Sixteen records broken, 3 swimmers in finals, 2 relay teams in finals, Durham finishing 26th overall and 17 Bucs points achieved, an impressive effort by DUSC! Friday evening kicked off with brave, one speed Vikki Frith battling the 800m and 1500m freestyle one after each other and still managing to set a new 1500m record of 20:36.27. Another record to come crashing down was the men’s 50m freestyle relay as Brucie, Bigfoot, Drago and Benson bashed out a time of 1:35.19, over 2 seconds quicker than last year’s record. Next it was the girls turn to step up, with Vicky Bradshaw’s pre-race erratic behaviour and excessive psyching up; the female’s 50m freestyle relay record was broken in a time of 1:56.50. The men’s freestyle relay team came 9th in the A final, VERY impressive. Once back to the hotel the team was expecting to stuff our faces with food, and grab as much sleep as possible. However, in true DUSC fashion this was not the case for the lads. Friday the 13th, 13 lads, 45 minutes in a VERY tight space and many sweaty and intimate moments amongst same sex members. Good effort. Five records were broken Saturday morning starting with Annie Knapman swimming 31.04 for 50m Backstroke and Tom Bill’s 50m Backstroke in a time of 27.53. Next was Brucie’s 50m Breaststroke, closely followed by both male and female 100m Butterfly, where Captain James Benson broke his own week old record pulling out a time of 56.86. However, one of the most epic races was Henry Sage’s ballsy 100m Butterfly in which he went out in a 28.31 then hit the wall harder than most have EVER. This crazy phenomenon can now only be known as ‘doing a sage’. Truely epic. After Cramming in the carbs and many Jaffa cakes the afternoon session began with Mentlak doing a completely mental 200 Backstroke, swimming about 20 seconds faster than his entry time! Bigfoot then powered his way through 50m Freestyle in an extremely close race, setting a record of 24.46. One of the standout performances of the weekend was Sarah Hutton’s gutsy birthday 400m Individual Medley in a record time of 6:18.11 followed by a good helping of well deserved birthday cake. The lad’s medley relay team really gave it their all in an epic race setting another new record of 1:48.43. Annie Knapman then did an amazing swim coming 9th in the Women’s 50m Backstroke. Another final made was the men’s 50m Backstroke in which Tom Bill came 8th. Saturday evening finished on a high, singing happy birthday to Sarah Hutton in ASK with a team full of enthusiastic ‘Where’s Wallys’. Perfect. An exhausted but high spirited DUSC were first on poolside doing the usual ‘get dynamic’ warm-up getting ready for the final swims and castle bar! Iceman Brucie performed some top quality swims dominating 100m Breaststroke and 200m Individual medley, setting new records in both. More records were broken in both the male and female 50m Butterfly, and again in the 100m Backstroke. To finish off an amazing final session Benson came 10th in an impressive 200m Butterfly, closely followed by the Men’s Individual Medley team who came 2nd in the B final. The final race of the day was a ‘Jaff off’ on the coach between Henry and Mentlak, many jaffas were rammed and crammed at speed, but there could only be one winner. Mental, what a lad! So, in conclusion; 17 new records, even more personal bests, a really fun weekend and an outstanding effort and performance from every member of the team. Seal of Approval.

The first session will take place on Wednesday 14th October, as the Maiden Castle gym is currently closed for renovation following the floods. One bonus is that the wall between the weights room and the small gym has apparently been knocked down, so we should have both to ourselves during sessions, giving us more room, and hopefully there will be some new equipment too. The main development this year is that all Weights sessions are going to be professionally run by Team Durham coaches, rather than myself. This was arranged in a meeting I had with Darran Fowler, one of the top Team Durham Strength and Conditioning coaches, and Benson, last week. We have decided that he is going to run the wednesday sessions and there will be two junior coaches running the saturday sessions. You don't need me to tell you that this is going to be a huge benefit to the programme and the club as a whole. Land training was not taken seriously enough last year by many individuals, or appreciated as a key factor in the swimming training programme. This leads to it becoming a limiting factor in swimming performance. Judging by how hard most of you work in swimming training, you clearly want to perform in competitions and represent Durham at BUCS, but this won't happen if you neglect a whole area of training. Therefore I am urging you to not only attend land training session, but to take an interest and think for yourselves about what you want from the sessions and how to get the maximum benefit from them. And then work your arse off. The benefit of having proper coaches taking the sessions is that training can become much more focused of the individual's needs. Although you won't necessarily all receive personalised programmes, you won't be asked to do anything that isn't suitable, and will progress at a pace which you are comfortable with. Darran has said that injury prevention will be a high priority in the sessions, so we will spend plenty of time warming up and cooling down, using stretch cords, flexibility work and learning correct techniques before progressing. Also included into the sessions will be core stability work, plometrics, explosive power work, stroke specific strength and power exercises, med ball and swiss ball usage, and endurance work. So although i'll refer to it as a 'Weights' session, it certainly isnt just that. Another thing I have been considering for a while is incorporating some cross-training into the programme, in the form of a weekly boxercise session on a monday evening. As this will be for general fitness, rather than swimming-specific fitness, I am only considering organisin this for at most the duration of Michaelmas term, or possibly only for the first 4 weeks of the season, as it is not recommended to engage in this type if training close to major competitions.

Last year we saw a great deal of success and progression, with 17 finals at the British University Championships and countless University records across the board. This lead to the team achieving overall positions of 13th place in the BUCS long course championships and 22nd in the short course championships. This year we have to build on the work we put in last year, and should be aiming to better these achievements and ensure DUSC is heading in the right direction.
I’m also delighted to announce local elite coach Paul Hogg, from Sunderland, as a new coaching supervisor, delivering sessions on a weekly basis - a first for the club. Last year we saw how positive the effects of having professionally written sets are, and now we will have a greater level of coaching in our training to help us achieve our lofty aspirations over the coming season. At the end of last year we managed to have a few sessions with Paul and his experience and knowledge, coupled with his enthusiasm and humour looks set to make our sessions next year more effective and enjoyable.
Anybody coming to Durham who is interested in competitive swimming and have some questions, feel free to contact me at james.benson@dur.ac.uk. The club is proud of its image as a hard-working and successful, yet also highly sociable and enjoyable team, where everyone enjoys a good relationship amongst one another and are keen to welcome new members with similar warmth and enthusiasm."