Another new swim session at Lunchtime today. This one had a core of 6x50m ith the first 25m of each as an all out effort. Folloed by a 100m all out effort with paddles and pull buoy.

It didn't take long but it hurt a great deal. With the 25 metre sprints I found I as very much taking 4-6 strokes per breath as I'd got the lung capacity to cope with the intense anaerobic effort. It also improved my position in the water. ONe of the things that I find about swimming fast is that with a high arm cadence I cannot twist my body fast enough and so end up keeping it flat most of the time.

Nothing remarkable about the rest of the session - just that I struggled a bit when swimming without pull buoy. Crutches are great.

Came back and am half way through the 2 kilos of fruit I seem to eat at lunchtimes now a days.

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Just a quick note to everyone reading this - do post comments agreeing or disagreeing with my posts.

I love swimming and today was brilliant. It was hot as I scampered from the changing room to the pool and the soles of me feet burnt (poetic licence). The water as beautiful blue and cool. This is a brilliant life. I should be grateful more often. Once in the pool I discovered that I had left goggles, paddles, pull buoy and timer at home.

Fortunately the God-like Simon Cross helped me out with a pair of goggles. Thank you Sir.I also had a set of medium paddles in my bag. So free from the tyranny of a timer I set off with my toes dragging along the bottom.

This was great as it forced me to put my head down - swim downhill as they say - to force my legs up. The bigger paddles were hard work at first and my cadence as noticeably slower. My stroke seemed noticeably better though. Speed - I have no idea.

Started cramping in my feet towards the end - that's why I love pull buoys - but not too bad

All good fun and my 30 lengths done happily - though my arms were tired by the end of it. I must have been super fit back in February. Soon will be again :)

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Friday's run was dead dead dead - but I was able to salvage the swim by fitting it inbefore the bike and it also gave a bit of T1 practice.

Swimming at home in the 15m pool again I was struggling after half the warm up set and miserable by the time I'd finished. I seemed to have no strength in my arms and I wanted to give up :(. I then did the TI drills - this time without fins and they were really good. My legs were a lot more 'floatable' and it gave me a bit of a breather.

The main set was meant to be a fartlek 6x100 25 easy, 25 hard etc. Because of the pool I made it 6 x90 15 easy, 15 hard etc. I died. It was horrible. 2 longer reps is a lot easier than 3 shorter reps and I was into serious oxygen deficit by the time I'd finished each set of 6 lengths. I was gocus on power in the pull rather than raw speed and it was really hard by the end to start each new set. But I did and I feel good because I did.

I skipped the kick set and the fins and avoided cramp. I also notice a few things about my stroke. My feet tend to flutter now kicking and I can actually time the flutter to match the stroke or miss it. I thing this is new and an improvement. The other thingt that I noticed during the hard sets was that there seems to be a wonderful motion just out of my reach where the hand that pulls is balanced by a hand that is reaching forward through the water. There seems to be a symetry and a yoga like balance to the move - but it only becomes semi obvious when I'm working really hard.

Out of the pool and onto the bike. I couldn't find anyrubber bands to hold my shoes in place so I used sellotape. So couldn't get my feet into the shoes. Failed to guide the bike and almost headbutted a billar that I almost cycled into trying to sort things out. Need more practice - and perhaps new pedals - the SPDs seemed to make it really hard.

On the road and I decided that after swimming for an hour and a half I'd take the bike easy especially as my swim was meant to be a breakthrough session. I headed out along the LDP heading for Rawang. Instead i ended up cycling through Kepong and onto Jalan Ipoh. I turned north and at the Kuantan tturning turned back left towards Sungau Buloh - then backonto the LDP. The route was blissfully flat and just what was ordered. I stayed in the same gear all the way round (until the hill just coming back into DP anyway) and had a great ride up tothe DP Tol. High Cadence, lots of power, lots of speed, no effort. Wow. Bloody pleased with that.

Actually really pleased with the whole session. 2 1/2 hours of really good workout.

Got home had a huge breakfast - including finishing off the second bottle of go juice - and went to bed for and hour. My upper body hurts but what a session. One of my best :)

Bike computer screwed up though and no cadence - again!

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