report on swimming club session #7

Hello!

Danny, David, Sharon and I went swimming today – where was our teacher? She has obviously decided we are so good that we don’t need her anymore – it’s not true.  Or maybe she likes the flapjacks on Box Hill better than swimclub cake…. well the cake options were excellent today, big improvement on last week (although we did like David’s brownies).

Anyway, swimming, swimming, swimming. Danny, David and Sharon swam lots of lengths, about 56? I arrived later as usual and squeezed in 36 or so. As we had no teacher David and I did a bit of peer tutoring, mainly checking that we were keeping our legs up during front crawl. Sharon has invested in a nose clip and seemed to be getting on swimmingly (ba doom tish) with that, and Danny continues to make good progress with the head in the water issue. So lots of good work done today.

It seemed to me that the pool was colder than usual but the showers were hotter today.

Back to the clubhouse by car, bike and walking for the essential refuelling on tea and cake. Sharon had made a lovely chocolate cake, iced in pink with a particularly innovative and eye catching design. I think it will catch on in the cake world. I made the promised ginger cake, it was a massive improvement on the apple cake in that it actually tasted of ginger. And was lovely. David did his second pb of the day by eating four pieces of cake.

Next week we are having an end of term outing to the boat race after swimming club.

Kirsty x 

report on swimming club session #6

Present today at swimclub: Kirsty, Danny, David, Jo and new member Vicki. So no teacher again this week (she was cycling up and down Box Hill) but we all had plenty of homework to get on with.

Jo went early to swim a large number of lengths. Danny and David went early to swim many many many lengths and also to put in another rehearsal for their secret water ballet. I will post performance dates, times, ticket details etc when I get them. I believe the costumes are going to be pink with glitter. Anyway I digress.

Vicki and I arrived non-early, I have a big race to run tomorrow so did not want to peak too soon. Vicki was concerned that she might be crap at swimming but I assured her that was the whole point. She seemed ok to me, and was definitely the best at being tanned.

I swam 10 lengths of breast stroke and then starting practising my front crawl. After last week’s eureka moment of floaty-legs, they seemed to be a bit sinky again today. Oh well.

The pool was really nice and empty again today, this is such a good time to go. I recommend it highly. Especially to the people who haven’t even turned up ONCE yet! Stuart, Emma, Orlando, Suze ……. come on in guys the water is lovely!

In the changing rooms I saw some kids I know who were going in to play on the inflatable. One of them explained to me that you have to be eight, but she is seven so pretends to be be eight! She explained this in quite a loud voice with her mum shushing her and a lifeguard hovering around the corner. Her little sister then repeated it all in an even louder voice! I hope she didn’t get rumbled…..

Cakes today were some lovely chocolate brownies home-made by David (in the sense that he did make them in his home) and an utterly pointless apple and cinnamon cake made by me. If it tasted of apple and/or cinnamon there may have been some point to it. I think I should stop trying out new recipes and use the ones I know are good.  Next week – sticky ginger cake with ginger fudge icing.

Kirsty x

report on swimming club session #5

We welcomed two new junior members to the club today, and Ruby and Dylan proceeded to show us up by being rather good at swimming!

Danny and Nicola went early and did lots of warm up lengths before the lesson. I would have been early but got sidetracked in The Sweatshop on the way. When I did finally arrive at the pool I decided to swim in the lane for a bit of breaststroke, because I can do that without constantly stopping and annoying the serious lane swimmers. I did 20 lengths and got lapped several times by Nic, who must have done 120 lengths in the same time.

I then went over to join Danny in the mucking about section of the pool ready for our lesson, first the trauma of crossing the fast front crawl only lane, good grief it was like trying to cross the M25!

I did a bit of front crawl practise, trying hard to remember everything I’ve learnt. However it still seemed like a massive waste of energy to me, being completely exhausting (out of breath and needing a rest at the end of each length) and yet slower than my breaststroke. I explained this to Nic, so she watched me doing a length and said the problem was my sinking legs (obviously caused by muscles of steel!).

So I tried again, concentrating on keeping my legs up near the surface. WOW what a revelation! Ok it was still completely exhausting, but I was actually moving faster than a snail. Very happy with this bit of progress. Next step is to keep it going for more than a length.

Jo, Ruby and Dylan stayed for the inflatable, the rest of us went home, but NO CAKE! Very poor effort, sorry guys, will do better next time. I have made one this afternoon, a special Guiness cake for St Patrick’s Day. Actually that’s a big fat lie, I made it because there was a can of Guiness hanging around the kitchen. It looks nice though!

Report on swimming club session #4

I’m so excited I could crush a grape. However as it’s not Friday and it’s not 5 to 5 I’d better get on with the swimming report instead. The reason for my excitement is of course this lovely blog that Hollywood has set up for me. And it’s causing me to be such a net-nerd already that I’m using silly usernames. Anyway, thank you to my webmeister and on with the report.

The lesson today was due to start at 1.30, so like any sensible person I arrived at about 1.15 in time for a warm up. Jo is obviously a sensible person as she arrived just before me. However some people are clearly less sensible (or just didn’t have to have such a massively long chat with their coach first) and arrived about nine hours early. What they were doing in this time I’m a little unsure about, I *think* they were rehearsing some kind of water ballet. Maybe there’s going to be an end of term show…

Anyway, we got straight on with the task in hand. Danny had to practise getting his head wet, once he gets good at this he will be speedy gonzales. David seems to be pretty good at everything already (except he sinks a little bit), Sharon (the pb queen) had to practise breathing (quite a useful skill really), and our new member Jo, although having good technique seems to have the same problem as me – being completely exhausted after one length of front crawl. As for me I had to practise arms, legs and breathing. But I am making progress according to our lovely teacher Nicola. Everyone is actually. There can only be one star pupil though…

I wanted a target to achieve before I award myself a new swimming costume – Nic suggested 8 lengths of continuous front crawl. I can just about do two so far…

At the end of the lesson we had the traditional race but only 33% of the membership were brave enough to take part. I am still the undefeated intergalatic champion of breaststroke!

Everyone worked very hard today, we were so tired by kicking out time that we had no energy for the inflatable I mean the core stability programme. Sharon had enough energy to tell off some screaming kids though!

So back to the club house I mean my house for tea, cake and checking the bptt results; cake today was a lemon one made by Sharon. it was very nice although she spent the whole morning telling us it was no good. But it was. 

report on Saturday Swimming Club session#3

Sorry for late report, hectic day.

Anyway, session 3, numbers not yet stabilised due to other commitments (Emma ‘forgot’ her swimming stuff, Orlando was slaving over a hot laptop, Sharon was working, David was getting physical punishment (aka physio), Stuart was off to find a Thai bride (or something)), BUT we have potential new mwmbers (hello Jo and Suze!) AND the teacher finally turned up! (And she didn’t even laugh at us *that* much).

Danny and I arrived at 5 minutes to 12, Nic strolled casually in at 1 minute past. Bloody teachers, can’t get the staff… We got ready, blah blah, I’m sure you all have more than enough info on the changing rooms etc by now if you’ve been reading the reports properly, and did a few lengths of breaststroke to warm up. Nic was relatively happy with our arms but legs were not good. Need to stick them out more apparantly. So we practised that a bit, she smiled encouragingly….. and suggested we moved on to front crawl. Oh dear.

The bits I had wrong were my arms, hands, head, breathing, doing more than one length without drowning…… the legs were ok this time though! Danny would have been ok but for 2 things – his flailing head and his buns of steel which apparantly cause his legs to sink.

It all got very technical at this point, we had floats to hold on to, different floats to stick between our legs and lots of different techniques to remember. All top advice though and our teacher was very patient. And kind. And did laugh at us a little bit.

I think we did around 30 lengths in total by which time we were cream crackered.

No cakes this week, sorry, will do better next week, just a little piece of chocolate to sustain us for the journey home.

Kirsty x