Day 63 – 29th July 2010

Not been a fantastic week for swimming generally. I’ve been conscious of my arm and groin problems and although they are definitely on the mend, I am aware of them and not wanting to overdo them. This may of course just be an excuse I am using instead of admitting some laziness creeping in!!

This morning I decided to give it better effort and try to get some speed into my swim rather than long distance. Luckily the temperature in the sea was good and the sea was calm (well it was when I went in at 7am!). I swam twice around the Pier, beach to beach to beach. It took me exactly 21 minutes on each lap, being 42 minute3s for two full laps. This was probably my quickest ever, which was good. Funny things though – (1) The sea literally changed from very calm and stagnant to rather choppy and pushing to the West within a matter of minutes (2) Coming around the Pier on my final lap I caught sight of the big helter skelter at the end of the Pier out of the corner of my eye; it looked as though it was falling into the sea and made me jump out of my skin, who knew one could jump when swimming! My heart really missed a beat! (3) I caught the West Pier from the corner of my eye (it’s over a mile away) and it looked like a large boat coming towards me, very disconcerting (4) A seagull literally buzzed me as I was coming into shore; it looked like a cloud falling onto me. What on earth was all this about – perhaps there were magic mushrooms in my muesli this morning! All very weird!

Seeing my physio Kim at 9.30am for another painful sessions on my shoulder and groin. As I’ve got my first Dover swim on Sunday I may need to take tomorrow off; I’ll ask her.

Next week I am going to step it all up a few gears. I now have a Gym plan in place, courtesy of the lovely Wendy Tyler and that will be 3 times a week, plus my five sea swims and definitely at least 1 pool swim. I need to now start getting back to some serious training, especially after feeling I have let myself down a little since the big swim last week.