch: our newest member of staff, my very own surf skills coach and super-committed. Has a great eye for technique inefficiencies! 

For a full breakdown of who will be coaching when, please see: 

http://www.swimsmooth.com/pauls_images/Winter_Coaches.pdf

PAYG Cards:

For ease of management on the pool deck, it'd be preferable if you could order any new PAYG cards online by visiting:

http://swimsmooth.com/perth_buycard.html

...please print off your receipt and hand it to the coach who will either issue you a card there and then or Francene will have prepared it for you and it'll be awaiting collection in the box. If you get onto this over the weekend in anticipation of any cards expiring, I will of course take care of this all prior to leaving on Monday.

IMPORTANT: there are a couple of you using a joint card with your partner, if you both attend a session, please can you ensure that you notify the coach that the card needs to be ticked twice in this instance. Also, please, please, please try to remember your card each session to be ticked off - forgetting it makes for a bit of an administrative nightmare with several coaches running the sessions.

Future Trips:

For your reference I will also be away this winter for the following two periods:

• 28th July to 12th August (Canada Trip for brother-in-law's wedding)
• 26th August to 16th September (UK Trip for English Channel attempt)

...as such we will be ensuring continued coaching development of all the coaches over the next 6 months in-line with our global coaching development scheme. It's great to have the privilege to work with such great coaches and lovely people as we have here in Perth to initiate this entire process and as ever I welcome any feedback you might have at any time.

Thanks for your time and enjoy the Winter Program!!

Kind regards

Paul

Paul Newsome

Head Coach

www.swimsmooth.com

www.theteamcore.com

World Class Coaching in Your Language!

Tel. +61 (0) 431 540 980