Tenerife #6

Another busy 24 hours on camp...


Yesterday afternoon we were in the 50m pool for a technical endurance session.  We started with some drills, doing the hand position ones that we had done in the morning (sadly not the leg ones!).  Our main set was 24x50m off 90 seconds.  For the non swimmers, this means that you have 90 seconds to do the swim and rest, so the faster you swim, the more rest you get.  The aim was consistency.  I found this swim session pretty tough as I am definitely not used to doing fast short sprints, give me a nice 3.8k plod any day.  However, I know that it is important (and that's why I scheduled some shorter, 1500m races last season).  I misestimated the first 50m and was too slow (I think I was worried about getting through the set), around 50 seconds, but after that I was hitting 42-43 seconds throughout which I was really pleased with as I didn't even know I could swim so fast.  Although it hurt, the session went by surprisingly fast and we were soon cooling down and I was trying to get rid of the lactic acid.

After that it was back to the hotel to read my book and I finally managed my first daytime nap of the camp listening to the sea.

This morning we were in for a disappointment but it turned out to be one of the best mornings of the camp so far.  We were due to do an openwater swim at 7.30 but the decision was taken that the current was making it too unsafe to swim in the sea.  So I was togged up in my wetsuit with nowhere to go.  Decided to go and change and go for a run!  Instructions for route provided by Vicky, and I was off on my own (with my trusty iphone managing to connect to the GPS even with data turned off so that I got some feedback on time/distance).  it was surprisngly up-downy going along the coastal promenade but what a great chance it was to see a bit more of Tenerife than the small strip between the hotel and the training facility.  I enjoyed seeing the other hotels and the shops and restaurants along the coast and some quite different, more touristy beaches.  La Caleta where we are staying is a bit more traditional with black sandy beaches and obviously a lot quieter than 2k down the coast.  5k run was completed, a bit slower than usual but I blame that on the up-downy paths.

Whilst I was out running I got a text saying that the 25m pool had been booked for 9am, so it was back to the room to grab a drink and get my kit together.  I wasn't sure how I'd be feeling in the pool after the run but it was a really enjoyable session.  Two things I was asked to focus on including trying to tuck my chin in to give me a better head position (fine until I wanted to breathe when I nearly ended up drowning - I think my head position is a side effect of swimming so much in a public pool where you're always on the look out for people that you are about to catch up!), and also to try to brush my opposite hip with my thumb as my arm goes under my body, hopefully this will give me a better alignment.

We did two drills tomorrow that stick especially in my mind.  Firstly we worked on hand position using fists and then paddles.  We did half a length using one fist, one hand normal, and then the other half of the stroke reversing, before a whole length of full stroke.  We then used paddles (I was lent some really cool teeny tiny ones which were much kinder to my weak shoulders than my husbands regular ones), 2 lengths using one paddle on one hand, 2 lengths using the paddle on the other hand and then 2 lengths full stroke.  Repeated 3 times.   Secondly, a mechanical front crawl, where you touch the thumb to the stomach, then the shoulder, and then the ear as you take a stroke, and using a catch up so that you have time to think about it.  We did this first with fins and snorkel, and then snorkel only, and then tried to do full stroke utilising these lessons.

I capped the morning off with a freshly squeezed orange juice in the pool cafe whilst having a chat with some of the others and checking my work emails (well, you can't have it all!).  It seems to have clouded over a little now which is a shame, but we'll be back to the 25m pool anyway for our afternoon session.