My Loughborough Experience - By Brie ParkinAfter swimming in the "The Derbyshire's" over 3 weekends in March 2004, I was one of the lucky people picked to do some training with professional swimming coach Mark Rose at Loughborough University. There were two training days: one in July and one in October. The first time, I went with Sam and Ruby. Steph and Alan came to watch. We started with land training in the big gym area. After a series of muscle warm ups, we did exercises such as star jumps, jogging on the spot and press-ups, holding our positions for 30 seconds. None of the exercises needed any equipment and could, therefore easily be done at home. After the land work (approx 90 minutes) we walked to the swimming pool. This is a spectacular new 50 m pool. Here, we were split into age groups. We practised all the strokes concentrating on keeping streamlined and reducing the number of strokes per length. We did a lot of work using kickboards to strengthen our legs. The second visit was a bit scarier for me because this time Sam and Ruby didn't go (it clashed with the club B & C grade open meet). So I went on my own. However, when I got there, I recognised Grace Randles, a swimmer of my age from Matlock Club. So we paired up to do the days exercises. The format of the second day was much the same as the first, but we had to try and improve on our times. Although scary, I thoroughly enjoyed going to Loughborough. It was a great experience to train firstly in the gym and then in the Olympic-sized pool! It also made me realise how many good swimmers there are out there and just how hard I've got to work even just to keep up!
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