Channel Swim 20: New Training Plan

A weeks worth of Training plan

Coach Hannah had come through and delivered a new, OW focused training plan.

Week 13-19 June	Time	Focus
Saturday	2 hours	Balanced Rotation
Sunday	3 hours	Bilateral Breathing
Monday	REST DAY	N/A
Tuesday	2 hours	Body position, face down long through core
Wednesday	2 hours	Legs – focus on efficient kick
Thursday	2 hours	Alignment of arms and Sighting
Friday	Intensity or cross train – 30 mins	Hard efforts with active recove (RPE 8/10)

Saturday, June 13th, 6:15 am, 14.5 degrees

I got filthy looks from the family as I set an alarm for 5:30 Saturday morning. Normally I’d slink off to the guest room to minimise disruption to everyone’s sleep, but the spare bed is in pieces as I try and fix a broken bolt. I’m sure I managed to make it out without waking them up, but it’s amazing how much grumbling and throwing things people can do in their sleep.

There should be six of us swimming this morning (social distancing very much a thing) from the local swimming group, but a no show means we are off as a quintet; its nice to see John for the first time in months.

I’m still struggling to find my post lockdown ‘All day pace’ and go off feeling slow and disjointed. I’m focusing hard on my rotation today, which had basically stopped happening while in lockdown.

We turn right from the jetty this morning, and go downstream for my first time. It’s an amazing swim with lots to look at as you go and very little traffic on the river at this time of day, but despite resting since the six hour qualifier last Sunday, my shoulders feel stiff and… crunchy is the only word I can think of, so I play it safe and get out when the rest of the group do with an hour in.

Sunday, June 14th, 10:00 am, 15.6 degrees

Much more civilised start time this morning. I’d reached out to the tri club and asked for a couple of volunteers to swim with me.

In club training in the pool, Jane and I usually swim in the same lane – she keeps asking me to go in front and I usually refuse because I know she’s faster and drags me along. I was delighted when she offered to swim with me, and it worked out better than I hoped – Jane has such a complementary, strong and consistent pace, I found myself swimming fast and powerfully for the first time in months.

Shoulders were loose and flexible, I’d clearly shaken them out yesterday. Today I was supposed to be focused on bilateral, its amazing how often I find excuses not to, but I really wanted to bottle this feeling so focused on staying long and powerful.

Stu was going to be taking over for the second half, and settled in alongside us as we started the second hour of the swim but it rapidly turned into a festival as coach Hannah arrived to check on my stroke, Juliet joined us in the water and Max and Sacha paddled guard for us in a smart and sleek racing kayak. This was a hardcore piece of kit and I suspect there’s a story around it; I mentally parked the questions I had until later.

With the later start, it’s sunnier and warmer and there’s all sorts of people making use of the river, but everyone is sharing nicely. There were some glorious moments as five of us pounded up stream in a streamlined diamond formation with the kayak alongside, but it was really hard when everyone except Stu and I climbed out to chat and catch up. I asked Hannah if I could bin the second half of the swim and join in.

‘How does your body feel?’ she asked
‘Fine, strong’
‘And how about your head?’ was the follow up
‘That’s good too.’
‘Then get back in there and do another loop’ was the predictable response.

I don’t know what else I expected, really, but it seemed a lot colder and quieter and Stu and I worked our way upstream again.

Monday, June 15th… all day

REST DAY!!!!!!! Yee hah! Although I don’t feel like I need a rest day, just getting a break from early starts makes a huge difference. We’re also smack bang in the middle of the (mercifully short) Duck, or Swimmer’s Itch season and although I thought I’d beaten the typical 3 bites/hour of swimming on Sunday, overnight I steadily found the missing painful and swollen lumps.

Tuesday, June 16th, 6:10 am, 16 degrees

I’d set the 5:30 alarm when the family weren’t around. I can’t imagine there will be any later fall out from this. Its now a little later and I’m sipping tea while admiring the mist on the river as the sun begins to burn it away. Again, we had five in our group of swimmers and agreed John would set the pace, he would turn when he hit the bridge, and we would all follow suit regardless of where we’d got to. I chuckled at the thought of us all chasing John – I hadn’t thought this through as we spent most of the hour with him relentlessly chasing us down. This was a good thing – it meant I could take my time and find my rhythm and then work hard to postpone the inevitable catch.

Work hard I did – we swam to the bridge, turned, swam a long way downstream to the sailing club, turned, and swam back to our entry. At the halfway point as Ian, Hannah and John all cruised past in the middle of the river, maximising the downstream flow, I realised I still have a lot to learn about choosing the best position in the water.

After a tough slog back upstream we arrived back at the jetty; everyone got out except James (who had scared the living daylights out of me when he popped up alongside me with 200m to go) and I. We waved goodbye to the early squad and took off on a second hour lap.

We pushed on a little further upstream than on previous laps intending to touch the lock gates but as we got within a couple of hundred metres of the lock, there was a pronounced petrol taste in the water so we quickly turned around and coasted back downstream.

I eased off a little as we passed the entry point for the final small loop with about 15 minutes to go – I’d had a decent workout and although the pace still isn’t where it needs to be, the gap is slowly closing. More importantly I hadn’t got bored and hadn’t tried to knock off early. There are many worse ways to spend a morning.

Wednesday, June 17th, 4:00 am, toasty

I’m lying in bed watching the alarm clock. I want to wake and slip out before it goes off at 5:30. 4:00 is too early, but I’m worrying enough about waking everyone up that I know I’m not going to sleep again. Eventually I give up and sneak downstairs to read for a bit.

Wednesday, June 17th, 6:10 am, 16.5 degrees

Please don’t turn up… please don’t turn up… please don’t turn up…. Balls.

They’ve just turned up.

I’m mentally exhausted (I know I’m lucky to have any but work is tough and relentless right now) and really not in the mood for a swim. I’m not in the mood for anything really. It’s so foggy in the river this morning that I’ve already spent the last five minutes telling myself it wouldn’t be safe to swim on my own and planning an escape.

I force a smile on my face I start shedding clothes with the rest of the group.

Wednesday, June 17th, 6:32 am, 16.5 degrees

We’ve just powered up to the flagpole above the railway bridge; a strong quartet this morning. The sun has burnt the fog off, the water is warm, and we’ve already seen probably more than 20 other swimmers in the river – there’s a procession of brightly coloured tow floats on both sides of the river. I feel good, slight grumbling from the right elbow which I’m keeping a very careful eye on. Once again, it feels like my pace is coming back, slowly. Strava is no help measuring this as the river current guarantees you won’t have the same swim one day to another.

On the one hand I’m really glad I got in and swam, I know the endorphins have improved my mood and are going to help me get through the rest of the day, but on the other I can’t decide if my elbow is an issue or if I’m so tired I’m overreacting to the usual aches and pains. I split the difference, doing one more lap and getting out after an hour and twenty minutes. I need to see what happens to the elbow over the next 24 hours.

Thursday, June 18th, 13:30 am, 16.5 degrees

Thundery showers. Hmmm. Tomorrow it is. I’ll do zwift today.

On an unrelated note, I am getting taken apart by the flatworm larvae that cause duck itch. I don’t think there’s more than six inches anwhere on my body without intensely itchy bites all over, which is perfectly inline with spending so much time in open water with no protective wetsuit.

Friday, June 19th, 9:30 am, 16.5 degrees

So yesterday just wasn’t right. I really didn’t want to swim. This wasn’t just the typical ‘Oh god, I’m so tired, I don’t want to get up and swim mindlessly up and down the river’, but something deeper and I spent some time last night before drifting off to sleep trying to work out why. With the benefit of the reflection, I think I know what’s going on.

My elbow was more sore than I let on to anyone on Wednesday. It wasn’t too bad while swimming, but over the next couple of hours hotly twanged away as I caught up with work. There’s a constant fear that I’m going to injure myself and the swim is going to be wrecked; none of this is easy and I am pushing myself past my limits on a regular basis mentally and physically, so the immediate response when something is wrong is to deny it.

‘The elbow is fine’ I lied to coach Hannah. I know she didn’t believe me, but at this point I was doing such a good job of misleading myself I was at least 70% bought in. It was the 30% that remained unconvinced that was looking for excuses. Coach Hannah tells me ‘You know your body better than anyone’ and I firmly believe she’s right – with the small reservation that often my body is telling me lies. In this case, I think my subconcious was genuinely worrying about the elbow and trying to protect it and give it a chance to adjust.

I’ve trained for eight hours and thirty minutes this week against a schedule of eleven hours. Obviously that’s a big gap, but despite not having a lot of time until September I’m actually ok with that – with the exception of a big swim a week ago I’ve done nothing like this for months.

The milometer resets at midnight and the goal now is to swim the full eleven hours next week… with no problems from the elbow.