Tag Archives: swimming

Cotswold113 2017 Race Report

The Cotswold113 was my second middle distance event. I entered this as I have previously marshaled the full event and thus had a free race entry (anyone interested in the same, get in touch with them as they’re always on the look out for marshalls). I’d heard good reports about it and the course fitted in as a ‘mid season’ tester.

It’s a pretty flat course, which was something I was after to see what speed I had in my legs for the bike. The run is also very flat, a total of 22m elevation gained according to my Garmin! Given where my running has been recently, I was grateful for this. As regular readers will know I still have calf issues and haven’t run more than 9 miles in a single go since last year. I’ve also only run twice in the last 6 weeks after aggravating the calf problem in Portugal.

Registration was the day before which was a bit of a pain as, due to hotel costs, I wasn’t staying over. This meant I had to drive down on the Saturday, but it did give me a chance to see the course marked out and thus drive it. My main observation from this was that it’s not quite as flat as everyone makes out with a short sharp hill half way round the lap, still a total elevation of 341m isn’t that much. Secondly, the road surface was pretty shocking, lots of pot holes, loose gravel and patches of dissimilar tarmac from road repairs. Still, the lake looked lovely and calm and was 20.1 degrees and the run course despite being narrow at times looked nice and firm under foot.

Race Day

As far as ‘not ideal starts’ go, this was up there! I woke up at 3.30am, made up my nutrition, had breakfast and started loading up the car. I’ve recently started using CurraNZ and had been advised to double up on Race Day, so threw those in too! Fingers crossed the lack of muscle fatigue I had experienced in training would manifest in race mode!

Then i spot a totally flat front tyre on my bike. Bugger. I’d checked and inflated them the night before so was rather concerned. I figured the best thing to do was to reinflate, take the track pump and reassess when I got there.

The next hurdle was that the motorway was closed where I was expecting to join in. There was also a surprising amount of traffic given the time of day on a Sunday! Fortunately I wasn’t too badly affected and had left extra time. What I hadn’t planned for was the huge queue of traffic in to the car park on site. There had been 3 emails telling everyone to have the money ready, but I guess many ignored this. Still, I parked up at 5:10, a bit tight but transition didn’t close until 5:45.

First thing to check, front tyre. Gone down again. Bugger. Not knowing the issue I elected to change it however, in my haste I must’ve caught the tube in the tyre as when I went to inflate it, there was a very loud bang – which woke everyone up! Now I had a problem, I only had one tube left, which required the valve extender – the one currently doing its job quite nicely in the rear tyre. Note to self, get a spare valve extender…. I then took a calculated guess (hope!) that the problem with the first tube was a leaky valve. Valve from tube 2, into tube 1… cross fingers. By this time it was also 5:45…. a very helpful car park official offered to go and let them know at transition that I was having issues! Thank you, whoever you were! 

With everything eventually sorted I dashed for transition and got racked, leaving my drink in the car. During racking, my stomach decided to inform me of some mild issues, next port of call, the loo! I dashed out of transition just as the race started and joined a very long queue for the toilets, not ideal but I had 40 minutes until I needed to be at the waters edge.

Calm eventually ensued, I headed back to the car, to get my wetsuit on. On the way I spotted a number of people wearing the new Zone 3 Aspire Ltd Edition – jealous much!? It looks awesome…. mine felt decidedly ordinary! I’d been thinking about upgrading to the Vanquish anyway – snazzy looking or better suit, tough one!?

I drank as much High5 EnergySource as I could and threw a gel in for good measure as I clearly hadn’t taken enough on board. Then I made my way to the race start and tried to compose myself.

The Swim – 0:30:21

After a quick race briefing we were allowed in to the water 5 minutes before the start to acclimatise and warm up. Then a 1 minute count down… I had positioned myself away from the bulk of people on the left hand side, giving myself the straightest line to the first buoy. However it was still a bit of a scrum at the first turn. I had gone out hard, but not too crazy, with the intention of building to a strong finish.

Cotswold113 Swim Course
Cotswold113 Swim Course

The plan was going well and I settled in to a strong rhythm and was picking people off nicely. Sadly I was unable to find any decent feet to swim off. I was swimming parallel to one guy who was adamant I wasn’t getting past as he surged every time I tried to break clear. To make matters worse my goggles were starting to fog up. At the second buoy we turned and I found a foot in my face, knocking my goggles clean off my head. Thankfully they didn’t disappear completely but it took a moment to get them back on and then notice that the culprit was ‘already known to me’. The time cost wasn’t too bad, but from this point on the goggles situation just got worse. I had to stop twice to remove them and rinse them with water. Frustrating but I tried not to let it get to me.

Towards the middle of the swim I started to catch the slower swimmers from the wave ahead. One of whom was doing backstroke. Who does backstroke in a race!? Despite the time taken to pass people it helped with sighting and also gave me targets to pick off one by one.

In the last third I started to push harder as any concerns of breathing issues had all settled by now. I was passing people readily now, many with blue hats (my wave) who’d clearly gone out too hard. The cheers that could be heard from the crowd were an added incentive too. I saw dry land and grabbed an arm to pull me out the water. Hit lap on my Garmin and then swore. Despite it being a PB swim by over 5 minutes I was more irritated that I’d missed going sub 30 minutes by 22 seconds!

Cotswold113 2017 Swim Exit
Cotswold113 2017 Swim Exit

The Bike – 2:33:29

I was pretty pleased with my transition time given how the day had gone and the distances I had to run between swim, rack and bike start.  I threw a caffeine gel down in T1, based on advice from High5 and Lucy Gossage. The anger at missing the swim time gave me plenty of encouragement and I swore at a friend, Kerry, as I went past her! At the bike mount line I managed to kick my water bottle out of the rear cage, not ideal. Fortunately it didn’t cost me too much time to stop and collect it.

This was the first time I had raced in anger in my new Green Huub DS Long Course suit. It had a previous outing at the Halesowen Triathlon but pool sprints weren’t what it was designed for. Here’s hoping it lives up to its reputation! Dave Scott was convinced:

The bike course was a 2 lap affair and having driven it the day before was fairly flat but notably had a pretty poor road surface, with pot holes, loose gravel and uneven tarmac to contend with. There were 2 hills, one reasonably short but fairly steep and these were both about half way round the course.

Cotswold113 Bike Route
Cotswold113 Bike Route

As I set off, I passed a number of people on the other side of the road who were just coming in to start their second lap from the early waves – clearly they were quite quick!

The first part of the course was on fairly wide roads but unfortunately this also meant cars. Throughout the course I probably overtook 10 cars; I appreciate that they were waiting behind cyclists to overtake safely but they were holding me up! Where the loops started on the bike, the road surface was the worst, but thankfully this was also where the roads were narrower and thus less busy with cars.

Cotswold113 2017 Bike
Cotswold113 2017 Bike
Cotswold113 2017 Bike
Cotswold113 2017 Bike

The plan for the bike was to set off steady to let my HR drop into the target Z3. This settled down quite quickly and whilst coach had told me not to bother with power or speed I had elected to use my Garmin Edge 820 after not doing so in Staffs and paying the price! As a result, my HR came into target quite quickly and I noted that my power numbers were pretty steady and my speed was too; all good. I was averaging around 22 miles per hour which surprised me as throughout my training rides I had felt like I was struggling to maintain this sort of speed.

Cotswold113 2017 Bike
Cotswold113 2017 Bike – POWWWER!

I stuck religiously to my nutrition plan and had once again elected to be self sustained so had my BTA bottle, a large spare behind the saddle and an aero bottle just in case. All were filled with High5 EnergySource, my new favourite energy drink (it’s very light in taste and not too sickly). I also had another favourite thing, a High5 Gel Flask, filled with Raspberry EnergyGel Plus – a caffeinated gel. The flask is a thing of beauty, it fits 5 gels and is super squishy thus making it really easy to take ‘a gel’ quickly and easily without battling to open a wrapper whilst trying to remain aero. Buy one!

I stuck to my own race on the bike, I was going at around the same pace as a couple of people early on in the bike and we were all passing others readily. Thankfully there were no crazy cyclists to contend with, making it a relatively uneventful first lap! Given how flat the course was it meant very little rest from pedalling and I was almost pleased to see the hill. My average speed dropped quite markedly though but the change in cadence on the up and down gave my legs a bit of a break. One of our trio dropped like a stone on the hill and was never seen again.

Cotswold113 2017 Bike
Cotswold113 2017 Bike

Making my way to the turnaround was good, although I got stopped at a junction by the police only to be nearly knocked off my bike by a guy who went sailing past me and the office, barely acknowledging what he had done! At the start of the second lap I took a moment to mentally assess how things were going; really good. All the numbers still stacked up, my legs felt good and I was familiar with the course now. I was really pleased with the High5 nutrition too. I’ve tried a few drinks/gels over the years but these are so light in taste and texture it was great! The Gel Flask was making taking the gels so much easier too. I said it before, but I’ll say it again – buy one!!

I got passed by a couple of serious folks on Lap 2, pointy helmets, seriously aero, disc wheels… that sort of thing. Serious bike envy as a guy went by me like I was stationary on a Scott Plasma 5 with Lightweight wheels and disc on…. that was the last I saw of him! Overall though I think i was passed by around 6 people in total which pleased me greatly. During Lap 2 I noticed that my HR was starting to drop into high Z2 rather than Z3. The power and speed numbers were steady though. Slightly ignoring coach’s advice I decided to go with it and not push harder. I felt good but didn’t want to risk killing my legs for the run. Maybe those #magicberries were doing their thing!?

Cotswold113 2017 Bike
Cotswold113 2017 Bike
Cotswold113 2017 Bike
Cotswold113 2017 Bike

At the dismount line I did a double take. The course was a little short, just under 55 miles, but to have taken 22 minutes off my last time surprised me! Yes it was a lot flatter and very much less rainy, but that’s not necessarily easier…

The Run – 1:39:39

T2 was fairly speedy, a short run back to park my bike, another gel down me, running shoes on and on our way! The run course was also very flat, but was on mixed terrain, from grass, to sand, to gravel and finally tarmac. The most frustrating part was that it was very narrow in places, meaning that passing was nigh on impossible unless you fancied some stinging nettles!

Cotswold113 2017 Run
Cotswold113 2017 Run
Cotswold113 2017 Run
Cotswold113 2017 Run

In some ways this was a positive as it encouraged you to push before you got to a narrow part if you needed to pass someone. This was another multi lap course which followed around the lake that we’d swum in and then did a loop out on to cross the bike course (not a good idea!) before heading through a small country park and then a housing estate then back to the transition area again.

Cotswold113 Run Route
Cotswold113 Run Route

The run was the area I was most concerned by, as I’ve already mentioned I hadn’t run more than 8 miles so was concerned where I would be. I was mentally focussed on the time in my head, I already knew my aggregate time and was aware that I needed to do a sub 1:52 for the half marathon in order to hit my target time. 8 min miles was the target. As it was, I started out steadily and was averaging 7:30min/mile for the first 6-7 miles, I was running ok but a tightness in my back and hip that I had felt in training during the week was omnipresent. I was able to run through the discomfort but never truly hit a rhythm. I was passing people and being passed but I was making good progress.  I couldn’t get my HR where I wanted it to be but just went as well as I could.

Cotswold113 2017 Run
Cotswold113 2017 Run
Cotswold113 2017 Run
Cotswold113 2017 Run
Cotswold113 2017 Run
Cotswold113 2017 Run

About miles 9 things started to get tough and my run splits started to slow. Seeing an 8 at the beginning of a mile split wasn’t good. However, there was an awesome support crew 1 mile after the start who had been cheering emphatically every time I had passed, this gave me something to aim for!

Cotswold113 - BRAT Support Crew
Cotswold113 – BRAT Support Crew

Once I was passed them, it was sheer determination that was going to get me home. I pushed through the pain, and whilst it didn’t look pretty we were still moving and the pace picked up again. With a mile to go, I gave whatever I felt I had left in my legs, it wasn’t much but I was determined to give as much as I could. Crossing the line I was elated. Not only had I set a new PB for the Half Marathon by 9 minutes, I had gone and smashed my target time by a full 12!

Cotswold113 2017 Run
Cotswold113 2017 Run

The Result – 4:48:44

I’ll take that! The aim I set myself at the start of the season, before any injuries, was a sub 5. Given everything that has happened I am over the moon. Not only did I achieve my goal, I took a full 40 minutes off my PB. Admittedly my PB is from my one prior race at Ironman 70.3 Staffordshire and that was different in every way, but it’s still a massive achievement that I’m really happy with. Equally, I set a new PB in every discipline by at least 5 minutes!

Cotswold113 2017 Finish
Cotswold113 2017 Finish
Cotswold113 2017 Finish
Cotswold113 2017 Finish

When you embark on a journey with a coach you don’t know if it will work out. I’d had question marks in my mind about where my cycling was at. I knew my running was off too. This result solidifies it for me. It’s hard work, but it’s absolutely the right thing! Thanks Steve, I genuinely couldn’t have done it without you… here’s to the next goal!

As for the race, I highly recommend it. The bike course is a bit tricky in places but the event is brilliant fun. The marshals are friendly. It’s really well organised! I’d add it to a list of recommended races to do, if I had one!

Cotswold113 Result
Cotswold113 Result

A swimming improver – 400m Swim PB!

As per my post of a few months back I’m now firmly putting myself in the category of a swimming improver. As I noted in the last post, I’ve been working hard on various drills throughout my training and have definitely been getting quicker over the months. My coaches would say that a lot of this is down to brute strength as my stroke has been labelled ‘horrible’ and much worse! I still have major leg sinking problems, very rigid ankles and cross my arms. I’ve been concentrating on trying to lengthen my stroke and keep my arms wide. I’ve also having some tailored advice as to specific drills to work on.

To help with the leg sinking I’ve purchased a Finis Axis Buoy as it can lock my ankles and keep them afloat. Next up are some Finis Freestyler Paddles as if your stroke is wrong on entry, they fall off! Finally a Finis Tempo Trainer Pro to help with my pacing. After that it’s down to me and thinking about my stroke!

I’ve decided to add an additional session in to my current hectic schedule. Thursdays were a rest day, but now they will have an easy swim technique session coupled with some strength and conditioning. I desperately need to work on core strength following the hernia and have never fitted it in.

Anyway, to the exciting part. Monday nights swim session involved a 400m Time Trial. The last time I swam one was in the Halesowen Triathlon. I’ve gone from a PB of 9:08 to a slightly more respectable 6:41. I’m fully aware this isn’t breathtaking but I’m really pleased with the progress. Next psychological barrier is to break 1:30 for a 100m… The journey continues!

Starting to feel like I can swim…

The Swim in Triathlon

When starting out as a triathlete I wouldn’t say I was particularly skilled in any discipline. Yes, I’d consider myself a good runner, but definitely lacking a lot of fitness and technique after all these years. My cycling was very limited in that I’d been riding a mountain bike for a couple of years but that was it. My swimming was definitely my weakest link, like most I’d learnt to swim when I was young and was perfectly capable, but my time was mostly spent paddling around on holidays and never in any sort of competitive environment.

As any triathlete will know the importance of the swim discipline varies greatly depending on the race distance. Arguably it is at its most significant in the Olympic distance (1500m swim, 40k bike, 10k run) as it becomes more of an endurance element. Technically as the distances are exactly half in the Sprint distance it should carry equal weighting but I don’t see it as so as 750m swimming is more of a well, sprint. In the ‘Ironman’ distances the swim is even more skewed, at Ironman 70.3 Staffordshire next year I have to swim 1900m, bike 90k and run 21k so as you can see most disciplines are double again over an Olympic apart from the swim which is ‘just’ another 400m.

Some History

A little over 12 months ago having just being diagnosed with a hernia, I rocked up at ‘The Pingles’ to meet many new friends at Nuneaton Triathlon Club. The lovely Vanessa took me, like so many before me, under her wing and guided me coughing and spluttering to the other end of the pool. Over the coming weeks I persevered and over time was able to string a few lengths together without stopping for a break, it even at times loosely resembled front crawl!! I starting watching various pro events on TV and as I always do was intrigued to see the speed/times they were swimming. Even now the 1:10 per 100m that the pros do in ITU events seems way out of my abilities and to be fair the fact that in Ironman races they’re doing under 1:30 per 100m for the 3800m is probably also beyond my capabilities 😀.

I didn’t spend much time in open water over the summer but went at least once a week. My biggest issue there is a psychological one, I need to get over my initial fear with the water as it often affected my breathing. Thankfully things were improving as the season ended so fingers crossed we start from where we left off next year!

I now feel like I can swim though… In my first race I swam 9:04 for the 400m pool swim, which is the sort of pace I now do as a warm up at a club session over the same distance or longer. I am now part of the BRAT Club and have a coached session on a Monday evening and through numerous drills, that hurt a lot at the time, I’m really starting to see improvements. As with most things, technique is key and understanding how all of the elements link together has been key. From the angle of arm entry, to the ‘catch’, the position of your ams as they pull through the water, the head position, the roll of the hips, the angle of the leg kick… it’s a lot tot take in when each stroke is over in about 5 seconds! As well as the coached sessions I spend a lot of time doing my own sessions from Sara McLarty’s excellent blog and also watching a lot of videos, particularly the Speedo ones:

At the moment my weakest link is definitely my kick, I’m persevering with the drills using fins, but my word do they hurt! I may be unique in that I am far slower when using fins – I can happily lead the lane doing everything else but drop to the back when we put the fins on – maybe having Size 11 feet and thus huge fins isn’t ideal!?

It’s clearly all working though as on Monday I was overjoyed to set ‘a new PB’ for 100m of 1:37… And that was near the end of a 2k set with lots of leg kicking drills! It may be the shortest discipline of the event and theoretically the least significant for me, but i’m enjoying seeing the improvements.

I’ve signed up for my first triathlon!

First Triathlon

Great news, I’ve signed up for my first triathlon, the Halesowen Triathlon. It’s a Sprint Distance but most significantly for me has an indoor 400m swim in a local pool. I’ve no experience of open water swimming yet so see this as a good first event. I’m also considering signing up for the BRAT Standard later on the year as I’ve heard very good things about it.

New Year’s Resolutions…

Not really, I’ve just done the stereotypical thing and joined a gym with the good lady. Unlike many others I fully intend to go regularly and have done so thus far. Sadly where we used to live we had a great public gym, whereas where we are now we’re limited so we’ve ‘ended up’ at David Lloyd. The facilities are fantastic and most impressively the pool has been practically empty whenever I’ve gone, despite the new year rush! I had my initial meeting with a personal trainer and was again very impressed, after 40 minutes discussing what I want to achieve, my drive, my aims etc he is devising a strength and conditioning program to compliment the triathlon program I am already following. Incidentally the program I am following is the Beginners one recently published in 220 Triathlon. At first glance I thought it looked simple, 5 days in I’m definitely feeling it!!

Garmin Forerunner 920xt

I’ve been playing with my shiny new Garmin Forerunner 920xt which was a Christmas present to myself. I’ve done one of everything now, from a running and cycling point of view its remarkably similar to the Forerunner 620 I used to own. Today I got to try out the swim section which was the main reason I upgraded in the first place. Today’s session called for a 30 minute warm up (How fit do they think I am!!!??) followed by a nice pyramid of 25-50-75-100-75-50-25 with a 30 second rest between each set. I started to struggle with form as I got more tired but remained fairly consistent with the pacing, the watch was very useful to review post event but I didn’t feel confident to monitor it during the swim. I’ve certainly improved my swim since I started in September but I’m far from a ‘Master’ yet.

Nutrition

I’ve been researching nutrition extensively as I am conscious that it’s something i neglected in my running training. I’ve been a fan of Maxi Nutrition so figured i’d give that a go and hey, if it’s good enough for the Brownlee’s…. So far, i’m a fan of the Viper Boost Energy Bars, but the Recovermax tastes pretty awful. I’ve never been a fan of Orange flavoured drinks anyway but i find it really hard to get down, if it works though maybe we’ll stick with it. I may find myself mixing some SIS in there as the Rego Recovery gets good press and comes in much nicer flavours!

Early start… Training and then The Cycle Show

A lovely and early start today, just heading out the door for a training session at the local pool with my club. The early start was so I could try eating before the swim based on my hardly surprising earlier discovery that energy in, helps with energy out!

After that I’m off to The Cycle Show. Not sure if it’s quite the UK equivalent of Interbike but we shall see. Plenty of shiny new things to see and maybe I’ll see what Garmin have to say about the Forerunner 920xt….. Must remember to leave my wallet behind!

If it’s worth it and I get enough pictures and information I’ll stick up a post about the bike show later too…

Tuesday night session

Thankfully the pool was much quieter today, I think arriving a little later – 7.15pm probably contributed to this. There were was me and 4 others in a double width lane and all bar one were capable swimmers (I seem to count myself in that category…)

I felt much better also, which I think I’ll put down to eating about an hour before. I don’t usually worry about nutrition in swim training sessions at the moment as I’m not exactly pushing myself, however based on this session even just a flapjack seemed to make a big difference. I felt able to keep going and at no point did I feel exhausted. I’m still doing my own thing with my training but focussing on technique and increasing my continuous distance. This session was sets of 100m with a break (length of my choosing) between each set and I did a total of 8 sets.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was trying the Get Speedo Fit campaign, however it became apparent that even the warm up would be a challenge for me at this stage, as such when I feel I can complete that, I’ll start on the campaign.

In other news I got chatting to another guy who was beating himself to death by doing breaststroke with hand paddles – it looked hard work! He like me is more of a mountain biker and not convinced about his abilities at front crawl, he may come along to the triathlon club on Saturday!

Two more swim sessions…

Thursday nights session was a bit of a damp squib, cut short due to massive congestion at the pool. Despite the pool having a reasonable good system for lane usage, unfortunately the ‘slow’ lane is usually taken up by kids playing, meaning anyone who actually wants to swim ends up in the ‘medium’ lane and thus it gets too crowded after a while. I felt ok, not brilliant, but ok, the Speedo Pull Kick is definitely helping me float better enabling me to swim more naturally. Here’s hoping that the hernia op and knee fixing take place soon.

Saturday’s session was back with the club, so a bright and early 7.30am start. A fairly gentle 4 x 25 front crawl and 2 x 25 backstroke for a warm up, followed by a full 400m without stopping (I didn’t make this, but did managed 6 x 25m without a break, which is big progress from my first session a month ago), once finished it was on to leg drills with 4 x 25m using a kick board. This hurt in my current physical condition!

First Speedo Session…. Or not

Sadly Amazon failed once more to deliver goods on a date promised, so no finger paddles for me 🙁

As a result of the no show, I opted to create my own training plan using what I had already got and what I felt like doing. The kick buoy proved its worth as I used it for both kicking workouts and as a pull buoy, progress was glacial as a kick board as my kick technique is awful and needs work, but at least I had the opportunity to practice my breathing. Things were much more positive when used as a pull buoy; as I’ve alluded to before a major issue at the moment is my bottom half sinking in the water which exacerbates my other problems, I’m pretty sure this is in part due to the hernia. With the pull buoy in place I was comfortably able to swim 500m with only short breaks whilst waiting for a spot to clear in the rather crowded pool. All in all massive progress – I await to see what benefits the finger paddles bring…. If amazon ever deliver them!!

End result; my longest swim to date and by some margin the most comfortable.

New Goodies!

As part of my campaign to improve my swimming I have signed up to the Speedo ‘Get Speedo Fit‘ campaign. This basically gives me some sort of training plan to work on, it also gave me the excuse to my some new goodies, which arrived today!

Speedo Biofuse Fin Training Fin
Speedo Men’s Elite Pullkick

I have some Speedo Biofuse Finger Paddles  on order too but they haven’t arrived yet 🙁

Tomorrow is my next swim session so I’ll be sure to try them out and see what they actually do!

IMG_0469.JPG

Swimming ‘improver’

Another session on Saturday morning, mornings not exactly been something i’ve always been a fan of, but still 7.15am at the pool. Currently I train twice a week on my own and have one ‘club’ session, this helps me improve my currently very basic ability but also means i get pushed and learn a little about improving to actually compete.

As someone who swam a long time ago, when i started out the thought of being able to do 2 sets of 4x50m did not compute but despite feeling a bit sick and still struggling with my form I was pretty chuffed to actually succeed with the day.

My current biggest issue is most likely caused by the hernia as i find my form difficult to hold and consequently my legs sink in the water, as i get tired (happening quite quickly at the moment!) I also start to lose my breathing pattern and start to take on water – combine these issues and things go wrong quite quickly!

I have decided to follow another training plan on my own, following an email from Speedo, I will be attempting over the next month their ‘starter programme‘. This has meant buying some rather techie looking equipment: Speedo Biofuse Finger PaddlesSpeedo Biofuse Fin Training Fin and i followed the suggestion from the training plan and knowing that I need to work on my legs and may need a float, i decided to save money and bag space and get a Speedo Men’s Elite Pullkick. Hopefully i don’t look like too much of an idiot when i rock up with this and nearly drown not long after!