Swim Smooth Perth Blog

New Blog Test Email - please delete

2010-09-28T16:33:00.003+08:00

Dear TEAM

As mentioned previously we are just in the process of overhauling the original Team Core Blog page and associated website with a more concurrent "Swim Smooth Perth" site which should hopefully make everything a little easier to find / navigate and will help consolidate the local Perth-based swim squad sessions with the larger Swim Smooth brand.

Hopefully this email gets through and if a couple of you wouldn't mind flicking a "yes I got it" reply back to me if you (only if before 8pm tonight), that'd be great.

Thanks chaps!

Paul

Just confirming sessions this weekend...

2010-09-24T05:13:00.001+08:00

Dear Swimmers

Just confirming that the following two sessions will be available to you this weekend despite the long weekend and despite something called a Grand Final...?!!

Saturday 25th September at 1pm
Monday 27th September at 9.30am

Both sessions will be held in the Outdoor 8 lane pool at Challenge Stadium.

Hope to see you there!!

Cheers

Paul

The Good Shepherd Does Good!

2010-09-21T14:20:00.000+08:00

Dear TEAM

Back in 2004 a new athlete joined our squad who wanted to prepare for the inaugural Busselton Ironman. That athlete was Glen Blackwell who would later go on to knocking off over 3 hours off his previous best Ironman finish and in 2008 be awarded our coveted "Good Shepherd" award for his services to the squad and his enthusiasm for helping others within the squad achieve their goals.

Late last year Glen qualified to represent Australia at the World Triathlon Championships in Budapest, Hungary, and he did exceedingly well with a Personal Best over the Olympic Distance of 1.5km swim, 40km bike and a 10km run in a time of 2:07 - no mean fete.

Glen has very kindly pieced together his story of the day's events to shed some light on his experiences and also the beautiful city of Budapest which I thought you'd all enjoy on this sunny Tuesday afternoon. Here goes - well done Glen:

The ITU World Triathlon Championships for 2010 was to be held in Budapest Hungry. This was to be a beautiful and exciting location for a race and the lure attracted me to have a shot at the Australian Team.

On arrival the weather was great for the first two days. I managed to get out for a long run on the first morning and see the town. Was surreal to be running past Castles and Cathedrals on the banks of the (not so) Blue Danube.

I managed to get together with a few guys from the Australian team and we went for a ride to the designated training area. A little island on in the river with one road of about 2.5kms in length. It was wet and lumpy and very boring as it didn't even make a loop. Just up turn around and back. But it was much safer than playing in the traffic. Needless to say 1hr of that and I was mentally cooked so road along the rivers edge taking in the sights instead.

The rain then started and did not let up for the rest of the week. The sprint races on the saturday got drenched and I went to bed that night expecting to be soaked by the end of the race.

Waking on race morning the Tri-gods had smiled. There was no wind, no rain and the sun came out giving us the warmest day at 23 degrees.

Getting dressed in the green and Gold to represent my country was awesome start to the day and definitely helped get the nerves going.
Especially when I got to the start line and saw all the other countries that were lined up. I was in the second biggest wave start with 125 others on the pontoon.

Getting into the water was a bit hard as the temp was a cool 14 degrees. But the water was flat no current and actually tasted clean. I had a great swim of 22:40 putting me out of the water into T1 in 37th... The the fun. On exiting my zip broke and I spent just over 3minutes tearing my wetsuit to get it off..One of the longest transition times for my group.

The ride was dead flat however the road conditions were terrible for at least 4km of the 13km loop. There were grand canyon cracks running parallel to your travel and lumps, bumps and man hole covers. The only good thing was when you got to the back 9kms you could get down onto the areo bars and go fast.

Getting into T2 i found that I had also broken my left bike shoe halfway found the course and it was just hanging on by the tip.

Well onto the run for the most scenic run I have ever had. We went 5kms up along the bank of the Danube past the university, and the Castle before turning onto the historic Chain Bridge (Think a similar style to the Tower Bridge London). Once here we commenced two 2.5km laps for the rest of the 10km run.

This lap went past the race finish of Roosevelt Square on the river bank then through the paved malls of the town to the open square in front of St Francis Cathedral where you turned almost on the steps before heading back over Chain Bridge to do the lap again.

Coming into the finish chute was awesome with the noise, people, camera crews and even a chopper flying above.

However at the end of the day I P.B'd with a 2:07:34 and most importantly was able to say I represented my country on the world stage..That was the clincher.

Saturday drafting and the Long Weekend

2010-09-20T14:55:00.001+08:00

Dear Swimmers

You've got to love this awesome weather right now!

Just letting you know that I'm hoping you'll be able to make use out of our two squad sessions this weekend which I've locked in with Challenge Stadium despite the long weekend:

Saturday 25th September at 1 to 2pm.
Monday 27th September at 9.30am to 10.30am*.

* please note that this particular session has been quite busy the last two weeks, so this session will only be open next Monday to those who normally attend on a Monday at 9.30am otherwise I fear we might be a little too choca-block! Having said that now, no-one will attend and I'll be left by myself! LOL! If that's the case it might prove to be a good session for you to attend if you normally come on a Monday.

The Saturday session is a great chance to come and hone your open-water drafting skills. Check out this short clip from the filming of this session we did last week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub_K9FjXr8w - as you can hopefully make out, the swimmers are creating an arrow-head drafting formation with Geoff (far right) setting the pace. Jas (green cap) is drafting very well indeed, only breathing in towards John (center of frame), but John and Jonny (who comes into the frame a little later in the shot from the left), are both breathing AWAY from the swimmer they are supposed to be drafting. This is one time when unilateral breathing is more favourable than bilateral breathing BUT ONLY if you are breathing in towards the swimmer you are trying to draft off. Want to learn more about how this can save you up to 38% of your normal energy expenditure and prove to be a very fun way of spending 60 minutes following a black line? Come along on Saturday and I'll show you how! If you're not drafting well in the open water you are potentially missing out on massive gains in your swimming that are relatively easy to acquire with good practice and confidence to swim in close quarters to others.

Cheers

Paul

100% Success Rate For Swimmers!

2010-09-16T00:41:00.001+08:00

Dear TEAM

That's quite a bold title for today's Blog, however, I am very pleased to announce that 100% of those of you who re-tested your 1000m swim Time Trial from the middle of July have (in two months) all improved! This is a great result - well done! Consistency and dedication on those cold mornings has clearly paid off!

Here are some more stats for those of you who like numbers:

A total of 89 swimmers from the squad have now tested themselves over the 1000m distance in the past two months. This is ~50% of the squad membership.
36 swimmers were tested on 13th July 2010 - view all the results at: http://www.theteamcore.com/images/1km_TT_13_07_10.pdf
68 swimmers were tested on the 14th September 2010 - view all the results at: http://www.theteamcore.com/images/1km_TT_14_09_10.pdf
21 swimmers attended both test sessions and thus qualified to enter our winter "Biggest Loser" competition, whereby there was a 100% improvement across the group!
The fastest recorded male time was by James Forbes in 13'27"
The fastest recorded female time was by Ceinwen Williams in 13'47"
The average pace of the squad is exactly 18'00" for the 1000m distance
My predicted improvement (as a percentage) for those who re-tested and regularly swam 2-4 sessions per week for the 2 months was 3.0%
The actual average improvement of the Biggest Loser group (as a percentage) was 3.9%
The Biggest Loser was Silke Highet who improved by an astounding 2'57" in just two months - equivalent to 13.6%!! Well done Silke!! Silke wins a Swim Smooth waterproof Training Plan as per http://www.swimsmooth.com/trainingplans.html to keep her ticking over at times when she cannot attend the squad, e.g. school holidays etc.
Also doing well for the guys was Andy Bolt with a 7.8% improvement!! Andy wins a copy of the Swim Smooth DVD Boxset (as seen at http://www.swimsmooth.com/DVD.html ) to help him refine his stroke even further!
You can view all the Biggest Loser results at: http://www.theteamcore.com/images/Biggest_Loser_14_09_10.pdf

This (for me) has been a brilliant exercise and one which has prompted a lot of new ideas and sessions to be tested out within the squad in order to get your fitness up to a good level prior to the spring - so thanks for taking part if you did! Hope you enjoyed it - it'll definitely be back again next winter!

Going forwards from here, the annual Open Water Calendar has just been released (not available online yet, but you can pick up your own hard copy from the reception at Challenge Stadium) and as such I'm busily beavering away now on identifying a couple of the open water races over the season which I think would be really good to go and attend as a squad. Many of you have already expressed a bit of an interest in this.

Also, there are numerous people now thinking about the Rottnest Channel Swim on the 26th February 2011. 20 members of the squad (me included) will be attempting the solo crossing this year, up from 13 in the previous two years. There is a lot of interest in people wanting to have a crack at the DUO or TEAM event who might not have done it before and wish to partner / team up with someone for this great event. If that's you, please drop me a quick email and we'll look at coordinating a few teams and probably organise a catch-up to discuss logistics etc. I think it will be really great if we can get a bit of a team thing happening this year, so I look forward to hearing from you!

Cheers and now let the summer roll on!

Paul

Thursday mornings

2010-09-06T14:57:00.000+08:00

Dear Swimmers

Just a quick one to let you know that the indoor 50m pool is now back to normal (ie 50m and not 2 x 25m) and as a result on Thursday mornings we will now be swimming in the outdoor 8 lane pool instead (lanes 2 to 4 I believe). Tuesdays remain as normal (so I believe).

Also, now that it's finally starting to warm up and people are coming out of the woodwork we just need to try and manage numbers in the squad sessions as best as possible so that it doesn't get too busy too quickly. If you are planning your come back and have been irregular over the last 3 months, please would you mind dropping me a brief email to say which sessions you plan to re-attend. Priority in the sessions will be given to those who've been swimming over winter, but please help me by letting me know your intentions to smooth this spring transition for everyone. Thanks!

Finally, I will be away on Saturday for the 1pm squad session as it is my birthday and Mish and Jackson are taking me away for a surprise weekend away. I can't wait. Coach Nikki Rogers from Sorrento SLSC will be taking the session and putting you through your paces in this fun open water skills session. Please make her feel welcome and go along and pick up some top tips from this Commonwealth Games medallist and uber swimmer!!

Cheers

Paul

Mark did it!

2010-09-02T14:21:00.000+08:00

Dear Team

Just to let you know that Mark Scanlon successfully completed his English Channel Swim attempt on the 31st August after waiting through nearly 3 weeks of bad weather and had to change pilots (skipper) at significant cost just to ensure a swim start.

Stay tuned to www.stroke4stroke.com.au for Mark's post event report soon.

Well done Mark - brilliant result! 9.5 hours in rough conditions!

Update on Mark Scanlon's Channel Swimming Attempt

2010-08-26T17:06:00.001+08:00

This video clip says it all - let's all pray for the weather gods to be with Mark in the next few days!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9vEe1l_KYQ

Cheers

Paul

Positive Signs of Improvement

2010-08-17T15:58:00.000+08:00

Dear TEAM

Hope you're all doing well - not long now hopefully until we turn the corner and the weather starts becoming consistently warmer. Before we know it we'll all be moaning it's too hot again!

I just wanted to write and say thanks so much for your support in the last 3 weeks with your return back to the squad sessions. People are coming out of the woodwork left, right and centre and that's really pleasing to see. Admittedly I was getting very worried back there in July with some of the sessions being so quiet but things are now really picking up. Many of you have also made good use of our August 1-2-1 Video Analysis Special and are seeing some great improvements in your swim strokes as a consequence. If you haven't yet looked at doing one of these sessions the details are at http://www.theteamcore.com/videoanalysis.html - well worthwhile.

OK, so squad swimmer Mark Scanlon is now in place over in Dover ready to attempt his English Channel Swim crossing. The word on the street is that the weather hasn't been great in the last week and looks set to be a bit rough this week too, but we're crossing our fingers and hoping for a bit of a break in the conditions to allow for a successful crossing for Mark. Mark is unbelievably well prepared for this event, both physically and psychologically, so we really wish him the very best of luck with the conditions out there on the way to France. If you missed our interview with Mark you can read that here: http://www.feelforthewater.com/2010/07/interview-with-mark-scanlon-training.html - well worth a read. You can follow Mark's progress live at http://stroke4stroke.com.au/ - he'll even have a virtual GPS tracker up there too - very cool!

If you're sat at work wanting a little swimming inspiration or something to read at the weekend, don't miss these three recent Blog entries as well:

Furthermore, I personally love it when someone gives me a book recommendation, so if you love your reading and want something that will maybe challenge your beliefs about whether such a thing as "natural talent" for swimming actually exists, check out "Bounce" by Mathew Syed (see: http://www.amazon.com/Bounce-Federer-Picasso-Beckham-Science/dp/0061723754/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282031018&sr=8-1 ) - I'm loving my copy right now!

Finally, just to show you that we're on the right mark and that the last four harder Monday / Tuesday endurance sessions have been worth it, here are some live updates on four of the squad's swimmer's 1000m time trial progress in "The Biggest Loser Competition":

Trevor Magee's best 1km swim time last year was 16:40. 5 weeks ago he went 17:30 and like most people in the squad was a little off the pace from last summer (to be expected really given the winter we've had). Today Trevor posted a 16:54 to improve by 36 seconds or nearly 4 seconds per 100m which is a very good sign of improvement indeed. Well done Trevor!
James Forbes's best 1km swim time last year was 13:47 (peak season). 5 weeks ago James did 14:01. Today he smashed that and not only beat his record from 5 weeks ago, but went faster than last season to go 13:28. This knocks Ceinwen William's off the squad top perch by 2 seconds (which no doubt will be fuel for motivation there!). Without a doubt, consistency through the winter shining through here - well done Forbsey!
Silke Highet swam 21:39 for her 1km swim 5 weeks ago which is an average pace of 2:10 per 100m. This morning, Silke very easily swam a 600m and then a 500m averaging 1:55 per 100m which is a sure sign that when we retest everyone's Time Trials properly in the middle of September, Silke could be in the running for that coveted "Biggest Loser" award, won last year by Lucas Salter. Good luck Silke!
Gillian Evans featured in the Blog above about the pull buoy set and what it can tell you about your stroke. 5 weeks ago Gillian swam 1km in 20:39 which she was pleasantly surprised with but eager to break the 20 minute marker. On Monday Gillian led the lane for 600m and comfortably averaged 1:59 per 100m which will see her ducking under the 20 minute marker in a few weeks time quite nicely. How did Gillian (a "Kicktastic") do it? Surprisingly enough by reducing her leg kick in favour of an improved catch. Nice work Gillian!

If you haven't done your initial 1km Time Trial yet but would like to and would like to be in the running for the "Biggest Loser" competition, please just let me know at one of the sessions and if appropriate I'll set you off for a time.

OK, have a great day and thanks for reading!

Paul

Prevent / cure shoulder woes in time for the 2011 WAtoday Rottnest Channel Swim!

2010-07-28T14:07:00.003+08:00

Dear Swimmers

Please be advised that the Rottnest Channel Swim Association will be running a free seminar / information evening at Challenge Stadium on the 17th August from 7.30 to 8.30pm. I have been invited back for the third year to discuss shoulder injury concerns for swimmers and what to do to correct them from a technique point of view. This is an area that I have much experience in and it will be a pleasure to speak again for the RCSA in a few weeks time. Full details if you're keen on attending are below:

Planning to Swim in Rotto's 21st Event?

If you're thinking about swimming solo in the 21st Rottnest Channel Swim, then this FREE informational seminar will help you plan everything for the big day.

From a training program, to nutritional preparation, and an achievable race plan, this seminar is open to all prospective swimmers of the 2011 WAtoday Rottnest Channel Swim.

It will provide useful information for those swimmers who've always wanted to enter this event but haven't quite been ready. It will be an excellent session for those swimmers who want to partake in a Team or Duo, or progress to the Solo category of the event for the first time.

New Rottnest Channel Swim Association President Raymond Yong is delighted to present this seminar as his first official function for the Association.

"This event is such an iconic and important part of WA's calendar, and I would urge all prospective swimmers to attend this seminar to gather as much information as possible about what to expect out there in the ocean, and how to best prepare," he said.

Past and present Rottnest channel swimmers will discuss their experiences, their mistakes and their tips, which will provide invaluable information to novice swimmers of this incredible event.

The seminar will be held on Tuesday 17 August at the Lecture Theatre at Challenge Stadium from 7.30 – 8.30pm. Registrations are essential at admin@rottnestchannelswim.com.au

Hope to see some of you there!

Cheers

Paul

Riding on Wednesdays

2010-07-27T08:11:00.000+08:00

Dear TEAM

Just a quick note to say that there is still a hardy bunch of riders
meeting at 5.50am every Wednesday morning at the bottom of Mount
Street in the city adjacent to Bouchard Cafe. Usually back by 730am
ish this ride is done as a group warm up followed by some individual
intervals or a few hill repeats. If you're looking for a group to ride
with, why not pop along and give it a go.

Stay dry!

Paul

A Reminder that Saturday 1pm Swim is Back On!

2010-07-22T09:34:00.000+08:00

Dear Swimmers

Funnily enough, from all reports, about a dozen of you actually turned up last Saturday to swim at 1pm which is twice as many people as we've seen the last month or so! Sorry I wasn't there - we'd cancelled that one in anticipation of very small numbers given that it was the last week of the school holidays. C'est la vie!

OK, so just confirming that this Saturday at 1pm the open-water skills and technique session will be on in the Outdoor 8 lane pool at Challenge. This session is one that is loads of fun (my personal favourite), nice and challenging, experiments with new things like drafting and sighting etc, and actually benefits by having a larger number of swimmers down than the other sessions to make some of the exercises work better.

So please do try and make it if you can and if you have any other openwater friends or triathletes who would be keen to give it a blast, please invite them down also - it'll be a great hour in the pool!

Cheers

Paul

P.S This session will continue to run on a weekly basis again now (subject to numbers of course). Thanks for your support and understanding.

Awesome 20% Off August Analysis Offer!

2010-07-20T10:46:00.001+08:00

NEWSFLASH! And the winner of the Finis SwiMP3 underwater music player was...Adam Wheeler from the 5.30am Tuesday / Thursday squad sessions! Well done Adam. David Fitzpatrick pulled your name out of the hat at the start of this morning's 6.30am session. In total we received feedback from 59 of you which will hopefully help us to further improve our swim coaching services for you all! Thanks once again everyone - it's been a very useful process!

Dear Swimmers

I have a very special offer available to those of you swimming with the squad for the month of August only:

A 75 minute 1-2-1 Video Analysis & Stroke Correction Session for $120, saving a massive $45 off the standard rate! Bargain!

This is our absolute premium coaching service and your chance to have your stroke filmed above and below the water, critiqued on the computer screen for what you need to be working on to improve efficiency and why, with the remainder of the session spent in the water tweaking and refining your stroke based upon this analysis. Each swimmer will receive their video footage to take home with them on a DVD, as well as a comprehensive 20-page Training Guide based upon our newly released www.swimtypes.com system which is proving extremely popular worldwide at the moment. Full details at: http://www.theteamcore.com/videoanalysis.html

NB. This offer is only valid for squad members (i.e. you!) and only for sessions taken during the month of August 2010. Pool entry ($5.00) is additional.

Spending some 1-2-1 time with myself is a fantastic way to tune up your stroke and get you on your way to more efficient, faster swimming. Spaces are strictly limited and will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis so be quick! To reserve your spot, please select and pay for the "1-2-1 Stroke Correction Session for $120 (follow-up session)" which is the option on the 2nd row & 4th column of http://www.theteamcore.com/shop.html and then email me back with your 3 best sessions from the list below and I'll email you back confirming your place, time and venue. Here are the options:

Monday 2nd August, 7.45am
Tuesday 3rd August, 7.45am
Tuesday 3rd August, 9.15am (if 7.45am already taken)
Friday 6th August, 7.45am
Friday 6th August, 10.45am
Monday 9th August, 7.45am
Tuesday 10th August, 7.45am
Tuesday 10th August, 9.15am (if 7.45am already taken)
Friday 6th August, 7.45am
Friday 6th August, 10.45am
Saturday 14th August, 4pm
Tuesday 17th August, 7.45am
Tuesday 17th August, 9.15am (if 7.45am already taken)
Wednesday 18th August, 7.45am
Friday 20th August, 7.45am
Friday 20th August, 10.45am
Monday 23rd August, 7.45am
Tuesday 24th August, 7.45am
Tuesday 24th August, 9.15am (if 7.45am already taken)
Wednesday 25th August, 7.45am
Friday 27th August, 7.45am
Friday 27th August, 10.45am
Tuesday 31st August, 7.45am
Tuesday 31st August, 9.15am (if 7.45am already taken)

Don't miss out on this great opportunity to get your stroke filmed, analysed and then corrected for an absolute bargain price prior to the spring / summer season.

Cheers

Paul

Are you scared to come back to squad training? Don't be!

2010-07-19T13:26:00.001+08:00

Dear Swimmers

In last week's feedback I had a number of you state that you were worried about coming back to training as you feared that you'd perhaps lost too much fitness over the winter period. This got me thinking. Back in September 2009 I published an article on the www.feelforthewater.com Blog titled "Six Is A Magic Number" where we discussed how six sessions are often needed to make a change to a technical aspect of your stroke that you are working on, or to simply get you back in the flow with your swimming.

In Malcolm Gladwell's brilliant book "Outliers" he discusses how to become an expert at something you often need to spend 10,000 hours or 10,000 repetitions or 10,000 units of whatever ensuring that the skill is perfected. Gladwell cites how Bill Gates became an expert in the computer programming world by simply having oodles of hours access to computer equipment way before anyone else was really working with computers (that and being just a bit of a genius too!).

So how is this relevant to squad training? Well, I've also just got my backside back into gear and am currently swimming 3 to 4 times per week. It all started two weeks ago, and trust me, it wasn't a pretty sight! I haven't really trained what I would regard as "properly" since our baby Jackson came along 16 months ago, but am now faced with just under 14 months of dedicated training for my English Channel Swim attempt on 5th September 2011. I've been through small doses of "getting back into it again" along the way and did reasonably well with the Rottnest Duo Swim with my wife (Michelle) this last February. I also challenged myself to whether or not I could run for 30 consecutive days with the only premise that each run had to be longer than 3km - not long you might say, but it was enough to get my bum back in gear and I actually ended up doing 64 consecutive days and feeling pretty good for it too!

Still, there always has to be a starting point for any of these ventures and quite often the first 4 to 6 sessions will arguably feel pretty crummy it has to be said! So given that I'm now 8 sessions into what will be at least 350 for my English Channel Swim (oo er!!), I thought I'd share with you the sensations of what those first six sessions felt like, but more importantly the goals I set myself for those sessions. Quite often the biggest thing holding you getting back into regular sessions is how hard you perceive that those sessions will be - much easier to just roll over in bed and go back to sleep! If we can learn to adjust our goals and expectations of ourselves in those first six sessions you'll find that you're "suddenly" back into the swing of things, and whilst the fitness might still need to catch up, you will at least be started and on a roll of motivation. So, don't panic about the normal content of some of the sessions that we do, just pop down and get the ball rolling like I've done (see below). The first step is always the hardest as they say!

So here are my notes - use them as you will:

Session 1. Monday 5th July, 5.30am, Challenge Stadium. Really cold morning today. Decided to join Pete Tanham's Rottnest Solo squad at Challenge - a sure fire way to get me back into the swing of things! Session is normally 1.5hrs and 4.5 to 5km. I can only fit in 60 minutes on a Monday morning, so already I had decided that I wasn't going to push myself too hard. Decided to sit right at the back of the lane and not even look at the pace clock. Aimed to adopt an air of "laziness" to help tame my natural "Arnie" instincts of being very competitive. Did wonders. Shoulders got a little tired after ~2km but just focused on relaxing in the water and not pushing too hard. The set was full of high-powered sprints (a little like our "Fresh & Fruity Thursday" sessions) but I decided to just dial it down a bit and literally just survive for 1 hour. Really happy after the session - not feeling great, but at least I could say that I'd started my campaign!
Session 2. Wednesday 7th July, 5.30am, Challenge Stadium. From past experience I knew this was going to be the really tough session. Even after an extended break, your first session back can often feel OK and you can cheat yourself into believing that the lay-off didn't really do you any harm at all. However, just 48 hours after the first session, this 4.5km block including some sustained efforts over 200 to 300m was sure to test me. With my shoulders still a little heavy from the first session, again I had to just tell myself that survival was the name of the game today and that I wouldn't be breaking any world records yet. Survived it and quite surprised that I'd lasted such a long session - very, very slow though!
Session 3. Thursday 8th July, 4.30pm, North Cottesloe Beach. I'd agreed (stupidly!) to meet up with Mark Scanlon (3rd place Rottnest Solo swimmer from 2008 and soon to be attempting the English Channel Swim) for one of his late afternoon cold water adaptation swims. We were due to swim in the rough surf (actually, HUGE surf!) at Cottesloe Beach. I love these conditions normally but when I'm lacking fitness and Mark is totally on top of his game, I knew I could be in trouble! It was ~15 degrees and my first thought was not how cold it was, but how totally uncoordinated my arms were - they just didn't feel like mine! I wanted them to do things and be faster and better and more powerful, but they just wouldn't work! I survived the 2km dash down to the groyne and back, but that was me done. Quite despondent that I'd felt so bad and been so slow, but had to tell myself it was only session # 3!
Session 4. Saturday 10th July, 5.30am, Challenge Stadium. Mark was doing his "recovery" 10km pool swim this morning so I decided to join him for the first hour with the aim of getting 3km in. As there were only a few of us this morning I decided that I'd really just focus on myself and develop some good rhythm and timing again that I felt I'd lacked in Thursday's swim. To do this I used a Wetronome in the 1000m warm-up set to a pace of 1:32 per 100m. This felt good, and whilst not fast, at least it helped give me a structured goal to work towards and to feel like I was pacing myself well. We then did 2 x 800m + 45s rest where I decided to test myself a little bit, totally unknowing as to whether I'd be able to hold my goal pace of 1:28 per 100m. The irony here is that prior to my Rottnest Solo swim in 2009, this was the pace which I would go on to be able to swim for the entire 20km across to Rottnest! I felt like I'd really accomplished something in this session, despite Mark lapping me on the 2nd 800m AND he "just" doing a 10km recovery swim! That guy is on fire!!
Session 5. Monday 12th July, 5.30am, Challenge Stadium. Back with the Solo squad this morning and more focus today on technique. It's funny, but in order to really work on technique you need to at least have some semblance of fitness to support what you're doing. As such, this technique work came at the right time - I'd got myself back into a bit of flow, my confidence was (slowly) picking up, but again I didn't want to push too hard so just did the first hour of their session. At the end of this session I felt quite positive that I would indeed have a good session by # 6 - was I right?!
Session 6. Wednesday 14th July, 5.30am, Challenge Stadium. Literally as soon as I hit the water today I knew I was going to have my best session yet. Sometimes you can just feel that - everything feels loose and relaxed and breathing feels easy. My confidence was up and I cannot believe that when Pete said we were going to do a 400m Time Trial today I was actually excited about the prospect of it! Weird, hey?! Dr. Gary Claydon (Caroline from Lane # 1 in the 6.30am squad's husband) expertly led our lane through the 400m and whilst I arguably got a bit of a tow from Gary I was happy to have swum 5'13" for the 400m. I predicted 5'15" (which is nearly a full minute slower than my P.B) but for now it'd have to do and was at least a starting point. A Time Trial is only ever a measure of where you're at right now, so never be afraid to try one and see where you're at - the stopwatch never lies!

Hope this helps get you back into the swing of things too!

Cheers

Paul

P.S My seventh session was a super test - in fact probably the most challenging swim I've ever done on minimal fitness - a 4.5km swim in the Swan River in 13 degrees of water - ouch! It was super cold. We were in for just over an hour, but reality hit home when I realised that I'd be looking for at least another 8 to 9 hours in the water in the English Channel in 14 months time in similar icy conditions. Here's to a load more doughnuts then and a load more miles in the arms!!

No swimming on Saturday

2010-07-16T12:04:00.001+08:00

Dear Swimmers

Just a quick reminder that there will be no offiicial squad swim
session tomorrow (Saturday 17th July) at 1pm. This is due to the
school holidays and previous weeks very low attendance. Don't panic
for those of you who love this session - we will resume as normal next
Saturday (24th July) when hopefully a few more people will be around.

Also, just a reminder that there will also be no swimming on Monday
mornings at 7am until further notice. We will be sad to see this
session go but hope to resume it soon.

We will be picking peoples names from a hat at 630am in Tuesday next
week to see who was lucky enough to win the fantastic Finis SwiMP3
player for your kind and helpful feedback last week.

Have a great weekend - we are going for a family fun adventure down in
Bridgetown of all places! Should be fun!

Cheers

Paul

Will you be this year's Biggest Loser?

2010-07-13T16:25:00.000+08:00

Dear Swimmers

Hope you enjoyed this morning's free swim session at Challenge Stadium. It was looking a little grizzly when the 5.30am crew first jumped in, but spirits soon warmed when you all saw the main set! Did you like the format of this morning's 1km Time Trial? I thought the handicapping would offer up a bit of a challenge for every lane and every swimmer - did you find this? I have to make a special commendation to Lane 2 from the 5.30am session - you guys absolutely flew along this morning and I'm sure it won't be long before we see you dip under 16 minutes for a kilometre. Well done!

So, here are the results:

http://www.theteamcore.com/images/1km_2010_July.pdf

32 people completed the distance in total. Last year we didn't test the 1km time trial until November, so the results I'm comparing you with are essentially winter versus spring / early summer, so it would of course be expected that you'd all be a little off your paces at the moment. Not to worry! The next 10 weeks are going to be focussed on bringing your times down and getting you back into shape - even if you've been out of the pool for a while. We'll re-test on Tuesday 14th September and I've given everyone who swam today a target to aim for on this next swim. Some of those targets will be faster than last summer (if you performed well today and are already close to your best) and some of those targets will be helping you on your way to getting you back on track. I hope this gives you a little impetus for your training.

I personally hate doing Time Trials, but when you realise that it's only a measure of where you're at now, you can clearly give yourself a goal of where you'd like to be in 10-12 weeks time for example.

Anyway, thanks again for attending - it was good to see all of you down there at the pool today and it wasn't really that bad once you got in the water, was it?!

Cheers

Paul

Free session tomorrow and a couple of cancellations!

2010-07-12T08:58:00.000+08:00

Dear Swimmers

FREE SESSION:

Just a quick reminder that owing to the slight mix up with the
session content on Tuesday 1st June 2010 we have decided to offer
tomorrows 530am and 630am sessions entirely for free (except pool
entry of course).

This is in an effort to appease those of you who felt a little
disgruntled over the 3km continuous swim on that day.

I do apologise once again for this minor mistake and hope that you'll
come and enjoy a really great session to get your teeth into tomorrow!

SATURDAY 1PM SESSION ON SATURDAY 17TH JULY CANCELLED:

Please note that due to low numbers on the last few Saturdays which
people have cited as being due to the recent holidays and bad weather,
there will be no squad swimming this Saturday at 1pm. We do plan to
resume this session on Saturday 24th July and hope that interest will
be a little higher at that point. Its such a great session that it'd
be a real shame to axe it going forwards. Thanks for your understanding!

MONDAY 7AM SESSION CANCELLED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE:

Also, please note that I am very sorry to those of you who have
attended the Monday 7am technique session over the last few months,
but we have made the decision to cancel this session until the summer
months when hopefully numbers will pick up and make this viable once
again. Apologies once again - not having a good run of it at the moment!

Cheers

Paul

Feedback Follow Up

2010-07-09T16:06:00.001+08:00

Dear Swimmers

Hope you're well! It seems like it's gone from bad to worse with the weather these last few days - it was especially grizzly down on the pool deck this morning at Challenge. Still, it'll be warming up soon enough (hopefully!) and at least the water's lovely and warm unlike what can be said for this picture of me swimming in Dover Harbour last month in just 13 degrees of water - brrrrr!!!!

FEEDBACK REVIEW:

There is still chance to submit your feedback to us at http://theteamcore.com/feedback_winter2010.html and be in the running to win a fabulous Finis SwiMP3 player worth $249. Thanks to those of you who have already done this - it's been especially useful for me to go through and whilst I haven't had chance to reply to everyone individually, I would like to collectively highlight a few points that have come up and what I plan to do in order to improve them where I can.

So, here goes - it's long (as usual with this sort of stuff!) but hopefully you like what you read, especially the thing about the FREE SESSION (Point # 3):

1. WEATHER. Obviously not a lot I can do here, however, I have taken a leaf out of my own book as it were and trained twice this week myself at Challenge Stadium at 5.30am and even a very fresh swim at Cottesloe beach last night to put myself in your shoes! The hardest part is simply getting in and that is not always that "simple" admittedly!! Once you're in though, the water at Challenge is just spectacular at the moment, so as long as you can brace that rush from the change-rooms to the pool, then all's good. I know not everyone likes the indoor 25m pool at Challenge (more on that below), but at least you can be assured of consistent "outside" temperatures here and it does at least suit us for the sprint work that we're doing. So, I will keep my prayers going that it'll warm up and in the meantime hope that you might also brave it down to the pool and feel all the more virtuous afterwards for doing so!

2. CHALLENGE STADIUM. I know that it's not Claremont Pool and I know that the extra walk to the change-rooms adds extra time to your day, but let's face it, this is THE best swimming centre in the southern hemisphere (and that's not just me saying that!) and the centre management have done everything possible to smooth our transition up there. When I heard that Claremont was closing and for 6 or 7 months I was immediately filled with panic and was literally facing the prospect of cancelling the entire program for this period. This would have been disastrous for everything that we've worked so hard to build up in the last 2.5 years. I am extremely indebted to Challenge Stadium for their help and assistance in finding us pool space at their centre during this period - they certainly weren't obliged to do so. For this I am very grateful. We haven't got every session that we'd like and we're not always swimming in the pool that we'd like (i.e. Thursday mornings in the indoor 25m pool), but at least we're still able to swim - it was looking like we wouldn't get anything at all there for a while! Claremont have advertised a grand re-opening of the 6th December 2010 for your reference, but for now we either swim at Challenge or we don't swim at all and this would be a shame because at the end of the day the reason 95% of us swim is to keep fit, healthy and enjoy the sport, irrespective of where we're doing it. I could go on about some of the less-than-appealing pools that we used in our recent Swim Smooth Clinic series in the UK as a comparison, but seriously, please don't let the pool change affect your decision to swim.

3. COACHING SUPPORT. I wish to thank each of the supporting coaches for their help and assistance whilst I was away in June. We've had some really good feedback and I thank you for this. If you recall, we invested quite a bit of time and resources with the coaches back in September and October of 2009, training them up to assist whilst I was away over the Christmas period. We elected to use the same coaches again for the June 2010 period and this is a decision which I am very pleased with. Due to time constraints primarily, we did not collectively meet-up us a coaching unit before I left in June for the UK, but I did put out a structured training plan of all the sessions that I wanted to be delivered during that period at each of the sessions. Some of you have mentioned your disdain for the first Tuesday session when I was away - a continuous 3km swim. We actually have two programs from which we operate - an Olympic Distance program and an Ironman Distance program. This particular session was due to be # 17 from the Olympic distance program, but was mistakenly delivered as # 17 from the Ironman distance program. Both were endurance sessions, but I feel you would have all felt the Olympic distance program would have been more engaging as it wasn't continuous and contained some drilling etc. I am going to take full responsibility for this mistake and in order to highlight Nic's and Adam's proficiency as coaches, would like to also state that on this particular morning, the centre staff wouldn't allow Nic in on time (as had been arranged) to get things set-up as I normally do. When Nic told me of this, I intervened from over-seas and we rectified this small, but important point, for going forwards. Mistakes happen and I'm sorry some of you felt that you didn't get any particular value from this session - I wish to emphasise that it was not a fault of the coaches on pool deck. In order to appease this situation, I would like to offer you a FREE SESSION NEXT TUESDAY 13TH JULY 2010 AT CHALLENGE STADIUM. You won't need your cards, just please pay at the front for your pool entry. We'll do the elusive Session # 17 from the Olympic Distance program and hopefully then all will be good and fair! Sound OK?

4. FUTURE COACHING. I really appreciated your honest feedback with respect to how much you enjoy having me personally on pool deck for your sessions and how this (for some of you) is your primary motivator for attending our squad sessions. This is very flattering. As a coach who has been privileged enough to have worked full-time now in this profession since 2001 and having personally tutored from many other great coaches, I do plan to continue to provide more coaching opportunities to other coaches in Western Australia. I think this is an important part of "sharing the knowledge" and skill base within Australia and is integral for future development. I am not a fan of hoarding "coaching secrets", even if there were such a thing! This is all part of our larger global coaching network program (through http://www.swimsmooth.com/coachesnetwork.html) and one which has seen over 200 swim coaches worldwide join our official program. This is a huge indicator that we are doing the right thing and the real proof of this was in the feedback from our 3-day Coaches Education Course in the UK and the request from the British Triathlon Federation that we help them evolve their own coaching materials and resources. My commitment to this on a local basis will be to ensure that we source the very best coaches to assist at times when I will be away. Each coach is going to have a different personality and style and I would request that you see this as an advantage rather than as a distraction. What one coach can offer in one area might be vastly superior to what another coach can offer in that same area, but equally vice versa too. Where I feel we could have improved as a program for this last June period of my absence was a pre-June collective coaches meet-up to run through things as before Christmas. Again I take responsibility for not having made this happen with everything that was going on with the stressful switch from Claremont Pool to Challenge Stadium. This is an amendment that I'll make for future trips. It's always a hard call going away and leaving the squad for a few weeks at a time, but we will be doing this going forward. Our next planned trip will be in November as my sister is getting married then too. I really value your patience and confidence in my ability to leave you in good hands when we do. I feel very privileged to be in this position whereby we are getting international requests left, right and centre at the moment through www.swimsmooth.com to run Clinics and Coaches Courses, but I do want you to know that I equally have a commitment to providing a great coaching service to you all here in Perth. Without my local squad sessions, my own skills as a coach would not be able to develop. Things such as www.swimtypes.com would never even come into existence if I didn't have the chance to work a large volume of regular hours with a wide-ranging group of swimmers - and this new system is proving to be highly beneficial now for swimmers and coaches all around the world. Equally though, without the prospect of over-seas and inter-state trips, the ability to share this knowledge and skill set would be deflated and also the prospect of picking up further new ideas to enhance our own local program too. So, I do really value your loyalty and commitment to me personally as a coach (like I say, it's hugely flattering), but also want you to know that we are trying to develop a great coaching system too which will collectively raise the standards of swim coaching both locally and worldwide and also therefore impact on you as well.

5. MOTIVATION. Ok, so I think I read the "cards" wrongly about people's interest and desire to learn the other strokes with a view to doing a once-monthly "Mini Olympics". This was only ever designed to be fun, but it seems that it wasn't of much interest, so apologies for putting this out there - we will cancel the remaining two "Mini Olympics" on Saturday 14th August and Saturday 2nd October. However, it does appear that motivation is lacking at the moment for some of you as you quote not having any specific goals to work towards. Last winter we had the 10KM RELAY CHALLENGE in October and also the ITU WORLD LONG COURSE TRIATHLON CHAMPIONSHIPS in November to keep people's interest over the colder months. My proposal is that we look at putting a similar / same event on as the Relay Challenge and aim for an October time-frame for this. I would like to open this up to you to email me suggestions / ideas before Friday 16th July and we'll go with / develop the most interesting one. We will also bring back the "Biggest Loser" Challenge from last year as this seems to have been very popular, even if it did mean you had to do several Time Trials! Summer is only just around the corner, so getting fit and into shape now will be perfect - at least this is what I'm telling my super-unfit-self right now! LOL! Things such as the World Cup, Wimbledon and now Le Tour de France have all been quoted in people's feedback as also making it difficult to train at the present.

6. LONGER, HARDER SESSIONS. I never thought I'd hear this (but am secretly glad that I have - and from a large number of people!), but many of you are requesting some longer, harder endurance sessions - possibly pegged for a Tuesday morning (and Monday 9.30am). Last year the Wednesday 1.5hr session proved extremely popular but unfortunately this session was one of those we simply could not secure at Challenge Stadium. As such, I'll filter in some of the sets from this session and see how we go from there. As numbers have been low recently, we might look at melding the Tuesday 5.30am and 6.30am sessions together or at least offering the option of those attending at 5.30am to stay in for 1.5 or even 2 hours on the same tick of their card. Before we do this though, I'll work in some of these longer / harder sets first and see how you all cope and equally see how the numbers in the sessions pick up (hopefully!). We'll still maintain that element of technique work in there obviously, but whilst it's chillier, this will at least help you keep a little warmer. And at the end of the day I can always say: "well, you did ask for it!" LOL! Remember the Monday 7am session is also there for working on pure technique work as well.

7. REALLY QUIET SESSIONS. Currently the Monday 7am session, the Monday / Wednesday / Friday 9.30am sessions and also the Saturday 1pm session are VERY quiet indeed and I won't beat around the bush by saying that we're struggling to make these economically viable at the moment. Hopefully it is just the weather, so I'll give it another fortnight or so before we make any drastic changes here. What I will offer though is that if you have a friend or family member who hasn't tried these particular sessions before and wants to pop along, please feel free to bring them down for a courtesy session (free of charge) to see how they like it, and hopefully we'll be able to ensure the longevity of these sessions over the colder months.

8. SATURDAY STRETCH. Saturday's 1pm session is my personal favourite of the week, and as we don't have any sessions preceding it, nor are we waiting for the centre to open, Geoff Wilson came up with the great idea of re-instating our 30mins pre-session stretch routine as a way of increasing the value and enjoyment of this particular session, especially for those of you who ride / run hard in the morning. For this, we'll aim to meet at 12.30pm each Saturday on the grass next to the Outdoor 8 lane pool (when it's dry) or upstairs next to reception (when it's wet). This will commence as of Saturday 10th July and as it's looking wet tomorrow, I'll meet those of you who fancy it just up in the reception foyer and we'll take it from there. Bring a stretch mat if you can or thick towel and some loose, comfortable clothing.

9. ADVERTISING. We've always been fortunate enough to rely on word-of-mouth and a strong online presence and website for ensuring numbers at the sessions, but we shall be looking at advertising the squad sessions at Challenge Stadium in the Western Suburbs paper in the next couple of weeks. It's a bit of a Catch-22 situation really - we need the numbers at the moment for the viability of the squads, but don't want to be inundated too much because I personally believe that the quality in our coaching comes through the restriction on the squad sizes to ~24 people. Again, I'll see how things develop a little in the next fortnight before we take any measures along this front - just wanted to make you aware of this possibility.

10. RE-BRANDING. I mentioned back in May that we're looking to re-brand "The TEAM CORE" into our local "branch" of "Swim Smooth Perth" as I appreciate that we started out as having a good balance between swim, cycle and run sessions, but are now very swim biased with specificity tailored to those of you doing triathlon and open water swimming. This has been an evolutionary change and based on the value that you have expressed on a structured squad swim session versus a coached cycle or run session. I'd love to have been able to have kept all of these sessions going, but the bike and run sessions in particular were substantially lacking in popularity compared with the swimming and thus proving to be economically challenging. I do feel that we need to maintain that air of "team spirit" alive and kicking though and am looking at ways in which we can do this. I think with better advertising and appeal, we can still make programs such as the 16-week Half Ironman program work in January each year. We are, however, in the process of re-branding things to "Swim Smooth Perth" to make things a little less confusing and more inline with the large growth we've seen with Swim Smooth in the last 12 months. I'm all ears on this front, so if anyone has any further feedback they'd like to add to this, then please do so.

11. PRICING. Very few of you actually mentioned this and I'm assuming that you support and understand our need to increase our prices here, especially given the move to Challenge Stadium. I thank you for this. This is not something I wanted to do, but sadly had to do it and I appreciate that you guys do pay a premium to train with us and that we are more expensive than some of the other squads around. We do however absolutely pride ourselves on the attention to detail, quality of coaching and the general atmosphere that we create at The TEAM CORE (/ Swim Smooth Perth!) and want you to know that we will constantly strive to make the squad the very best environment for you within which to train. We also restrict our numbers to ~24 people too - where I used to coach this was unrestricted and often we'd get 60 or 70 people down to a session with just me coaching. The cost of the sessions was $3 per person (now $5 I believe) but I never felt I was able to truly coach to the best of my ability. That is not to say that there is not a place for this style of coaching, merely that what I am doing now is different for this very reason, but equally, more expensive too. I realise and understand that you all have a choice when it comes to where you choose to train and would like to thank you all for your support and commitment that you have shown towards our program in the last 2.5 years. I do sincerely hope you all feel like you get true value for money when you train with us and ask you to let me know at any time if you don't.

Thanks for your time and listening. I do really hope that we can continue to make the squad sessions super fun, friendly and productive for all of you and your feedback is integral to this. Please, never feel like you have to wait until I send out a request to send me something over though - I'm always open to new ideas and suggestions if its something that will benefit others and improve our general program! Have a great weekend.

Cheers!

Paul

Win a SwiMP3 Player worth $249 just by giving us your feedback!

2010-07-07T16:50:00.001+08:00

Dear TEAM

My goodness, 16 straight days of sub-5 temperatures! Anyone would think this was England or something! LOL!

I'm hoping you can help me...the last two months have been alarmingly quiet in the squad sessions at Challenge Stadium and I'd like to know what I can do to make things better for you? If it's simply "please can you turn the environmental thermostat up!" I'm sorry but I won't be able to do that personally but can certainly put in a request with the big guy up above if this helps!

What I am wondering though is whether or not we could be doing things differently or is there something which we can do to make the program more interesting / entertaining for you? This is the lowest our numbers have ever been and given the expenses involved with running some of the sessions at the moment up at Challenge, there are a couple in danger of being *temporarily* axed (as much as it pains me to say that!).

Maybe it's just the record-breaking cold mornings that are holding people back, but if it's not and there's something I can do to remedy it, I'd love to have your feedback on this. In fact, for every feedback form I receive, your name will go into a hat to win a Finis SwiMP3 Player valued at $249! See http://www.swimsmooth.com/finis_swimp3.html for details. Can't say fairer than that! This is an awesome prize to get your hands on, but you have to be "in it, to win it" as they say!

So, please, take 5 minutes to give us your best feedback possible and detail which sessions you plan to be attending between now and December 6th by using the link below:

http://theteamcore.com/feedback_winter2010.html

Please note: due to the very low attendance recently, we are not enforcing any restriction on which sessions you can / cannot attend, this info is just useful for our planning - by all means attend if you can!

The feedback form deadline is Friday 16th July at 5pm (WST). The winner of the Finis SwiMP3 Player will be drawn at random and announced on Monday 19th July.

This feedback is super essential for us and might just make the difference between keeping some of your favourite sessions running and having to unfortunately suspend them.

Hope you can help!

Cheers

Paul

9.30am swimmers - discount off pool entry!

2010-06-29T15:34:00.000+08:00

Dear Swimmers

For those of you swimming with us in the 9.30am "Time-4-Me" squad session on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday at Challenge Stadium, you'll be pleased to know that Challenge are offering a discounted $3 pool entry compared to the normal $5 - not bad! I think it's only for the winter period, but well worth making use of if you can!

Hope to see you this week!

Paul

Session Card Increase from Thursday 1st July 2010

2010-06-28T13:50:00.000+08:00

Dear TEAM

Brrrr!!! Bit chilly isn't it! I had my first session back down on the pool deck this morning and it was freezing it has to be said! Beautiful sunrise though and nice to be back. There were only 4 of you at the Monday 7am technique swim session this morning, so I had ample opportunity to work with you on your strokes then. This is a great session for those of you who haven't yet tried it. If you fancy popping along, just turn up next week - the water's warm! ;-)

As mentioned back at the start of May, it has been necessary for us to increase our session fees due to GST liability and also the substantial increase in lane fees by moving up to Challenge Stadium. This increase will take effect as of Thursday 1st July 2010. This is something I have been hesitant to do. Our prices have not increased at all in the last three years and I'm afraid to say that this move is entirely necessary to secure the longevity of the squad. I had hoped that by giving you all a 2-month notice of these increases that it would allow you time to ensure that you have had chance to purchase your cards at the current rate for a little while longer. The new prices (as per below) will go into effect as of Thursday, so you still have a couple of days to purchase some before the increase if you so wish.

Here are the new prices:

Single session = $15
10 sessions = $120
25 sessions = $270
50 sessions = $480
1-2-1 session = $165
1-2-1 follow-up = $120

To purchase your cards online, please go to http://www.theteamcore.com/shop.html

Many thanks and I do hope you're able to support and understand this very necessary price increase. See you down at the pool this week.

Cheers

Paul

Back to Perth in 3 more sleeps!

2010-06-23T15:25:00.000+08:00

Dear TEAM

Hope you are all well. I'm into my last 3 days here in the UK and am now just relaxing after 3 very busy weeks! I'm in London and soaking up the British summer atmosphere - Wimbledon, the decisive World Cup game this afternoon and then a trip down to Dover on Thursday to meet my English Channel Swim pilot and test out the chilly waters - great stuff!

The trip over here has been unbelievably successful - we sold over 500 Training Guides for our new www.swimtypes website in the first 24 hours and have some exciting news coming up about the British Triathlon Federation and two major swimming brands, so watch this space! Thanks again for allowing me to make this breakthrough and decisive trip it really has been very worthwhile and I thank you for your commitment to the squad whilst I've been away!

I land back in on Saturday evening, have Sunday to recuperate and then will be back on the pool deck bright-eyed and bushy tailed as of Monday 7am. I have some great new ideas to try out with you all and help to get you through those longer, darker winter months in a very enjoyable fashion!

So remember, we have our very first Mini Olympics scheduled for Saturday 3rd July at 1pm. Anyone can come along and take part. We'll have a short warm-up and then in this first running of the session you have the option of competing in as many of the following events as you wish to do so (hopefully all!):

50m Butterfly with / without Fins
50m Backstroke
50m Breaststroke
The "Blue Ribband" 50m Freestyle Sprint
The 100m Bands Only Challenge
The 50m Parachute Only Challenge
The 400m "Go Until You Blow" Draft Fest
The 100m World Record Attempt in a Wetsuit
The 4 x 25m Individual Medley Mad-Man Challenge

Cost for the event will just be a normal tick off your session card. I'm hoping that the stalwarts of the normal Saturday afternoon session will all get into the spirit of this event and you are invited to bring a friend along as well to give it a try-out. The next date for this event (with a few modified events) will be Saturday 14th August. I do hope you can attend! I'll be taking people's event nominations down during next week's squad sessions, so please be ready with these.

See you on Monday!

Cheers

Paul

Swim Types website!

2010-06-14T18:37:00.001+08:00

Dear TEAM

Hope you are all well? We're having a great (but very busy) time over here in the UK. We've now run a total of 7 one-day Swim Smooth Clinics in the last 12 days and the response has been tremendous across the country. We have just delivered our two Scottish Clinics near Glasgow and are currently relaxing in Edinburgh with my sister for a couple of days before heading down to Manchester and then Windsor to complete the series. We're getting chance to work with a wide variety of swimmers and triathletes and it's been a great opportunity to officially launch our brand new Swim Types system - check it out at:

www.swimtypes.com

...the real question is, which Swim Type are you?! And what technique work and training do you need to be doing to improve your swimming? All is revealed on the site and in our special downloadable Training Guides.

This whole system is aimed at making sense out of swimmer's individuality. As you all know I am very much of the belief that there is no "one-size-fits-all" approach to swim stroke correction and what works for one swimmer, won't necessarily work for another. Hence, in our Perth squad sessions we cover a range of bases which add variety to the sessions and ensure that everyone is developing at their optimal rate.

Adam has gone through and tweaked the algorithm for the questionnaire so for those of you have already tried it, why not go back through this and see if this gives more pleasing results.

This whole system is the culmination of over 2 years of research, tweaking our methodologies, design implementation and a LOT of midnight oil burning!! We do hope that you find it interesting, are keen to share it with your friends and family members and if you have any queries or feedback, we'd love to hear it.

See you all in 2 weeks!

Cheers,

Paul

Hello from sunny England!

2010-06-09T15:18:00.001+08:00

Dear TEAM,

Hope you are all going well and had a great long weekend. We arrived in the UK last Tuesday (to rain and wind it has to be said!) and have had a very busy time since that point. The weather picked up considerably towards the end of last week and I even managed a short swim in the English Channel in preparation for next year's Channel crossing attempt. It was just 12 degrees, but without sounding too macho, it really wasn't that bad!! Maybe I've been eating too much Fish 'n' Chips over here!

On Friday we commenced our 3-day Swim Smooth Coaches Education Course which we ran for 11 coaches from around the UK. Two coaches even flew directly over from St John's in Canada just for the course. This level of interest was amazing for us and I had to pinch myself on more than a couple of occasions as this has been a dream of mine for quite some time now to be able to pass on our knowledge and techniques in such a format. We also had two officials sitting in from the British Triathlon Federation too, to see what we were teaching and how this fitted with their philosophy. The course was a great success and we officially released our brand new coaching system "Swim Types" which will be released to the general public as a website at www.swimtypes.com hopefully within the next couple of days - watch that space!! Everyone loved it and we really believe it will change the face of swim stroke correction going forwards.

We then had two more fully booked normal Swim Smooth Clinics on the following two days, with one swimmer flying in from Pakistan literally just for the course! These both went really well too. When you present for 4 days solid and are literally on the go with this for 18 straight hours at a time (including liaising with the coaches at breakfast and dinner etc) - it takes a bit of the stuffing out of you, so myself and Adam are now recuperating up in York at my Dad's place before continuing on with our further six Clinics in York, Glasgow, Manchester and Windsor all of which are fully booked as well. Should be a lot of fun - we're very lucky to have this level of interest especially in a country where we no longer have any permanent residence.

So, I hope the training is going well. The coaches in Perth have been liaising with me directly and letting me know how it's all going and I look forward to seeing how you've all progressed in time for our Mini Olympics on the 3rd July!

Cheers

Paul

Coaching Allocations for June

2010-05-26T15:45:00.000+08:00

Dear TEAM

Brrrr!!!! It's been a chilly one this week that's for sure. I'm just putting the finishing touches to our UK trip plans and we'll be leaving at midday on Monday 31st May. My last session coaching you guys will be the Friday 9.30am session so hope to see you then! My first session back will be Monday 28th June for the 7am and 9.30am sessions.

As promised I have put together an awesome team of coaches who will be looking after you whilst I'm away and I hope that you'll all support the sessions in my absence. There's something of a critical mass effect within the sessions whereby too many people makes it feel too overcrowded, but too few makes it feel a little sparse. Some of the sessions have definitely been a little quiet these first couple of weeks at Challenge so I'm hoping it's not the walk and cold that's putting you off as a) it's not that far and b) it's absolutely lovely in the water right now!

I have personally written out every single one of the 35 sessions that I'll be asking the coaches to take you through and these will follow our standard format of Monday = technique, Tuesday & Friday = endurance, Wednesday and Thursday = fresh & fruity, and Saturday = open water skills. I have requested the coaches to add their own personal flair to the sessions and as such I'm hoping that you'll all appreciate a different face on the pool deck for a few weeks to liven things up a tad! Here's who's on and when for your reference:

http://theteamcore.com/images/Challenge_Coaches_June2010.pdf

I have suggested that some of you may like to practice some tumble turns and / or the other three strokes but have said that non of these are compulsory. I'll be sending out details of our first MINI OLYMPICS on Saturday 3rd July in due course, so I'm hoping that you'll all get into the spirit of things and have a go with some of the new stuff, even if just for a bit of a giggle. Many of you have been surprising yourself with how good your other strokes actually are and this week's commendations go to Fran Waddell for her butterfly, Sally Steffanoni for her breaststroke and Ben Dundas for his amazing sprint freestyle last Thursday - all in Tuesday / Thursday's 6.30am sessions (lane 1). Seems like this lane is where we'll be breeding the next (MINI) OLYMPIC champions! I'm waiting to see some really impressive backstroke, so maybe we'll see this on Thursday morning as it's much easier indoors!

Thanks everyone and hope to catch you before I head off!

Paul