Today I was an early bird, got up at 5 am to have breakfast and then take the train and bus to Tolvåker swimming pool. The training started at 9 am.

I have been coached by Johan from openwaterswimclub, to get ready for the HIM, and openwaterswimclub has group training Saturday mornings. I have felt that group training once in a while will be good for me so today it was time to join.

I had to get off the train and then take a bus to the town where they have their training. Left already 7 am and got to the pool around 8.30 am.

We were a group of people with different experience. But everyone could participate. We were divided into three groups. We who was slower or wanted to swim slow was in lane 1 and 2, faster in lane 3 and 4 and then the fastest in lane 5 and 6.

Johan was the coach for the morning and his colleague filmed us.

The schedule was the following:

Warm Up:
200m crawl

Technique:
10x25m
1. Hand in armpit
2. Hand in armpit
3. Crawl with fist
4. Crawl with fist
5. Scovel
6. Hand in armpit
7. Hand in armpit
8. Inv – Meet hand in front before next crawl. One arm at the time.
9. Inv – Meet hand in front before next crawl. One arm at the time.
10. Scovel

20x25m
Legs: Kicking only, arms in front. Worked if I was doing a breaststroke when it was time to get up and breath.
Arm: Crawl without using the legs – was tough without bouy. Felt that I was sinking but excellent exercise.
SS. Both arms and legs
Repeat

40x25m
2x25m Normal crawl
2x25m Faster
25m Max
Repeat

20×25
25m breathing on the third crawl was what I was concentrating on, need to be able to breath on both sides. Here I got cramp in my legs.
Some continued with breathing on the fifth (25m), breathing on the 7th (25m), breathing on the 9th (25m)
Repeat

Very good to start breathing on every third, then I was forced to breath on the other side. One of my goals is to be able to breath on both sides, can be waves in open water.

10x25m
25m Normal
25m Max
Here I had to catch my breath once in a while after the Max, in the beginning I did not go on max til the very end but at the end I could do it, almost got respiratory distress.

The coach informed me that I should do the training in my own pace, if I needed to rest, it was fine, better to have good technique and not do everything instead of trying to keep up with the more advanced swimmers

So nice to hear that he believes in me, I am a good swimmer but needs to work on the technique and breathing. Got som tips: still am breathing more to the front than to the side, I think that i was a bit stressed today too, have been better but will continue with the breathing. Also that I get my hand into the water too soon, need to stretch a bit more before I get the hand into the water.

I will join the group training once a month and when it is raining a lot and I do not want to head out and run.