Speedwork Monday's

Monday Night Training

As we start the countdown towards the North Island Champs we are going to start focusing a bit more on speed. Monday night sessions will be put aside for this with everyone doing more or less the same session. The champs are still a little more than 2 months away and not everyone will be entering the sprint events so the plan is to start off by easing into the speed work and over the next 9 weeks the what and how will get gradually shorter and faster. To start with you may not even notice all that much difference other than a slight drop in mileage.

Because we have a couple of teams bidding for relay records at NI's there may be a bit of speed work and relay practice being done by a small group on Saturday's also. Bear in mind that speed sessions may have less mileage attached to them but because they are done at speed these sessions are taxing. So, Sunday's focus is going to be on longer, easier work to gear you up for the hard speed based work being done on a Monday. Wednesday's will be business as usual (largely middle distance, fitness work).

Now For A Request

You may (or may not) have noticed that on Monday nights either Sally or Christine, sometimes they share, gather up the programme, separate the sheets, toss out the paper and bring the plastic sheets to the exit side of the pool. What we are thinking is that if one person in each lane dealt with their programme (tossed out paper, brought plastic sheet over) then it would be much quicker. Good thinking? Thanks for your assistance.

Taupo Spring Fling, Aquatics Ribbon Day

Taupo Spring Fling
A few of us are heading to Taupo for the Spring Fling carnival which is held on 21st September. Why not join us? It seems like a wonderful opportunity to practice our race skills ahead of the North Island's and have some fun at the same time. From memory this has been a sanctioned meet in the past but this year it is a non-sanctioned meet, meaning you don't have to be a registered Masters swimmer to enter. It is all about FUN!! You can enter up to 5 events.

Those of us going will be traveling on Friday afternoon or evening and will be staying at the Silver Fern Lodge so it makes sense if we all book the same accommodation. If you want an entry form email me and I will send you one. Email me anyway if you are going so we have some idea of numbers.

Aquatics Ribbon Day
This is in support of Special Olympics Howick-Pakuranga and Tamaki. The Aquatics Ribbon Day involves swimming races for the athletes and is between 2pm and 6pm on Sunday 1st September. They need volunteers to assist with timekeeping and possibly IOT. A few of us went along last year and I'm sure would all agree that it was a lot of fun.

If you can help out this year please give your name to John Trubnick.

July Race Results

Results from Wednesday's races have been posted. Numbers were a little down on usual, probably owing to rather less than clement weather (is clement the opposite of inclement, I don't know, maybe I made that up). The 16 swimmers and the extra people who kindly helped with timekeeping etc enjoyed themselves though and some good times were posted.

In all, 13 records were set - 6 for the men, 5 for the women and 2 for relays and that's quite exceptional for just 16 swimmers.

As per usual a light supper was then enjoyed. Tony was the lucky recipient of the wooden spoon - most notably for having forgotten it was wooden spoon night (doh!).

Din Din's

It's mid-winter and we all know what time that is - mid-winter dinner time! We have a booking at the Thai Flame, 333 Ti Rakau Drive on 27th July. This is a lovely big venue that can hold pretty much everyone who is likely to want to go. So dust off your glad rags and get your name down on the list. Money in by Wednesday 24th July please (details below).

Annual Pool Maintenance

It's that time of year again. The pool will be closed for a couple of weeks so it can have a bit of a spruce up. As per usual John has been busy securing arrangements at Papatoetoe pool for those who simply can't have a break. Also Manukau Masters have very kindly invited us to join them at Manurewa Pool (Sykes Rd, Manurewa) on the Monday evenings that LEP is closed. Here's the full details on dates etc:

Sunday 28th July, 4th August and 11th August - Papatoetoe  pool 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. No charge
Wednesday 31st July, 7th August - Papatoetoe pool (3 lanes)  8 p.m. to 9 p.m. No charge
Monday 29th, July 5th August - Manurewa pool (with Manukau Masters) 7.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. No charge

In keeping with age old traditions we will pop across to Hunters Corner for coffee (or whatever takes your fancy) after Sunday training at Papatoetoe. 

A Pranking We Will Go

A swim at South City, $3. A flat white at Splashes, $4.50. Goggles, $18. A new pair of togs, $45. The look on John's face this morning - priceless.
There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's Pranks R Us. Happening everywhere.

Big Wednesday!

Last Wednesday's races saw the largest turnout we've seen for a long time. 28 Swimmers showed up and enjoyed some friendly competition. The large number of swimmers also led to some great times and lots of records falling - 18 in all with 10 new records to our men and 8 to the women. Great show!

A big thanks to Fiona who is putting the supper together, and a fine job she is doing. Everyone looks forward to it and, speaking for myself, it goes something like this: 1 length sprint = earn 1 mellowpuff; swim 2 lengths = earn 2 chocolate bikkies.

Next up Tony handed out the awards. Swimmer of the Month went to yours truly for the 2 NZ records broken at the Roskill swim meet.

It was good to see the wooden spoon handed out again and a very worthy recipient for it was Vince Kirrane. Vince was very keen to have a few races at the Roskill meet so put in his entry form. Race day arrives and the rest of us show up at 1pm for warm up. The meet is nearly over and Vince finally puts in an appearance at 4pm. Why? That's the time he thought it was starting. Good job Vince! Let's just say you were doing a really thorough 3 hour warm up.

Race Night Wednesday - You Know You Want To

It's June already and the North Island champs will be upon us before we know it. If you want to get some race practice in or just enjoy some healthy competition then we have race night this coming Wednesday. Events are:

25m Breaststroke or Freestyle
50m Freestyle
100m Backstroke
100 IM or Freestyle
Relays if time

As per usual there will be a couple of lanes for general training for swimmers who prefer. A light supper will follow.

Also, some of you may not have seen the last few blog posts. Have you subscribed by email? On the home page of the blog on the right hand side you will see an option to 'subscribe by email'. Pop your email address in here and submit. Bob's your uncle. 

I know, I know, here t'is

Yes, I have been very slack with the blog lately haven't I? You can blame the tax man for that. Eventually I will have that out of the way though and I won't need to spend my far too short weekends doing that kind of stuff.

However, Tony has ridden up on his white steed and written a piece on the recent Roskill meet held last weekend, complete with photo. What would we do without you Tony? Here it is:

Auckland Short Course Championships 18th May 2013

Eighteen of our swimmers competed very successfully at the Auckland Short Course Championships hosted by Roskill Masters Swimmers at the Cameron Pool. The meet was very well organised, the racing was exciting to watch and the atmosphere was great.

Many of us achieved personal best times, which is always satisfying. There were a couple of incidents of people slipping on the walls during turns and a pulled muscle or two, but overall we all enjoyed it.

There were a couple of notable achievements: Fiona Grigg has been improving steadily over the few years she’s been swimming seriously, and to prove the point she swiped a whole 10 seconds off her previous best 100 m freestyle time. Well done!

As many of you know, Deryn has been working on a training plan for over a year aimed at breaking the NZ age group record for 100 m breaststroke. She treated the 50 m breaststroke as a warm-up and came within a gnat’s whisker of the NZ record. Despite her being a little annoyed at not trying harder, it set her up well for what was to follow. In the 200 m breaststroke she smashed the NZ record by nearly 12 seconds (with 3:12.92) – a fantastic achievement. But did she have enough left for the 100 m? She proved she did without any shadow of doubt by taking nearly 5 seconds off that record too (1:28.65). It was a job very well done, making all those watching very proud!

We didn’t manage to retain the Joan Monahan Relay trophy (Mixed 200 m Freestyle), but that didn’t seem to cause much distress – there’s always next year…

At the presentation after the meet many of our swimmers won ribbons for points in their age groups. All in all, it was a great meet for South City.

What a good looking bunch!

 

Race Night Results

Race night results are up and WOW what results. There were 19 swimmers in attendance and a whopping 18 new records were set. I think that might be a record of records (if there is such a thing). All the records are on their respective pages, women's on the women's etc. One day I will put the men's on the women's page and vice versa just to see if you are looking.

Then of course we had supper. Loving those chocolate biscuits. I have to reign myself in so there are some left for others. The Swimmer of the Month went to our very own Barry Davies. So well deserved. He bagged so much silverware at the Nationals in Dunedin that I think he set off all the alarms at the airport. And of course, there is all the amazing work he does behind the scenes that few of you know about. Big pats on the back.