The Top 10 of 2017!!


My Top 10 Favourite Swims of 2017

Jo Mitchinson Team Aqua Sphere UK Athlete




I decided that this year, my final blog would be a reflection of my favourite swims of 2017. As I started writing it I realised that some of my very best times in the water have been training sessions - so they were included too. To narrow it down to 10 was difficult, there have been just over 300 training sessions and nearly 30 competitions and races. 


10) 200m Fly Hemel Hempstead Open Meet (8th October 2017)

 I don't race 200m fly very often, because it hurts too much. The last time was 2 years ago, when I just wanted to see if I could still make it. I don't even really remember entering this race - it seems to have fallen into the 'good idea at the time' pile. It was the last race of the last session of a 2 day open meet. The session was delayed starting and soon I realised that I was going to be racing a 200m fly at what can only be described as 'stupid-o-clock'. I arrived behind the blocks at 21:30 to swim 8 lengths of a stroke that I used to like and now hate. The best bit of this race was that my and one other Stevenage swimmers decision to compete prevented our coach from getting home at a reasonable time too. That thought made me smile and saw me through 2 very evenly paced 100m fly, going 1:18 and 1:20 - for a 2:39.3. I was pleased that I can still do it and it felt OK. However, it's unlikely that I'll make use of the County Qualifying time that I achieved in this race!!

9) Wednesday morning (9th August 2017)

This was my last session before racing in Budapest. I was set 16x100. 1-8 were ascending and 9-16 descending. This is unfamiliar territory for me, but the ability to change and control my pace is something that I need to work on. I know that I can hold pace, but in races, especially Open Water I need to be able to respond to speed changes. They were on a generous 1:45 so I wasn’t under any pressure on the slowest ones. The first one was a 65, they dropped to a 1:19 and finished back down on a 64. After this set I felt that I was race ready and confident that I could adjust my speed during the race as I needed to.   

8) Great East Swim/Stevenage Summer Sprint (June 2017)

This was a very busy day. I travelled to Suffolk and back to Stevenage to race at 2 separate events. I was very pleased with how strong I felt during the Great East Mile, winning my wave. It showed me that my speed endurance was where it needed to be 8 weeks out from the World Masters Champs. I got back in the car, refuelling as I went and drove the 100miles back to Stevenage. I dropped the distance and was thrilled to go a 1:03.11 and two 29. relay splits. (Full blog available at http://mitchinson2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/trying-to-sprint-mile-200-miles-100m.html)

7) BEST FEST (May 2017)

It’s hard to pick just one of these races – so the event and venue gets a top 10 spot. The water is crystal clear and this year I did a race that I’d always fancied, but never been fit enough to compete in. I also managed to train in the stunning, outdoor, 50m pool, completing sessions that my coach had sent me out with. I trained hard, raced well and still felt like I’d had a fantastically relaxing family holiday.

6) Hertfordshire County Championships (February 2017)

This was really the first time I’d ventured out of my comfort zone and raced mainstream. I raced the 800m having achieved the qualifying time in the safety of club championships. Poolside was full of familiar faces, who were complimentary about me racing. The least complimentary people were the commentator and Magda – both of whom commented on my lack of leg kick, especially off of the turns. My legs have paid for that race tenfold in the beast kick sets that I’ve done since then in a desperate attempt to improve my turns and leg strength. (Full blog available at https://jlmitchinson.blogspot.co.uk/)




5) Monday (16th October 2017)
      
                   


I swim many of my longest and toughest sessions on my own, long course at Luton in the morning. I am used to my Thursday morning killer set and I have spent a lot of my Wednesday evenings dreading it for the past 2 years.

However, on Monday evenings we have a newly introduced 2 hour session. With fewer of us in the lane and following Sundays 2 hour training – this has become the new ‘one to dread’. This session went on and on and on. It was one of those that you don’t fully appreciate when you first see it. But, when you’ve been swimming for 1 hour 10 minutes and are already exhausted before you even reach the main set, you start to wonder what you’ve done to make the coach hate you quite that much!!
So why did it make it onto my Top 10? Simple. I shared this pain with 3 other swimmers. We all hurt, we all moaned and we all got on with it and finished it anyway. There was something satisfying in swimming along knowing that Jessie, Daisy and Ryan were also wondering if their arms were going to fall off and if we were ever going to get to the end of the set. We all swam like trains that night and I thoroughly enjoyed that session because of the swimmers I shared it with.



4) Boxend (17th April  2017)

Sometimes it’s important to swim for fun and to remember that it’s only a hobby. This wasn’t much of a training session – it was freezing cold, a miserable drizzly Easter Monday morning at Boxend. But, meeting up with Stuart Hacker is a rare treat these days – we had very different aims this season and our training programmes clashed spectacularly. I had swum, showered, dried my hair, warmed up and got coffee all before Stuart finally emerged skins from the lake. More coffee, lots of swimming talk and I drove home genuinely happy – if still unable to feel my toes.


3) Regionals (3rd, 4th, 5th November 2017)

All week Magda ignored my “I’m not sure I really want to do this” comments and messages. The reality is that this is so far out of my self-imposed comfort zone that I had been secretly plotting ways of avoiding it. None worked, so before I knew it I was in Norwich. I felt good in warm up and started to look forward to my first race (the 800m). This race made it in at number 3 because I realised, perhaps for the first time, that I do still have a few advantages over younger swimmers. I’ve raced for 32 years (on and off). When I go into race mode (usually during warm up) I am no longer remotely fazed by other swimmers. I would declare myself officially un-fazable. I don’t judge them on their swimming club, their cozzies, how tall they are, how professional they look or how they walk around poolside. Race mode for me is a controlled mix of calmness and aggression. When I stand behind the blocks I have a confidence that I don’t experience anywhere else. I train hard and I race tough. I know that it’ll take someone who trains harder than me to beat me – and if they do that then they genuinely deserve the faster times, higher places, medal, trophies and records that they get. I have faith in my training programme and the bank of training that I have behind me gives me confidence and takes care of my nerves.

I raced well, 9:47 and 4:44, finishing mid-table in both, despite being the slowest on paper in the 400. It was my first long course 400m and Regional Champs of the 21st Century and I actually enjoyed myself and would do it all over again.


2) Luton (19th October 2017)

600 (200free/100back) x2
8x50 drill/swim
5x100 IM ripple

1x800 (10:52) 25seconds rest
2x400 (5:22, 5:18) 20s rest
4x200 (2:39, 2:38, 2:40, 2:40) 15s rest
8x100 (1:20, 1:20, 1:19, 1:18, 1:19, 1:19, 1:20, 1:20) 10s rest
16x50 (40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40!) 5s rest

300 s/d as 100 kick, 100 drill, 100 swim

I got out of this session buzzing. This is why I swim, I love sessions like this. I enjoy seeing how far through I can get before I feel that I’m falling to bits and then fighting to hold the splits for the remainder of the set. The sense of satisfaction that I got from this training session was immeasurable. 

1)World Masters Championships, Budapest (August 2017)

I’m placing this 1st based on the result, the experience, the sense of total disbelief when I found out I’d won a medal and returning to the U.K having had the most amazing week of the year by a clear mile. I hated every stroke of the race, I had no idea where I was during it, and the water was brown, murky and choppy. And yet, I was lucky enough to share it all with my friend and coach, we had an incredible time being tourists in Budapest after the Open Water race and I swam well in the race we’d worked towards for 12 months. (Full blog available at http://mitchinson2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/balatonfured-budapest-and-bronze.html)
 


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