Margaret River is a strange place sometimes in this instance with swim schools not operating in the winter months. Coming from the UK where it was the norm for my hair to freeze walking to school after training I don’t understand why more people don’t swim in winter.
The pool is at its warmest, as is the ambient temperature as less people open the pool doors and after a hot shower you leave the rec centre warmer and cosier than having set off for a run or ride in the cold outdoors.
This is all to the gain of Swimming Women which will turn 1 this coming term and plans are afoot to ditch the warmth of the pool and head to the beach for a chilly swim by which I mean very quick dip followed by a morning T on Sunday June 1st. More details to follow.
Working on..
This coming term, although not the full depth of winter we will be working on a few different areas. To be specific our focus areas for this term are:
– pacing and understanding the difference different stroke rates have on your stroke,
– feel for the water including all things sculling and getting over that darn barrel,
– body rotation which will involve lots of that lovely Michael Phelps.
Monster Improvements
It has been fantastic to see so many people regularly swimming and seeing the improvements that brings. Friday sessions will continue as before with the slightly more ‘traditional and challenging’ swimming sets. I know the thought of Fridays worries some of you but I can proudly advise that three Dabblers who couldn’t swim at the beginning of Feb 2014, completed 3-4 Friday sessions after their introductory course finished and their improvements were phenomenal…nice work Shannon Sobott, Peta Lemmes and Fran Bancroft.
The new Strokers from last term who also continued swimming with a Friday session started to really get their ‘Swimming Groove on’ too. They advised they couldn’t swim more than 200m but after 1 intro course and a few Friday sessions they were cranking out the kilometers with the best of them.
Last term was so satisfying with so many eureka moments for many and I can’t wait to see that continue into this term. For some those moments occurred after 3 terms of persistence but by ‘eck the satisfaction was worth it. So here’s to a winter of working out with friends, its always more fun!