Looking around my local swimming pool and seeing so many veterans of the deep and shallow waters, arduously completing so many lengths and dragging their weary robotic selves to side of pool, whether or not, it would be better if they occasionally got off their self imposed treadmill, and took time off to reflect, refine their techniques.
Maybe to mix sporting metaphors, you might get punch drunk with consummating a schedule with fixed requirements? Could happen to the best of swimmers.
Well, thinking along these lines. I sussed out a sort of busman’s holiday. I’d put my reasoning to the test.
First off, I put behind me all thought of water sports. I did not even visit our village pond. For any stretch of water seemed to tease or torment me, so that internal voice or muse would come to the fore and question my performance in the swimming pool.
The time for abstinence was due.
I decided to get away from those interminable questions:
There is a need for you to increase your number of lengths you do in pool, at the very least you must maintain your regular quota.
For breaststroke and free style, it’s really now or never that you beat your personal best time, and so on.
No, I would stamp on those demands and seek distraction and diversion, not in the lax land of the lotus-eaters, but in the island freedom of a fresh approach
What could stir the hormones; what would get adrenaline flying through the system? Proceed to a physical and mental body wash.
Maybe I needed to get away from home for a while, slip away from this slow parochial life, and; leave our quaint village and its pond behind, where my first ruminations about swimming had taken place
The awakening as to the benefits of this sport, the grand exhilaration when my friends the wild Brew Brothers, took the village by storm, shook it to its core, one wondrous Fete day, throwing off their clothes, excitedly, and diving in, much to the delight of the cheering crowd, scattering the algae, stirring up the murky deep, and splitting open dreary day.
That inner voice again. (It must have followed me from the pond) Bring on another exercise. Don’t do away with swimming but check out another discipline. Maybe split your time between the two, or favour one sister more than the other. Take to the road for instance, and that’s what I did, I put my trainers on that day and began to run.
Well the name of the game I opined was to get away from the stale, repetitive exercise that I had been long experiencing in the pool, and rather, seek out novel, fresh reinvigorating challenges, giving me new impetus to take to the swimming pool afresh.
It was not long before I had run out of road. In a small village it’s not too long before the roads turn back on themselves.
Competition beckoned, away from village life. There was only one way for it, but to hit the Big City. The metropolis.
In short, I entered the Great Morrison 10k run, whose final orbit, from surrounding park winds around the famous Queen Elizabeth Olympic Stadium,
Once my preparations were complete and the day arrived, I drove to an outlying station, parked in a side street, and continued by underground to Stratford, the other side of London, no small cappuccino for a guy from the backwoods.
After a long absence from the metropolis, I expected surprise and indeed I got it. Everything was so informal. People looked half dressed. They had t-shirts and shorts to hardly cover a picnic basket. The exception, more formal types were burrowed into newspapers, didn’t have to show their faces.
Sometime after London Bridge, I sensed a happening, out of corner of my eye. My vision was disturbed by a shadowy change or fragmented blur of light. I turned my head sideways and discovered a dark skinned man, an Afro-Caribbean, doing lift ups in the train. His sports cap matched new pair of desert coloured steel cap boots. Not alone that, he was cast in the mould of someone like Swarzennager and Stallone, rolled into one.
As the train moved from station, he would be on lift up, holding by two or three fingers from overhead steel bars. Suspended, he would cavort his whole frame first one way then the other, his feet a good few inches from the floor.
The hanging man, with biceps the size of bar bells, appeared oblivious to everyone else, and at the same time his fellow passengers appeared neither bemused or perturbed by his antics.
Entertained by his acrobatics, I never- the- less could not fail to notice the new additions to the skyline, the fun named cloud piercing Shard, top heavy Cheese Grater and cross latticed Gherkin, as we stopped at London Bridge station.
No sooner did a mixed crowd of tourists climb aboard, than it seemed, we came to our terminus, Stratford.
I went through Westfield Shopping Centre. It’s like traversing a high glass sided valley, and I was swallowed up by the sheer scale of the place, reducing me to a mere sideman, blown away by its enormity. To overcome the vastness of surround, one must mentally become Odysseus, tied to a robust mast, not swayed or anyway disturbed by bargains in bazaars. Walking through this glass paradise, you view aquariums of merchandise At times you see crowds congregate or gangs of boys, in a melee of noise; this is their city sport and they are here to enjoy it.
Having successfully completed this manoeuvre I somehow found myself at the starting post, for the 10K RUN in the Olympic Park. Fortunately it stopped raining and as soon as the orange and white-tagged runners set off, the green flow took to their heels. That pantheon of runners included me.
Now although it was for me a day to put swimming to one side, to seek a crystal clear approach, a new swagger to my swimming side of life, I was not yet sufficiently beyond the call of my addiction, not to mention, albeit briefly, the brilliant London Aquatics Centre, designed by award winning architect Zaha Hadid in 2004 which proved a breathtaking backdrop to our run, as it did to countless records in the Olympic games.
I must just say the concept of centre was inspired by moving water, creating a space to mirror the surrounding riverside landscapes of the Olympic Park.
An impressive 628 panes of glass and 8 external doors have been installed allowing lots of indirect light into pool. The wave like roof is 11,200 square feet 3 pools hold 10 million litres of water. Four skeletons were removed from a prehistoric settlement discovered on site of London Aquatic Centre. River that runs alongside has been widened by eight metres by building 550 metres of new river walls.50 metre pool is 3 metres deep in order to be fast. Olympics were held in open water until 1908
Suffice to say, that day I broke no records. However, I learned one or two important things, which I believe can be of use in our swimming pursuits.
The magic struck home. Now, when I was able to take time to brood and gather my thoughts, I could more clearly see the rights and wrongs of my endeavours in the swimming pool. I put it all down to my experience in what I now label my ‘away day’.
In the 10k race the young silky long legged athlete with such well-defined calf muscles, to the front of me was showing a dash of class, with a sleek slinky run, not appearing to over extend herself, displaying no rapid breathing, in full control, while her arms leathered back and forward, so synchronised. I held on. Then it came to me. This is what I need to do. Go lightly; smooth even and run more easily and I’ll be her shadow man. I upped the pace, drew alongside, and saw her to the finishing tape.
I learned a lot that day and thereafter giving myself a week’s grace gave me a new found approach to my swimming lessons. To use the current buzzword, I was in the flow.
Like the girl on racing track, there is that need to streamline your body, and kick hard back. Breaststroke propulsion comes from having a powerful leg kick, but speed over a longer distance comes from glide phase of stroke.
You don’t have to have great big biceps like the man on train, but pull back strongly with muscles and arms flexed
Ensure leg stroke is complete by bringing feet together, and straightening out legs at end of each kick, phase each kick, a powerful whip action, while keeping knees relatively close together.
Ensure arms are fully extended at end of each arm pull phase. The circular motion of arm pull should just be a small circular motion in front of you. Don’t allow hands to pull past shoulders
. It is not about strength for the majority of swimmers, but in my opinion, it is most useful to cultivate and develop a free and easy relaxed style, not throwing up huge waves of after shock, like a Tsunami. Avoid getting stressed about daily performances, but rather, enjoy the experience and discard the ubiquitous fiddle face.
You will leave the pool much happier and perhaps surprisingly, find your times have improved and even eclipsed earlier performances.
. I took the wisdom gained from my time away from the pool-that daily grind- and feel I am a better man for it. Finally, I must say, that particular day proved a turning point in my swimming endeavours. It gave me newfound confidence. The human form in its entire embodiment is a wonderful machine, shaped for all sorts of sports. The architecture it possesses can take on all challenges, such that, when I took on this other discipline of running, it transformed my thinking as to the merits in which I was tackling my swimming exercises, being particularly beneficial.