19/05/2015

You don't need sun to go to the beach

So it's the middle of May and you'd like to think the weather was getting at least a little better, but who are we kidding, this is Scotland! 

If you live here you know you just have to suck it up and get on with things, so the other day we put on our trainers and an extra layer of clothing before heading on my favourite walk in East Lothian at Aberlady Bay.

We parked the car right at the start of the trail and headed out across the bridge which I find rather questionable in terms of stability but that is completely irrational as there is nothing wrong with it! In fact you can see all the planks that have been replaced as the bridge has aged so it is clearly taken care of. 

Anyway once you're over the bridge you walk through a small winding forest. As you come out the other side you can see the golf course sprawling out to the right and are met by a small lake to the left. If you're really lucky you may see some otters and a variety of birds but I think they were all hiding from the cold when we were there. Anyone ever seen anything exciting here? I'm never so lucky.



A little further down the path you can take a left to the beach or go straight on over the golf course. I usually head straight to the beach but we thought we'd be different this time. We managed across the very busy golf course and I definitely think it was the right choice, the view out to the Forth was beautiful.



After admiring the view we headed a little further along the path where we had a choice to make.

























Continue to Gullane point or head back to Aberlady
























We were staring to get a little peckish so of course the only way to proceed was to continue on for a picnic on the beach.























Look we did see another person! that little black dot in the middle of the beach is another human being! I know it was a little bit chilly but its a really popular walk so you would normally expect to find at least a couple of dog walkers. By the time we'd had something to eat we had the entire beach to ourselves.

It wasn't long before my fingers got numb though and gave up fumbling about with my camera. As you can guess the walk back to the car was much quicker than the journey out, the thought of a warm coffee and some lemon tart was just too tempting.





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14/05/2015

Swimming Kit: basic aids

With my return to the pool a couple of months ago I invested in some new essentials, if you haven't seen it yet click here. After getting back into the basic rhythm of some basic training sessions you may feel it is time to step it up a gear so here are a few pieces of kit that can help you.

The first basic aid that is quite possibly one of the most useful tools you can have and you will probably use most sessions is a kick board. After getting used to the water again I really wanted to break down my strokes and improve my overall technique and one of my biggest weaknesses is my kick. Adding in a kick set to most sessions has really helped even though I usually want to cry half way through!

This is where the fins come in, also useful for working on my awful kick and helping to maintain that kick when working on other drills/technique work. I wouldn't recommend using these for an entire session as this will NOT really make you any better. I personally like to start with a fins set then try to hold the technique for the rest of the session without fins. I like to think this has been working pretty well for me so far.

The third basic aid I'd recommend is the pull buoy (not my pull buoy but I want it!). This is not something I have been using a lot lately but every now and again it is a great tool to help you focus on your arms. I would only ever use the pull buoy to work on front crawl or back crawl arms, I don't think its good for breast stroke or fly, but that's my opinion and it's what works for me.

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03/05/2015

I'm back

I have been so bad for writing posts lately and although I've not been blogging for long I was really beginning to miss it. The reason I started this blog was to keep track of the good things in life and the things that make me happy and I've been doing a terrible job!  To make up for it today I thought I'd share this drawing that one of the kids at the pool did.

I had a really busy day and when I got to the pool a sister of one of my swimmers was hanging around on poolside and to keep her distracted I got her to 'help' by writing on the white board. I left her alone for 10 mins and came back to this drawing she was doing of all the swimming coaches.



It's such a simple thing but it made my day I just thought it was so cute! Its always nice when the kids do things like this, I like to think its their way of showing their appreciation, I could be way off on that though!

Anyway I'm planning on trying to stick to a plan for some future posts on here, particularly swimming related ones as that is clearly something that brings me joy.

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