Abacus Training

The end of half term school holidays brought the return to pool training. The initial session of the week was a tentative check on the back/side issue I experienced just before the break. All seemed to be well and my motivization was certainly strong enough.

As the week progressed so did the difficulty and intensity of the sets. During the planning stage for the weekend I happened to speak with Mark Bayliss (EC solo 2007) he mentioned that he and his wife Lucinda (both of whom have EC solo swims booked for 2012) were planning a long session for the Saturday. Mark was kind enough to forward me the finer details on email so I had no excuses.

Arriving at the pool Sunday lunchtime armed with lots of fluids and the regulation skittles, I commenced the session with Amanda moaning in the adjacent lane as she was only kicking due to shoulder injury. It was one of those days when you just feel like all is going to plan, you feel strong, your stroke seems to glide without effort, the breathing is under control and even the chlorine levels seem ok and not burning the face for a change!

I tend not to count lengths in the pool rather use the clock, as I know more or less how long each repetition should take. The problem for me is actually remembering the number of reps completed. I swim with my eyes closed most of the time and tend to just drift off thinking of nothing in particular, so the last thing I wanted to do was struggle with the maths.

After a few reps the bright idea of breaking down the floats on the grotty lane rope and using them as an abacus came to mind, this made life so much easier mentally and I could get on with swimming and nothing else. Just over three and half hours later I was all done and felt remarkably good. No shoulder issues to talk of and plenty of energy remaining.

Lucinda posted the set elsewhere so there should be no issues with sharing it here on the off chance you fancy completing yourself. 

Thanks To Amanda for taking the snaps of the new in pool tool