Levelling up init 
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its all a joke really, but its a soapbox I’ve got tired of standing on. Kent County Champs are in Sussex and central London, London has literally just the LAC now, a capital city of 9million people with a single 50m complex. Sunderland proved how well it can be done, especially if its outside of city centres. Winchester is lovely, Crawley is great , they dont need to be fancy, just close to a decent A road and enough land to build on.
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I wasn’t sure if this one should go here or the rant thread, but its swimming so!
Im helping coach at a Swim England Open Water Development day on Sunday. We have about 50 kids signed up now, most 13 and under where we will give a safety chat, teach about acclimatisation, then explain some OW drills and skills, spend an hour in water with the kids demoing and practicing, after lunch the referee will explain the rules and we will have a simulated race of 1,2,3 k depending on age. A fantastic day but SE are struggling to get kids to race still at regionals, hence this day. It was quite easy to explain why, first not enough training opportunities (lakes are very difficult to get access for coaching a small group, they like 1 on 1 only and need expensive inductions, hence putting on days like this, but second can you guess race distances :-
12/13 - 2km
14/15 - 3km
16+ - 5km
and in the nationals they are
13 - 3km
14/15 - 5km
16+ - 7.5km
so a kid of only 15 will swimming 5k in regional (qualifying) and 7.5km, an extra 30-40mins at the top end for the nationals.
yer I think I see the issue, my son summed it up, “3k would be fun but 5k is a bit much”
anyway London master regionals July 6th, look at swim england site if anywhere local, it will be huge fun.
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In reality the JC pool in Leeds is mostly in 25m config.
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So is Crawley 90% of the time.
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I guess not many backstrokers here, @joex loves playing in the pool though with mixed strokes, but wondering if there’s a way to adapt this to the front as well; will get back to you on that, but a brilliant and fun way to get kids to rotate enough (no one ever rotates enough on their back)
sometimes soshul meeja pulls up a gem; just a shame you have 67000 pieces or crap to doom scroll through first 
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Mrs FB likes that - going to try it with some of her squad.
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…and it’s been cancelled.
Now to look for another one to get some qualifying times for Nationals in October.
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That’s not great, there’s been a spate of masters galas being cancelled, or worse losing their licence so you swim “for nothing” due to lack of officials. With Ag swimming parents always officiate but its very hard to get officials to volunteer because a) they are likely to be swimming, or B) only do it to help their kids clubs so you end up with the few “career officials” or those desperate to get sign offs for J2(S) and referee quals.
Which club do you swim at as you are in my area? Are you doing regional OW on July 6th?
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I belong to Lewes SC so a bit further away from you but was planning to travel up to that one.
There’s another Masters event in Poole in a few weeks that I may do and might make a weekend of it. Beyond that it’s Sussex Masters champs in September and South East Regionals in early October.
No OW for me this year.
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you could always swim with the kids there’s often one or two at kids galas, but it does seem very strange. there was a 50 year old Japanese breaststroker at Winchester a couple months back, he did OK but was minute high teens for the 100 so not competitive with half the kids, but I guess being a L1 gala he was looking for qualification for something.
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WHat a bummer.
I didn’t even know the Saxon Crown Masters Open in Lewisham 28th June was happening. I mean where? Ladywell was knocked down years ago wasn’t it?
Masters events are not for AoS swimmers though are they - I hear you’re “master” at age 21.
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Glass Mills , right next to Lewisham station
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Anyone over 25 can take part in Masters events - group A is 25-29 and then they go up in 5-year bands from there.
A lot of events also have an 18-24 category (X) as well.
I’m not technically an AOS swimmer as I did swim a lot as a kid but I never competed. However I’ve been doing Masters events for 20 years after getting back into it at university at the same time I took up triathlon.
It seems to be exploding in popularity lately and more events such as the Nationals are bringing in qualification times, where once anyone could enter.
You should give it a go!
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Did the River Arun Swim today (did it last year as well). https://rawenergypursuits.co.uk/river-arun-3-8km-swim-2025/
Recommended. Well-organised, river is pleasant, not much biffing.
They bus you up to the top and you do a tide assisted 3.8 km back down to Littlehampton. I guess the tide knocks off about 10 mins.
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Watched a video of Popov the pther day and it got me thinking about what I know to be a big flaw in my swimming. Thanks to work done on the advice of h my DPS is pretty good for a little old fella. But what I do have is too big a pause between each arm propelling me forward. I don’t think faster stroke rate is the answer.
I know I need a faster stroke but doing what I am faster I am not sure is what I need. I think if I can figure out a change in rhythm to remove/reduce that pause and then speed up overall stroke rate would be a better way forward.
Any ideas on how to achieve that (near) constant propulsion?
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I’m very similar. A graduate of the Total Immersion stretch and glide school of 2000s swimming. I’ve been considering a wetronome / tempo trainer but then that would mean recommencing swimming 
Others more qualified will doubtless comment.
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I’ve been using this cheap and cheerful (£9.99 from Argos) for swimming (& DIY) since 2019.
(I just need my start/finish time, plus ‘going’ and rest times.)
The original battery was still going strong, when it finally packed up last month.
It was only when I got home from the pool, that I finally noticed there was water on the inside!
So, I’ve bought the nearest equivalent that Argos sell today (£17.99).
It is much bigger, but the magnifying lens makes the numbers really easy to read in the pool.
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maybe, it depends on what your current stroke rate is. “Continuous swmming” is what I call it. The arms must always be moving, the minute one hangs out front it usually ends up with the elbow dropping and other issues then creep in. A result of this change is usually a higher stroke rate, but a higher stroke rate doesnt necessarily mean continuous swimming (if that makes sense)
For me it would be a case of lots of 25’s with rest as required just focusing on nothing but making sure the arm never stops moving. Could use fins to help with propulsion and keeping speed up whilst you ficus on it, so the arms are always moving, just more controlled and slowly. Try it with a low stroke rate so you can feel what you are doing and gradually up it to more normal levels
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