So I was thinking, and wondering, and I was wondering How.

How could I get a bit more interest in getting fitter?  How could I re-ignite a smidgen of the interest I had as a younger (just a little) competitor, and I came up with this Brilliant idea:  to use the Stopwatch!!!

Now probably, all you club swimmers have pace-clocks and coaches who time you on the occasional sprint in workouts. They (the coaches) probably also give you that invaluable bit of instruction when you're in a race; you know the bit where they walk alongside you, busting your gut there in the pool, and shout from their deck-side position the breakthrough concept, “Up, UP!!”

Bet you'd have never thought of that yourself, would you??

Anyway I digest ... no, I who have no-one ... no I ... I who have nothing … oh hang on, I'm off on a tangential frivolity.

Anyway (again) getting back to the Brilliant Stopwatch Diet or Training or whatever, I'm going to see if doing less but timing it, will work.

So here's the plan – Rather than swimming endlessly up and down and being bored out of my skull, I'm going to swim pretty much Just Sprints, apart from a little warm up, loosen up and all that usual jazz.

And I'm going to video it, Right here in River City … well actually Not right here in River City, but here at a small private pool, that I am allowed to use.

So maybe it will work and maybe not. But I will explain very briefly the concept when I do the video.

Will probably film it in mid-July, cos I like the water to be warm, and the weather to be warm and your welcome to be warm and … now I've run out of things to be warm ....

When I start to get close enough to being able to compete, I get a bit impatient and, frankly, the training starts to get boring.

I need to find a competition, to assess how far away I am from where I want to be, and all the trundling up and down the pool is all well and good but it's not competing, and that's a whole different world - thankfully!

So yes I'm getting impatient to find out … so I'm going to try an e-mail to this competition on the 23rd at Tissot asking if I can compete “hors concours” as my approach to associate with a club has been rejected as “too complicated” … ??

You know there is nothing that brings you on in your fitness etc. more than competing. I swam a whole season once using the 'meets' as my workouts. The rest of the time I just paddled up and down at a local pool twice a week. But those 'meets' really worked for me.

OK today I did:

• warm-up – 100 m mixed
  
• 10 x 50 m with the first 25 Fly and the return legs-only Free/Breast
  
• 8 x 50 m Free - first 25 very easy, return 85% effort
  
• finished with 2 x 25 m Free 90% effort (with a dive)
  
• 2 x 25 Fly 90% effort (with a dive)
  
  

I did look at the pace clock and it seemed I was averaging very consistently 60 secs for each 25 m.

That was until I realized that there was no-one with a 'France' cap on in the pool, and so the pace clock was not switched on. Was quite worrying for a bit, cos 60 secs for a 25 m is not really going to cut it, is it?

Hope all in the US and England are warm and dry – terrible weather you are having. Here it has been a very mild (touch wood) winter with no days below 8 ºC or so. Today it is 13 ºC . So far we've been lucky.

Next pool day Monday, and I'll tell you as soon as I hear from Tissot, whether they'll let me swim.

Didn't really feel into it today, and that happens, and so I just let it roll on by, and do what I feel like.

That's the great thing about NOT having a coach. I get to choose when I put out, how much and what I will make my work-out up of.

Some guy, or gal, reading off a previously pondered script and sticking to it like it was written in stone … nah, don't think so. But for a few notable exceptions, there are not many coaches who win at swim meets … they get the swimmers to do that for them.

So I did:

• 8 x 50 m legs-only mixed
  
• 4 x 50 m Breaststroke arms-only with paddles
  
• 4 x 50 m Free arms-only with paddles
  
• some relaxed loosening Free, maybe 100 m (or maybe it was 89 metres and I walked in the last bit)
  
• 6 x 25 m sprint Free – trying a little as the pace clock was on
  

Yeah, was put into action for a guy wearing a France cap, Red, Blue and White broad stripes; AND he was swimming in the lane that they berated me about using two weeks ago. See, I didn't have my paddles on for a few 50s and they very forcefully, with lots of gallic aggro, pointed out that I must not use the lane without the 'equipment' on.

Funny thing was that today this guy got the clock started AND he was swimming in that very lane with NO equipment - Mon Dieu!!

But there we are, he did have the France cap on … and on the pace clock he was averaging 46 secs for a 50 m Free, full stroke.

I did a little Google search on Starbucks, I was intrigued to know actually how much is the plainest cup of coffee there. Results came in at around $2.00 US.

I've been there once, and I think anyone could get more real coffee flavour out of just one of my short stories “Villa d'Este”, from my book, and that's only 99 cents for the whole thing … you can lead swimmers to the water, but you can't make 'em win.

Next workout day, Saturday.