Race Against Hunger

I went to support O and F at their Race Against Hunger this morning. I had asked the boys last week if they wanted me to support them, O said no, but F said yes. But in the end, I think they were secretly hoping I would turn up, and were happy I was there I think.

O ran 16 laps of 280m in 15 minutes, which is excellent. F ran 9 laps of 200m in 8 minutes, which is also way faster than me! I had tracked O’s laps by using the lap function on my watch, and it was taking a while to sync, so he got a bit impatient and stroppy with me, which I didn’t appreciate. But I suppose he was really keen to find out the result, especially since the parent volunteer counters don’t always do a good job of counting, and the boys often massively inflate their numbers. Although William looked like he actually did quite well this year – his running seemed more easy and effortless, and I saw him overtake O once.

Swim Session Kings Cross

I signed up for the Kings Cross coached swim session, but was really dreading the session. My heart was thumping so hard, and I was feeling quite stressed about the idea of going into the pool, and just struggling again like I did on Monday… flailing and trying desperately to get to the end of the pool before I run out of breath and start sinking, feeling completely gassed by the time I get to the end of the pool, because I was pushing myself physically and mentally to get there, and without getting caught out for being completely out of my depth. It probably didn’t help that I just got my period. I’m always particularly heavy and unfit during my period.

The coach at Kings Cross was super nice and supportive, and seems to have heard that about my newbie / dangerous-in-water status, I suppose from the London Bridge coach. She asked me what I struggled with the most, and I said breathing, and so she spent most of the session breaking it down to get me use to breathing to the side while doing the “flutter kicks”, rather than froggy kicks that I am used to.

Progression work:

• Tuck and breathe out to sink
• Kick off from wall and flutter kicks with arms straight for the length of one breath, and return
• Kick off from wall and flutter kicks with arms holding board, and lifting head to breathe (breaststroke style) – two breaths, and return
• Kick off from wall and flutter kicks with arms holding board, and turning head sideways to breathe (alternate side – my choice) – two breaths, and return
• Same – three breathes, and return
• Same, but with focus on sticking ear to arm instead of lifting head – three breaths, and return
• Same, but with focus on sticking ear to arm instead of lifting head – full lap, and return
• Front crawl one lap

Then she asked me to just do a few laps of breaststroke so I could just relax and swim. And we closed the session with two laps of float assisted flutter kicks with a focus on breathing again. She said that I’m not moving very fast as I’m primarily relying on my legs to swim (and coach Karl said that swimming is primarily arms), but we can work on that in future.

Coach Lan is a really good and supportive coach. I recognise her scaffolding techniques, and appreciate her asking me to just swim breaststroke, as I need to get some normal, less stressful swim time in. Although by that time of the session, even breaststroke was rather tiring and I felt also slightly out of breath at the end, albeit not quite full panic like I get with front crawl.

I’m glad we focussed on breathing, as I always feel like I’m running out of breath in the water, and that really causes me to panic. But I also need not to feel so stressed and panicked before a swim session. I need to find some time to get to the pool before my next swim session… and I can combine the drills and techniques I learned from both sessions, to try to improve my swimming.