Ashington

Whoever said that all the deep coal mines in England were closed in the 80s & 90s? There are still loads of them. You’ll find them at random locations in the roads of North Tyneside, Newcastle and Northumberland. As well as speleology, some of them also offer excellent opportunities for cave diving. Next week I’ll take...
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Turns out that I’m even more rubbish at swimming than I’d thought - the pool at Ashington Leisure centre is so old that it’s measurements are imperial. This includes the pool length, which is 25 yards, not 25 metres. Good thing I found this out now - otherwise I could have ended up training...
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After Sunday’s ride I was cold and tired. So on Monday morning, the duvet was far too nice to get out of, and I FAILED to make it to the early bird swim session. But not to worry - with careful planning, and a pool that’s just five minutes from the office, I can fit...
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I did an extra swim session yesterday morning, practicing getting my strokes nice and smooth, really concentrating on rolling around to breathe, keeping my body level, and alternating drills with full-stroke swimming. It was quite good fun, and I even played a round of ‘pool golf’ - seeing how few strokes I could use to...
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Well I thought I had a good swim today. I managed to do each of my reps at the target pace, and breathing on both sides (to the left going down the pool, and the right on the way back up). It was far from perfect - especially breathing on my weaker...
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I had a late start at the office yesterday, arriving just in time for lunch. One of the questions I was asked as I locked my bike up,  by a colleague who lives just around the corner from me was, I’d quite like to ride to work, but don’t you get all sweaty? I laughed out...
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This is the pattern for my swimming for the next ten weeks  - Monday is a technique session with lots of TI drills, and Wednesday is endurance, adding 100m a week to get me close to full race distance in time for taper. So today I was doing drills. Yawn. Actually, if you interpserse them with...
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Another day where my motivation was low . . . but I ground on through anyway. To begin with, there was the whole thing of getting out of bed - after an early night, I’d had nearly nine hours’ sleep, but the bed was sooo warm, and the bedroom freezing cold. Then there was the drive...
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Just another monday morning in the pool. Before I left the house, I had First Breakfast of a cinnamon bagel that I’d defrosted from the freezer before slicing in two & toasting. Note to self: This process seems to turn yummy bagels into yummy pieces of leather. Workout: Type: Swim Date: 02/01/2010 Time: 07:00:00 Total Time: 00:50:00.00 Calories: 365 Distance: 1,600 m Average...
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Last week I was in the pool, chatting to Gary from Tri Northumberland (speaking of which - have you seen that the Ashington Sprint Triathlon is FULL ? If you’re thinking of doing one of the Northumberland triathlons, you’d better sign-up SOON!) about how bloody cold it is out on the bike at the...
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