The swimming clubs of Flixton, Altrincham, Stretford, and Trafford are all based in South Manchester. The best swimmers in these clubs train together regularly once per week and do other special events, making up the FAST squad. Stretford head coach, Tom Pope, invited me down to spend the day with 34 of the 40 or so members of the FAST squad at their preseason camp.

The end of a busy week for me was the delivery of two swimming clinics in Bolton with Sivill Swim Skills on back-to-back days. Coach Kelly runs these clinics during the school holidays to get some high-quality technique work as well as some athleticism and intensity in land training.

Prescot Swimming Club, another in the North-West, and another that several teammates at COMAST have swam at previously, invited me to come and lead a morning with them as an end of season treat. They had just won the Mersyside and District Junior Swimming League for the first time in a while, so team morale was high!

Ashton Swimming Club is a small club in Manchester, but one that some of my teammates at COMAST originally came from. Chris, who coaches the COMAST Raven Moss squad, has a son who trains with Ashton too and he was kind enough to facilitate this visit for me. He also did a lot of fly-on-the-wall style filming, which will be uploaded to my YouTube channel soon!

The first (since I started writing about these club visits) external club for me to visit is Altrincham Swimming Club. Head Coach Kate invited me down to spend an hour with the youngest kids, and two hours with the more senior swimmers, all focussed on underwater fly kicking.

Another one of our squads based away from the Aquatics centre today this time with the Raven Moss squad at Moss Side Leisure Centre.

I had the pleasure today of visiting the Hough End squad. Whilst this squad does belong to City of Manchester Aquatics team they train at Hough End Leisure Centre, rather than the Manchester Aquatics Centre (which most of our other squads train at).