On The Move

Tooting Bec Lido

It doesn’t seem like that long ago I was packing for the Southern Hemisphere summer. Well here I am following the sun (supposedly) and find myself back in London. Water temperatures are hovering around the 10-12 degrees Celcius and with incessant rain and cloud it will take some time before the water heats up. There are plenty of swimmers who have through acclimatisation managed to adapt to swimming in these temperatures. It’s important that everyone is realistic with their abilities, for comfort and more importantly safeties sake. At the moment I can swim non wetsuit in 13-14 degrees Celcius for a period of time but would struggle in anything lower. Not ideal when I have a 10km swim race on the horizon in 3 weeks. For me it’s a no brainer, I will happily be wearing my blueseventy Helix wetsuit for training swims and for my 10km race in three weeks – my first long distance swim of the season.  I say it all the time but find it’s always worth repeating – don’t go hiring a wetsuit on race day. Make sure any equipment you use is tried and tested before the big day. Having malfunctioning or ill-fitting equipment (wetsuit/goggles) can impact on your performance just as much as fitness and technique.

If you are looking for swim training opportunities this Northern Hemisphere summer I will be based almost entirely in London for the next 5 months. I am very pleased to announce that I will be delivering swim coaching services on behalf of the world’s leading swim holiday company www.swimtrek.com at Tooting Bec Lido swim complex; Tooting Bec is over a century old and is an amazing 90M Oasis in London. This is a perfect location to either start your transition from the pool to the open water or to practice some longer swimming in preparation for the summer open water and triathlon season. We are offering swim fitness classes, personal training sessions (These are my recommendation to really get personalised advice to get your swim season started) and wetsuit clinics (these are held once a month – purely to help ensure you get the right suit and more importantly the right fitting suit before you swim). Find out more about the Tooting events through the events and bookings page at the top of this page or click here: http://www.swimtrek.com/Tooting-Bec . For Fit&Abel clients in New Zealand the winter time is a great time to tune technique and fitness in the pool and nail down your pacing ready for the summer season. My pool partner down in Christchurch is Aquagym http://www.aquagym.co.nz/ they have a great Surf/Tri/Masters squad that will keep you going. For those who like to plan ahead my New Zealand series is already out so you mark the dates in your diary;    https://fitandabel.com/events-bookings/fitabel-summer-201213-series/ and   https://fitandabel.com/events-bookings/wild-tri-2013/

Whatever your swim plans this season ensure you make a plan, prepare well and you will exponentially increase your enjoyment and your performances. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and my last tip; to really push yourself during training and to help keep the motivation up you can’t beat swimming in a group.

See you out in the water. Dan