SwimPath's sponsored starlet Liv Davies literally laid the law (too much?!?!) down in Swansea with a plethora of Championship swims, personal records and age group best times at last weekends Welsh National Championships.
With only 3 weeks to go until this years Olympic Trials, we caught up with SwimPath Pro Rebecca Guy to see what she's been up to and how her preparations are going for April; what she has been up to this season and that all important question: Are you enjoying the ride???
This season is an important one. Next month is Olympic Trials in Glasgow. Like thousands up and down the country, I'm chasing that Olympic dream! Leading into the trials I have done various blocks of training and racing in order to be as prepared as possible for the intense racing next month. I will be swimming the 50m, 100m and 200m freestyle (and maybe a cheeky 100m butterfly).
Before Christmas I raced in the National SC championships. This was an important meet for me to showcase my improved skills and fitness. I got a PB in all my races and was pleased to break some long sought after barriers. I went 53.92 in my 100m freestyle, 24.7 in the 50 and 1.58 in 200m. A lot swam very fast, so I was pleased to be one of those swimmers!
Over the Christmas and New Year period I trained in Dubai. This was a training camp with my team, the City of Manchester Aquatics Swim Team (COMAST). Dubai was an opportunity to see a new place, get some sunshine, train outdoors and learn. We did some sessions with some of the fastest swimmers in the world at the Haman sports complex, an incredible pool to train in and some incredibly challenging swim sets! This was the pool in which the world short course championships takes place. I did some unusual session for me. Let's put it this way, I am no longer worried about my ability to have the endurance for a 200m race! We did a lot of gym work in Dubai too, mainly muscular endurance. We were privileged enough to train in another impressive venue: The Warehouse Gym. As bad ass as it sounds. Lots of metal.
Since returning from Dubai in January I have done three weekends of racing (Manchester, Edinburgh and Berlin), a lot of race-pace training and strength and speed work in the gym. I have not been resting for any of the competitions. As opposed to having time targets, the meets have provided important opportunities to set in stone routines with regards to warm up, swim downs etc. In addition, they of course provide opportunities to execute skills under pressure and fatigue; next week will be my final race, in Sheffield, just the 100m freestyle. One last race rehearsal.
As I enter the taper stage of training, mileage drops and everything thing becomes ever more race specific. The hard graft is done, it is now a question of focusing on skills, locking in paces, rates, routines and of course keeping positive! I'm enjoying the ride!
Glad to hear it Bex and a massive good luck to you from us all from SwimPath...
As a coach I have been guilty of setting 400m loosen as a warm up - in fact it became a mainstay to every session. Not that there is much drastically wrong with it, apart from the fact that it didn't really do much other than get the swimmer wet! Once in and the loosen completed we would then go into some building work and actually address 'warming up' (as opposed to the cooling down offered by a slow 400m in water colder than the air temperature on deck!) When I started to look at my warm ups a bit closer, I realised that I was just trying to 'take up' the first 20 minutes or so of a 2hr session, because usually what I wanted to get out of the session didn't require 2 hours...
