Thank you and Saturday

Dear Swimmers

Just a quick note to thank you all for your beautiful congratulatory email messages yesterday following the birth of little Isla Rose. I haven't had chance to reply to everyone (as there have been a huge number of lovely emails) but we have read all your messages and we are very grateful of your support.

As per last week, there still won't be any structured open water swim sessions this weekend (likely not again until the middle to end of November), though we will still be on at 1pm at the Claremont Pool for a wholly enjoyable open water skills session. There's been a great turn-out for this for the last few weeks and I'd encourage you to pop along if you can as this particular session really thrives on numbers for better facilitation and breadth of ability within the drafting exercises in particular.

Thanks and have a great end to your week. See some of you early tomorrow morning for the Friday Fresh & Fruity session.

Cheers

Paul

It's a girl!

Dear Swimmers

I'm very proud to be able to announce the birth of our new daughter "Isla Rose" today, Wednesday 19th October at 8.46am, weighing in at 7lbs9oz.

Michelle and Isla (pronounced "i-la") are both doing great and I'm the proudest and happiest Dad on the planet right now!

Isla's full name is Isla Rose Jacqueline Newsome. The "Rose" is after my grandmother and best friend who sadly past away in 2003 just after I first moved over to Perth - she would have been so proud of little Isla Rose; and "Jacqueline" is after Michelle's mother (of the same name) who is currently with us over from Canada and looking after Jackson and myself very nicely indeed (bang goes the diet!).

A quick thanks to Francene for covering my sessions for me this morning. I managed to get the 5.30am guys set off, but had to be away early on to get Mish to the hospital by 6.30am. So please don't blame Francene for the nasty little set this morning!

Despite getting several job offers to be a male nurse at the Osborne Park hospital (see photo below), I will see you all back on the pool deck on Friday morning, 5.30am sharp! ;-)

See you then!

Paul

Interesting reads...

Dear Swimmers

Hope you are all well. Bit scary with all the going's on this week down at Cottesloe hey? Really feeling for the poor guy's family right now.

I've attached links for two interesting reads for you this week as part of your Rottnest Channel swim preparation. The first is from an article written by myself on the physical preparation required for a successful channel swim (i.e. the English Channel or Rottnest) and the second is one from Shelley Taylor-Smith about the mental preparations required for such an event. Both feature in this month's edition of http://www.h2openmagazine.com/ which I can highly recommend as a great resource and fun read as an open water swimmer. I hope you find them useful.

http://www.swimsmooth.com/pauls_images/ec.pdf

http://www.swimsmooth.com/pauls_images/shelley.pdf

Cheers

Paul

Thursday 6pm Sundowner!

Dear Team

I hope you've all had a great weekend. It's been a busy two weeks on the pool deck with the eight visiting coaches, who are all returning home tomorrow. We really hope that you enjoyed having them all here and would love to hear any feedback that you may have about the experience. 

These eight coaches will now go through an additional 50 hours recording of sessions with their own squads and individual clients over the next six months as well as some further specific coaching tasks before hopefully becoming officially certified Swim Smooth coaches. Given the incredible demand we have in Europe for what we do right now, hopefully this should really help supply this and aid these coaches with the growth of their respective programs. We really feel we have eight excellent candidates here and hope that you share our enthusiasm for this.

So, today marks the start of our 20 week Rottnest Channel Swim training program. If you're starting to prepare for this event, remember, 20 weeks is still a long time, so the tip for this week is do not go at this like a bull in a china shop but to think of this as a long, steady build-up. Don't forget you can check out our suggested development at:

http://www.swimsmooth.com/perth_rottnest.html

...many people often get carried away at this stage and panic thinking that they must lay down some really long, hard sessions right away, though this approach is often met with early "burn-out", staleness and even injury. Take the next 2-3 weeks to gradually prepare your body for the demands ahead and use the adage "train to train, before training to race!"

To get you suitably pumped for the season ahead and to also celebrate the "Magnificent Seven" who battled the English Channel last month, you are invited to a 6pm Sundowner with Pizza this Thursday in Floreat, kindly hosted by Chris and Justine Murphy of lane 4 5.30am swimming fame. Full details here:

http://swimsmooth.com/pauls_images/sundowner.pdf

Please, please, please RSVP to jusmurph@iinet.net.au if you intend on coming. It's $10 per person (for some fantastic woodfired pizza) and BYO drinks. Hope you can join us! It'll be a lot of fun and your chance to ask the Channel swimmers about their experiences and pick up some valuable tips.

See you then!

Paul

2 for 1 offer on this Saturday's swim sessions!

Dear Swimmers

7.30am Saturday

Last Saturday's early morning swim session at Cottesloe Beach went very well with 19 swimmers in attendance. It was a beautiful morning and very flat. The water temperature was also good at ~18.5 degrees, especially for those in wetsuits.

This Saturday (8th October) we will run a similar session focused a little more on drafting - hope you can make it. Full details as per last week: http://swimsmoothperth.blogspot.com/2011/09/confirmations-please-for-saturday-ow.html - essentially:

• meet at 7.15am for a 7.30am prompt start on the grass bank immediately adjacent to the north side of the Indianna Tea Rooms at Cottesloe Beach
• 60 minutes
• one tick on your PAYG card or $15 casual rate
• wetsuits optional
• please reply to this email with "I'm in for this Saturday's AM swim" if you can make it so we can make provisions for the right numbers

1.00pm Saturday

Also, we're back on this week with the Saturday 1-2pm squad session at the Claremont Pool. As usual this will be a fantastically fun swim session focused on open water skills in the pool. This week we will be inviting some of the coaches training with us here to actually jump in the pool for this session to boost numbers and to allow us to really focus on some fun open water techniques. If you've never tried this one before, now's the time to try! 

I know you'll really enjoy it and hope you can make it, and to boost your interest...

Special Offer this Week Only: Attend both the 7.30am and 1pm session and pay for just one!

Cheers

Paul

Looking like an easterly, so...

...we'll be down at Cottesloe Beach in the morning, meeting at 715am for a 730am start. Hope you can make it!

Paul

Confirmations please for Saturday OW session

Dear Swimmers

Saturday Afternoon Squad Swim:

Owing to the running of the AFL Grand Final this Saturday, please note that the normal Saturday 1-2pm squad session at Claremont Pool will be CANCELLED. Numbers were low at last week's session and so we've decided to cancel this week's session with the view that they'll be lower still. Apologies for any inconvenience - I guess I should get more into the whole AFL thing myself!! Here's my opportunity, hey?!

Given that the 8 Swim Smooth Coaches are over from the UK / S.A and Czech Republic at the moment, we are really hoping to run a stellar (and popular) 1-2pm squad session next Saturday 8th October, to really showcase what this session is about. This particular session always operates well with good numbers (for drafting exercises and the like), so hopefully we'll see a few of you down here for that one.

Saturday Morning Open Water Swim:

Rather than leave you without a swim session at all though this Saturday, we will be offering the first in a 2 part series down at Cottesloe Beach in the ocean. We will meet on the grass bank in front of the pylon immediately to the north-side of the Indianna Tea Rooms at 7.15am for a 7.30am (prompt start). The ocean is a lovely 18 degrees at the moment and is very pleasant with no stingers. Many of you will wish to wear a wetsuit though unless you're a little chunky around the edges (like me!) or just fancy a really invigorating swim!!

We will be doing a small amount of beach running during the 60 minutes session and will go through some open water skills exercises like sighting, drafting and turning. It will be a huge amount of fun as always.

Cost is just one tick off your PAYG card or $15 for casuals. If you could please reply to this email with "I'm in for a beach swim" that'll help give us an idea of numbers.

Finally, in the event of inclement weather (i.e. very rough conditions) we'll move the swim from Point A (Cottesloe) to Point B (Claremont Jetty, off Jetty Road) on the map above. This is my new favourite swimming venue, but it is likely to be a touch colder. 

To be informed of this change if it occurs, please look directly at the blog at http://swimsmoothperth.blogspot.com/ and I will post a confirmation at 6.00am on Saturday morning.

Cheers and hope to see some of you then.

Paul