LBSC’s Swim Week – Eyemouth 2011
Leighton Buzzard Swimming Club members went up to Eyemouth in the Scottish Borders during half term for the annual ‘Swim Week’. This is run by Total Aquatics coaches Luke and Laurie Dormer and their team. As usual, Eyemouth made the Leighton Buzzard swimmers very welcome with acquaintances being renewed with local swimmers and regulars from clubs in Scunthorpe, Cumbria and Eston.
This year around 50 members from LBSC travelled to the swim camp with ages of swimmers ranging from 4 years to middle aged! With sessions provided to suit all ability categories, the youngest joined the ‘Learn to Swim’ group and the best the National / Regional / Counties (NRC) or Youth Groups. Apart from the daily swimming, the week was packed full of action for everyone with tough land training sessions being run by LBSC’s own Land Training Coach Rachel Blades, Zumba sessions, boxercise sessions, talks on nutrition and exercises to build strength, a talk by a Team GB Olympic swimmer, a Biathlon (run / swim), body boarding, ‘Aqualand’ and social events such as the music quiz, a film night and a Chinese meal!
The Zumba sessions were run as a part of the land training programme and were a new experience for most participants. The relevance became apparent though with swimmers discovering that they were exercising many muscles used for swimming. Boxercise was also run as an additional land training session by one of the Leisure Centre staff.
Leighton Buzzard Swimming Club members did particularly well in the Eyemouth Biathlon with three first places, two seconds and four third places. First places were won by sisters Rebecca and Katy Casterton (Youth A and Youth C girls categories) and by ‘The Grice Family’ team entry (Chris, Karin and Lauren) – the winners getting coveted ‘2011 Winners T shirts’ and the team winners glass trophies. Second places went to Tom Boozer (Youth C) and Lucy Gregory (Youth A) and third places to Michael Judd (Youth C), his father Steve Judd (Masters Men), Alison Morris (Masters Women) and Jessica Payne (Youth C girls). All 2nd and 3rd places received a commerative mug and all participants were given a certificate for completing the event.
Body Boarding has become a tradition of the Swim Week for LBSC and this year was no exception with most donning wet suits on the Thursday for an hour in the North Sea surf at Coldingham Bay, with equipment being provided by the St Vedas Surf Centre located next to the beach.
On the last day Henry Gray, the Leisure Centre Manager and renowned athlete trainer ran his ‘Aqualand’ training session for the swimmers. This is a gruelling course that involves exercises normally associated with dry land being performed in the pool. Although it is hard, the LBSC swimmers look forward to this event each year! Henry also arranged for former Team GB Olympic swimmer and 9 times British National Champion Euan Dale to come to the pool and give swimmers a talk and training tips. Euan swam against the legend Ian Thorpe in the 400IM in the Beijing Olympics. In the Commenwealth Games he won Silver Medals in the 400m Individual Medley and the 4 x 200m Freestyle Relay Team. Euan also won a European Championships silver medal in the 4 x 200m Freestyle Relay.
A gala was run on the last afternoon to see how swimmers had improved during the week and several achieved new personal best times whilst taking part.
The Friday evening was ‘Party Time’ with all participants and coaches joining together in the Dolphin Hotel for karaoke and some dancing. LBSC members proved themselves to be great singers and were often seen with the microphone in their hand during the evening. The nearness to Halloween prompted the theme with many arriving in rather scary costumes!
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