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On 14th February a small group of Southampton swimmers departed for a training camp in Lignano, Italy. The camp lasts one week, and will involve intense long course training in preparation for the upcoming county and regional championships. The swimmers will be returning on the 21st February. Chaperone updates:Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Red Fish Swim Team (Switzerland) Head Coach updates:15th February - We all arrived safely late last night, well early morning actually as we arrived approx 1am. Not surprisingly there were a few tired swimmers this morning. To blow the cobwebs I decided we should all go for a quick 4 mile stroll down the beach, as you can imagine some little legs are more akin to getting into mummy's car than walking! On return and pasta lunch it was time for our first pool session. Unfortunately the 50m pool was booked to a massive (1,000 swimmers) Masters competition, boy they take Masters seriously here in Italy.
To make up for the loss of swimming in the Long Course pool, the swimmers completed a 3 hour (yes you read it correctly 3 hour) session. A nice steady Speed & Aerobic 2 Session.
L1 Ashley, Callum, Sam, James, Chloe and Elliott covered between 8,600m - 8,400m L2 Nikki, Saddie, Hannah, Jess Low, India, Tom D-F, and Jake covered 8,000m L3 Ben, Bas, Jess B, Caitlin, Lizzie and Izzy covered between 7,000m - 7,400m
All this with just one toilet break! To summarise a steady stroll and a Long Swim = Some very quiet tired swimmers - Welcome to Half-Term Hell Week in Italy! 16th February - We have just finished the second water session today and it is pretty safe to assume all the swimmers will not require the 'Noddy Story' this evening. It has been another good/hard day of training. The swimmers had their first taste of Long Course Training this morning and I am sure they all concluded it is much harder to train Long Course than short.
Basically the day went as:- AM 20 mins Stretch Cords 2 hours Long Course (ATP-CP & Aerobic 2 Endurance) distance covered 6,400m PM 1 hour Land Training (running, dumbbells, plymetrics and relaxing techniques) 2 hours Long Course (Anaerobic Threshold with ATP-CP) distance covered 6,000m Total distance covered now equals between 18,000m and 21,000m, which I believe is very satisfactory.
One of the biggest lessons some of the swimmers are learning is that they need to eat plenty of carbohydrates at meal times, being in Italy there is Pasta dishes both at Lunch Time and Dinner Time. Several swimmers have had to be pulled out of this evenings session purely because they had nothing in the tank. My analogy of 'F1 Race Cars and Good Competitive Swimmers need Quality Fuel and cannot run on substandard fuel STANDS!'
Although all swimmers found enormous amounts of energy during the 30sec Pine Cone Fight during our little run - no guessing who was prime target, yes I was hit several times in 30 secs! Some of the swimmers definitely have 'Anger' problems!!!!! 17th February -The swimmers have just climbed out of the water after completing the following today:
AM
20 mins Stretch Cords
2 hours Long Course Training - which included a 7 x 200m Step Test - total distance 5,400m
PM
1 hour Land Training - running, grid sprints, core stability, dumbbells and relaxation exercises
2 hours Long Course Training - which included a Race Pace set 4 x 100m Free Max off 4 mins - total distance 6,400m
Daily Distance = 11,800m
Total Weekly Distance now stands between 32,700m and 28,000m
Another good day at Lignano having marked all 19 Log Books this afternoon, which were really quite good, most swimmers are starting to find the going tough. Many swimmers remarked that they found the Target Times of the 7 x 200m Step Test hard to achieve; especially the boys! I thought it prudent not to mention that the Target Times were the Girls times the boys start at are pb plus 20 secs not 24 secs. On the other hand the relaxation exercises are going down well Jess fell asleep again! 20th February -I am writing this just prior to our last 2 hour session in the pool on Day 6 of the Lignano Training Camp. Yesterday the swimmers were back in the long course pool for 2 hours in both the morning and evening, working really hard. Sandwiched between the two water sessions we completed our 1 hour land training session on the beach, which proved a bit too popular (I am sure Lizzie has never been to the beach in her life!). I tasked setting yesterday evenings session to James and Nikki, they had to plan an ATP-CP & Aerobic 2 Session of between 5,500m and 6,700m. Quickly consulting their Logbooks and confirming with me that they would actually have to swim the session (nice try guys!) they actually did quite a good job of it, although in their own words it took 50mins to compose and was a horrible set/session to swim. Day 5 AM 25 Mins Stretch Cords 2 hours Long Course Aerobic 2 - Threshold with Snap Shot 100m Max - Total Distance 6,800m PM 1 hour Land Training - Running, Sprints, Stretch Cords, Dumbbells and Core Stability 2 hours Long Course ATP-CP & Aerobic 2 - Total Distance 6,500m Total for week after day 5 = 52,700m
Day 6 AM 30 Mins Stretch Cords, Dumbbells, Core Stability 2 hours Long Course - Race Pace & Aerobic 2 - Total Distance 6,100m 25 Mins Dumbbells PM 2 hour Long Course - ATP-CP & Threshold (No 1) - Estimated Distance 6,200m Total for week after day 6 = 65,000m As to be expected many of the swimmers are quite tired and have put in the biggest week's training of their lives, which was the primary aim of this camp. One of my biggest concerns is that some swimmers believe that they can train without a proper diet, it is incredible to think that some swimmers do not believe in quality fuel (food) for quality athletes. A secondary concern is that the swimmers here will believe that they have done the hard work and therefore 'Off-Load' all this good work by NOT attending next week, they will need to put in at least 7 sessions next week, at least. See you ALL Monday MORNING. Swimming is a tough sport it takes an awful lot of hard work and effort to get to a decent standard of fitness, which is very quickly lost, when not in the water maintaining it. Regards David Terry Head Coach.
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Training Camp
