#winterswim

#winterswim was an idea conceived by Tom, Ove and I during a Skype conference call chatting about 2010 triathlon races. Tom has worked his statistical magic and has designed a wicked challenge to keep anybody motivated, and hungry to put the hard work in through the winter. The basic concept is a maximal swim every fortnight. Week 2 a 400m, Week 4 a 100m, Week 6 another 400m, Week 8 a 200m, Week 10, 400m, Week 12, 800m, Week 14, 400m, Week 16 1500m, Week 18, 400m, Week 20, 3.8k, Week 22, 400m and finally a brucey bonus 10k for anybody Mad, up for a challenge, or fancying some serious lengths. To keep beginners and the super speedy motivated and to add in that competition, Tom is comparing peoples times against World Record Times and looking at % improvements from fortnight to fortnight. (not a job for me, but Tom has it firmly in hand, cheers mate)

My swim performance in Triathlons has always been pretty solid. I have always done very little swimming (a combination of lack of time, lack of decent pools to swim in and to be honest a somewhat smug satisfaction that every season on minimal swim training I have still been able to perform pretty good) I have thus done a little open water swimming pre-ironman races, and some very specific long sessions in the pool for a few weeks prior to a race. What I have done though, is lot's of upper body strength work and muscular endurance work in the gym 12 months of the year. I really enjoy gym work, whether it's maxing out on bench press or hitting some high reps on shoulder and lat exercises. This I feel has been very beneficial and allowed me to 'swim strong' in an open water environment. However with the #winterswim challenge firmly laid down I got myself a membership at JJB gym, which although it is only a 20m pool is 5 mins from my house and very convenient.

I have for the last 6 weeks swam more km's than I did for my entire swim training prior to Lanzarote IM last earlier this year. My #winterswim performance has been very encouraging. 400m = 6.33, 100m = 1.27, 400m = 6.19. Last night I swam 20 x 100m (mixing swim, drill HARD and swim) During the Hard 100m I was touching on between 1.31 and 1.34, and tonight an impromptu session saw a straight through 2000m, feeling strong throughout.

Swimming is such a solid training activity, I am convinced that I will be considerably faster in next seasons triathlons as a result of the hard work through the winter. In addition to the obvious swimming improvement, (measured in better swim splits) I will be getting on the bike feeling fresher, with the swim taking much less out of me. I also expect to see a leg strength benefit from swimming consistently. If I swim a 2k set that is 100 lengths and 100 legs drives off the wall. If I attack the wall and drive hard off it there will definitely be a training effect on my leg muscles, I bet it requires similar leg power to jump squats. Also there is the cardiovascular benefits associated with any form of aerobic and anaerobic training.

I was lucky enough to be invited to a Boxing Dinner on Wednesday by some good friends who move in the boxing circles. The guest speakers were Leon Spinks (beat Ali) John Stracey (World Welterweight Champion in the late 60's, 70's) and Brian London (British Heavy Weight) It was a good evening and with photos of Leon and Ali fighting it really brought home how good this guy was. It was a little sad to see Spinks, who in his 60's was in a pretty bad way, his movement was a slow shuffle and his speech was laboured and slurred, however this guy to boxing fans a LEGEND.

Saturday was the end of my schools Rugby Season, we move on to Football in the Spring term. It has been very successful season and given that I am in charge and responsible for the sport at the school it reflects the time and effort I put into it. I have coached the 1st Team this season and it has been a great one. The boys have trained hard, and have played some excellent Rugby. Our record is Played 13, Won 9, Drawn 1, Lost 3, compared to previous seasons this is like winning the Premiership, FA Cup and Champions League. I would like to put all our success down to my coaching, but it's mainly due to having a greater selection of good players to choose from, because a large group of decent boys have stayed on into our 6th form these last couple of years. All the other teams have been more successful than in previous years so something must be going right. We are a very small school with just 20 to 28 boys in a year group, we have managed to field teams at u12, u13, u14, u15 and 1st xv this season, playing a combined total of 54 matches. It sometimes takes more of my time than I would like (especially at weekends) but it is a huge part of being a PE teacher and one where I do get a great deal of satisfaction from, here's to a successful Football Season.

The rest of the week has been as busy as usual, the house is now all 'Christmasified' and the girls (including Sarah) are starting to get quite excited. I have just 5 days of work left this year before a decent break until 4th January (holidays always make me excited, more training time and a chance to catch up with friends and of course loads more time with Sarah, Ellie and Evie) I will get to take Ellie to school and collect her.

I was asking Ellie what she wanted to get Mummy for Christmas, her response was great;

"Lipstick, because Mummy is really fussy about going out with out lipstick"

She's absolutely right, one of Sarah's little habits, lipgloss queen I call her....Enjoy your week :)