The four swimmers in the ‘Competitive A’ lane took several minutes to gather so after a delayed warm up (for some) the first 8 x 25m and easy 100m were scored out. Masters like to take a pause between the Warm Up and Main Set to chat. I may add 2 -3 mins for this in future programmes. The timings on each set worked out to the exact minute. Another few minutes before the penultimate and last  8 x 25m was taken as the swimmers negotiated over who was doing what and how.

Two swimmers (competing in Sheffield at the weekend they said) opted for 4 x 25m on 40 seconds sprinting flat out for each 25m rather than the already demanding 100m race pace speed 8 x 15m on 20 secs. For these they swam between 14.01 and 15.32 per 25m.

Repeats of between 17-19 secs over the first 3 sets of 8x25m meant that turning around on 20 seconds late on would be a challenge. It was, but it was what they wanted apparently.

One swimmer asked me to keep an eye on their head position and left shoulder potentially crossing the body. The left shoulder did at time ‘over balance’ during the easy swim, but in the sprints they were kept low and even. The head position, not as low as a National Squad teenager was slightly more raised than ideal with occasional glances forward causing the head to rise a natz.  A second swimmer smacks their hands on the water in FC and on part of the kick, possibly when turning to breath, over kicks and brings the entire foot out of the water. Asking for ‘silent and smooth’ didn’t work, so a drill is required for this – as noisy in an easy swim and more pronounced in a pace set.