Day 119 – 20th October 2010

A mixed day swimming today. On one hand it was fantastic, on another not so good.

I did my Wednesday big pool swim today; 6.40am till 11.40am. The same as last week I did a 5 hour swim, but rather than the 414 lengths I did last week, I did a whopping 444 lengths today in the same time; so that’s 30 more lengths than last week. A total swim of 444 lengths, or 11100 metres, or 11.1 kilometres or 6.87 miles. So physically it was really good and I could have physically kept going to 6 hours without a problem.

However, today was mentally very hard indeed; the exact opposite of last week. Last week I couldn’t have physically done any more but mentally I was very strong and could have kept going. This week I was physically very strong, but mentally very tired. I did the silly thing of keep looking at the clock every 15 minutes. This made each hour go so slowly that at every hour I just wanted to stop and go to work! To say I’m annoyed with myself about this is an understatement. I know that it’s good that I still did my 5 hours despite this, but I am really beating myself up about it as mentally I should easily be able to do 6 hours and beyond. I do have a lot on at the moment and I have been a little drained with my Crones, but that is just all excuses and I’m annoyed I made it so hard on myself!

As for the swim itself, it was a quiet one at Falmer today, in fact throughout the whole 5 hours I probably only saw 10-15 people in total; the last couple of weeks I saw double that every hour. Not having Fiona there today made it a bit boring for me, but I did have the company of the super swimmer triathlete Jo for about 45 minutes; boy she can swim fast; it’s amazing to watch her glide through the water, a beautiful thing to see, she just glides at a super speed.

I’ll finish this week with morning sea swims and hopefully one gym session, but I think next week I might skip my big Wednesday swim, just for one week, get myself refreshed and start anew the week after with a better head on me!