SwimPath Blog — SwimPath News

With only 3 weeks to go until this years Olympic Trials, we caught up with SwimPath Pro Rebecca Guy to see what she's been up to and how her preparations are going for April; what she has been up to this season and that all important question: Are you enjoying the ride???

This season is an important one. Next month is Olympic Trials in Glasgow. Like thousands up and down the country, I'm chasing that Olympic dream! Leading into the trials I have done various blocks of training and racing in order to be as prepared as possible for the intense racing next month. I will be swimming the 50m, 100m and 200m freestyle (and maybe a cheeky 100m butterfly).

Before Christmas I raced in the National SC championships. This was an important meet for me to showcase my improved skills and fitness. I got a PB in all my races and was pleased to break some long sought after barriers. I went 53.92 in my 100m freestyle, 24.7 in the 50 and 1.58 in 200m. A lot swam very fast, so I was pleased to be one of those swimmers!

Over the Christmas and New Year period I trained in Dubai. This was a training camp with my team, the City of Manchester Aquatics Swim Team (COMAST). Dubai was an opportunity to see a new place, get some sunshine, train outdoors and learn. We did some sessions with some of the fastest swimmers in the world at the Haman sports complex, an incredible pool to train in and some incredibly challenging swim sets! This was the pool in which the world short course championships takes place. I did some unusual session for me. Let's put it this way, I am no longer worried about my ability to have the endurance for a 200m race! We did a lot of gym work in Dubai too, mainly muscular endurance. We were privileged enough to train in another impressive venue: The Warehouse Gym. As bad ass as it sounds. Lots of metal.

Since returning from Dubai in January I have done three weekends of racing (Manchester, Edinburgh and Berlin), a lot of race-pace training and strength and speed work in the gym. I have not been resting for any of the competitions. As opposed to having time targets, the meets have provided important opportunities to set in stone routines with regards to warm up, swim downs etc. In addition, they of course provide opportunities to execute skills under pressure and fatigue; next week will be my final race, in Sheffield, just the 100m freestyle. One last race rehearsal.

As I enter the taper stage of training, mileage drops and everything thing becomes ever more race specific. The hard graft is done, it is now a question of focusing on skills, locking in paces, rates, routines and of course keeping positive! I'm enjoying the ride!

Glad to hear it Bex and a massive good luck to you from us all from SwimPath...

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Scotland's fastest ever swimmer and Commonwealth star Richie Schafers spent a fantastic 10 days in Bristol last month on a training camp with SwimPath's head coach Jez Birds and his United Bristol team.
It was an intensive stint, commencing with the annual UBSC Level 1 open meet and spanning into an eclectic mix of activities including swimming, weights, boxing, Pilates and rope climbing to name but a few!!

Richie posing with University of Bristol Women's Captain Amy Barton - both wearing Hammerhead Silver Armour

We asked Richie how he found the Hammerhead suit, still in its design stage, and he liked the fit, felt very buoyant and most importantly - really fast!

Check out his final set of the week (spot his times 2nd from the left at the bottom):

6x50 m freestyle - target: No Breathing (NB) and within 5% of PB (<23.0)

Here's how he faired:

We'll be hoping to see more of Richie at SwimPath in the future and so will be posting some snippets from the week as well as elements of his home regime (currently coached by Scotland Commonwealth Coach Chris Jones at the University of Edinburgh), including sets and sessions, the champions diet and some of Richie's thoughts and feelings about his training and plans for a spot on the Rio Olympic Team this year!

One of SwimPaths stars of the future and sponsored athlete Alysia Maestri (Bristol Henleaze and United Bristol Swimming Club) has sailed into 2016 much the same way that she finished 2015. After gaining a bronze medal at the summer championships last year and qualifying for her first senior short course nationals prior to Xmas, she has swam her way to 5 age group golds and to become treble junior champion at the recent County Championships held in Gloucester.

We caught up with Alysia in Gloucester to ask her about her current form, how she enjoys racing (particularly against some of the Counties big guns) and her plans and dreams for the rest of 2016 and beyond...

In the Christmas holidays, I went to Sheffield to swim in the winter nationals, although I didn't get a PB it was still a very good experience seeing GB swimmers swim and it felt great to be a part of such a high standard competition. Recently at the Gloucester Counties I swam in 5 races 50m, back, breast, free, fly and 100m IM. In my age group I came first in all of them! I also managed to get to the Championship finals (fastest 8 swimmers across all age groups) in 50m back  which I came 3rd; 50m freestyle (6th) and 50m Breast (5th), also getting junior champion in all of those three. Racing in the finals was such a thrilling experience racing against people like Annie brown (Swimpath's own pro swimmer and assistant coach), who also did very well (winning the 50 freestyle in a new County Record). I am looking forward to next weekend of Counties and then getting stuck in fully to the long course season and consolidating my place as a top 10 ranked swimmer by qualifying for the British Nationals this summer...

A great job done by Alysia and we can't wait to see what the rest of the season will bring!

Alysia is also one of our selected swimmers for phase 2 of the sponsorship package so look out for plenty more posts from her and her teammates as we chart their progress through this exciting Olympic season!

The new year of 2016 has arrived and the Olympic Games are coming fast. As soon as midnight arrived on New Years, the Olympics will have crossed swimmers minds all over the world.

Leading up to the Olympic trials my training group are doing a 7week training camp in Australia. Whilst it's Winter in the UK, it's sunny, hot Summer in Australia. Training through Winter in the UK increases the risks of illness and Vitamin D deficiency; this year we especially want to avoid illness as much as we can and maximise our training gains. The sun also helps keep people happy and happy swimmers are fast swimmers!

I've been in Australia at the Gold Coast for almost 2weeks now and waking up early in the morning for training is a lot easier when the sun is up.

The facilities out here in Australia are amazing. There are hundreds of Olympic sized swimming pools and the one we are training in has 12 lanes!

Swimming 10 sessions a week as well as 5 gym sessions takes up a lot of time and can be difficult to fit anything else in after quality rest time. However, it's very important to keep training fun and we still manage to fit fun activities in.

On one afternoon off training we decided to play on this inflatable.....

..... which turned out to be more of a work out than an afternoon of resting.

When training abroad it can sometimes be difficult to get the same nutrition in as you are used to at home. Out here the food is very similar to the UK and some are even better, for example, fish ....

I experimented cooking Red Snapper, which is a great protein source for recovery after training. It turned out to be very tasty, but for fish lovers only.

Double Olympian and Swimpath pro Jemma Lowe is no stranger to the sport of swimming. First joining her local club at the age of 8 she is still going strong over 15 years later!!

But when you make your first Olympics at the age of 18, your 2nd at the age of 22, what is the secret to keep you getting up for those early sessions, training twice a day and devoting your life to a sport?

Have a look at this video from our October SwimCamp where Jemma describes how she first set her sights on Olympic stardom and how she keeps the fire burning for her quest to reach the big number 3...