Sunday 17 February 2013

Tenerife #1

I've been in Tenerife for less than 24 hours and so far I have:

* swum twice
* knocked 3 off my 25m stroke count (down to 18 and a half!)
* developed freckles
* SEEN HANNAH MILEY WHO IS TRAINING IN THE SAME FACILITY AS US [I was in swimming costume at the time without my idevice or would have asked for a snap]
* been chatted up by a Swiss footballer in German (he was a bit bemused when he realised I was english, I was a bit bemused when he realised this as I really only have schoolgirl German).
* been paddling in the sea and got my trousers wet

Here I am on Tridynamic's Swim Faster Camp with Dan Bullock, for the second year running.  It's good to be back on the camp and there are some familiar faces.  Vicky and I are set to see who can out-pink each other this year!  Yesterday we swam in the 50m pool for 1.5 hours, we did some black line swimming work where you use the line to help you align your body.  We did some drill work as part of a "technical endurance swim" and by the end of the session I was already feeling stronger.

This morning we spent half an hour doing warm up work in the gym.  I was pleased thati had remembered the warm up routine correctly from last year, which is good as I must have done it over 200 times in the interim as I have been using it for my own warm up routine!  There was a little bit of time before we hit the pool so I did 5 minutes of my own pilates exercises.  I will take my instructions next time and then I can do all 5 exercises (could only remember 3 of them!).  We then hit the 25m pool for some technical work, and I was really happy that after doing some drills and then counting my strokes, I hit 18 strokes for a length.  I was swimming about 21-22 in the UK, sometimes worse than that.  The drill that was new to me today was a variation on the extension drill/superman position, where you extend your forearm; today we added in raising the following arm .  It was interesting for me to see how much weaker I am when my right arm is leading.


It is really warm and sunny which is a great tonic.  Coming away with my depression is a bit of a struggle if I'm honest, and there was a bit of a meltdown after dinner last night, as this is the first time I have been on my own since being ill without Mr Tuna around to look after me.  I was overtired and probably hadn't eaten enough (as evidenced by managing 2 powerbars, a flapjack and a bag of maltesers after speaking to Mr Tuna on the phone!).  Anyway, I'm going to have a nap now and then head back up to the training facility for some juice (or maybe even a banana milkshake) and have a verity-friendly snack for lunch.

Big thanks to everyone who has sent me lovely texts over the last 24 hours, the internet here is a bit rubbish so it's variable as to whether or not I can get online.  I want to try to blog each day, and because I forgot my camera, Martin, tridynamic camp director has promised to pass me some pictures for the blog to make up for the paucity of idevice!

I'm going to put some pictures in a separate post for now, just because it's easier with the internet/lack of camera issues!

1 comment:

  1. Verity, what is a good stroke count for 25m/yd.? I usually get 18-19.5, and my coach wants us down to 15-17. And how do you lower your count--kick more and pull slowly?

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