From January 2018 in addition to Weyport Swimmers I started to go to Dorchester swimming pool where I could do some longer sessions. A fairly new pool and lots of sessions with three lanes, a slow, a medium and a fast lane. I often found I had the lane to myself or at most sharing with two other swimmers.
I had been down to only one or possibly two swims per week, but started to up it back to three. Weyport was one hour (2500-2800m depending on drills etc.) and the other two at Dorchester never less than 3000m and preferably 4000m, 5000m or 6000m.
Most were pyramids which are easy to keep in my head rather than having a written schedule on the pool side. They comprised: 500m, 400m, 300m, 200m, 100m, 200m, 300m, 400m 500m, etc.
The first 1500m was usually a warm up:
500m freestyle
400m pull
300m kick
200m backstroke
100m fly (broken to 25m’s)
200m breastroke
Then a variety of straight swims, 25 sprint 25 easy, pull with paddles, breathing every 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 strokes, or concentrating on one aspect of my technique – head position – hand entry – speed of stroke, more kick, etc. etc.
Another favourite was 100’s on two minutes which I would do after the 1500m warm up, a minimum of 20.
Prior to my operations for breast cancer I used to be able to churn out a 1:30 100m swim in the pool and always below 1:35. After the operation my swimming seemed to become slower and slower and with my triathlon training I was concentrating more on endurance than speed.
Despite all the pool training I was doing, I found I was struggling to do the 100’s on 2 minutes, often only having 10 or even 5 seconds rest. Then on a Saturday morning I suddenly did 1:31. I was so chuffed and from then on most were under 1:40 rather than over.
My last Dorchester swim towards the end of May was 100 x 100m’s on 2 minutes. Kevin, one of the other swimmers in Croatia had suggested it.
I dropped the Dorchester swims as I couldn’t fit anymore training in the week without sacrificing some rest and recovery. That left me with the Satruday morning swim with Weyport, at least one cycle and run per week plus TRX (strength and conditioning) and yoga classes in addition to my open water swims.
I also tried to get back to an old favourite of mine that I had dropped since training for the Ironman. Octopush (underwater hockey), but it was difficult to fit in. Excellent for aerobics and breath control.
