Old Skool

A bit of fun down the pool at the Wednesday Morning Swim Smooth Red Mist set. I say fun, but then again I was watching rather than doing. If I had been doing my perspective might have been a little bit different.

On Monday I mentioned that Paul is having an Old School training week (more accurately Old Skool). The main reason Paul has done this is to inject a bit of enthusiasm into the squad. It isn't that the squad is struggling for energy, rather it is just that the squad usually goes through a quiet period at this time of year. People are resting after the Rottnest Channel Swims, the weather is getting cooler etc. It becomes much easier for people to justify staying in bed. To combat the natural tendency for people to skip swimming, Paul tries to come up with some interesting sessions to keep the motivation alive. This autumn those interesting sessions are Old Skool.

Temperatures drop and mists rise

On Monday people were experimenting with a whole range of old drills, like catch up etc. Today the Old Skool was more strength focused. That meant swimming in T-shirts, pool-buoy and paddles and timed efforts. Fun to watch, hard to do. There were certainly a few shaky arms by the end. \

Old Skool also meant that the session did not use tempo timers, which means people had to swim by feel rather than having the constant reminder of pace beeping in their caps. The lack of pace reminders had some interesting results with some people struggling to hold pace, but by far the majority swimming quicker than they usually would. It was an impressive display. Usually when the tempo timers are taken away you see at least a few instances of poor pacing as people go out too quickly and then struggle. We didn't see too much of that today, with some lanes coming in within a couple of seconds of their target times, even over 800m. To me that is an impressive display of pacing control. To me it also indicates the value of the tempo timer, as it seems to have instilled good pacing into some squad members, to the extent that when it is taken away they still maintain the same rhythms. That is certainly the matra that Paul preaches, so it is good to see that the lessons have hit home.

Old Skool week continues in the Threshold Sessions on tomorrow night and Friday morning. I am particularly looking forward to being on the pool deck for these ones. Paul has promised different strokes. Very exciting.