Day 122 – 27th October 2010

Wednesday today, therefore my pool day. Of course I was going to skip the pool today, but after my telling off from Fiona (see last two days blogs!) I clearly had no choice but to just do it!

Last night I had one of my no sleep at all nights; I basically lay there from 11pm until 5.45am simply planning how I was not going to go to the pool; then at 6am I was up, dressed and heading for the car. Considering I was really not wanting to go, I was pleased with myself that ultimately I did go and I did complete the swim.

As it is half term the pool was much busier than last week. The early slot was still relatively quiet, from 6.30 until 9.30, but after that it picked up and at one point my lane was so busy I found myself having to walk for a bit; which forced me into the fast lane with Fiona and speedy Triathlete Jo. It was great having Fiona back in the pool with me and she did around 4 hrs, which was fantastic. Also I have a few pool friends now and most were there on and off. My aim was 5 hours again, however, due to circumstances I climbed out after 4hrs 45mins! I shall explain!!! Basically my lane, the middle lane, ended up being very crowed with breast strokers (that’s a swimming term by the way!) and after finding myself being held back for about 3 lengths I decided I hate to get into the fast lane. Soon after that Fiona and Jo left, but I was joined by a lady (although I am being generous calling her that) and a man in their later years. The lady (still hurts to call her that) swam like she probably drives; basically right across the middle of the lane. If that wasn’t bad enough, as soon as she got level with me she stuck her hand right in my face to stop me, basically slapping me in the face, and then giving me a look to say that I was crossing over the middle! In fact I was so far to the left my arm was scratching the wall just to avoid her and yet she still managed to swim into me! Swimming passed her twice more it took all my restrain not to wack her back and tell her to stay in her half; but I thought old lady bashing may not be appropriate. Now the man; very good at staying in his half of the lane, but slower than a very slow thing on a slow day in slowsville. He was doing a kind of half breast stroke, half doggy paddle half walk kind of thing! Usually I would have spoken to the life guard and asked them to move both of these people to the appropriate lane as they should not have been in the training lanes, but it was already 11.20am and I had been swimming almost 5 hours and I just thought it was time for me to move on! I should point out I am in now way casting dispersions on elderly swimmers, in fact I probably saw about a dozen swimmers in their 70’s today who were incredibly fast and quite beautiful to watch, but boy oh boy another 10 minutes with those two and I may have been locked up by the gendarme!!

Having completed almost 5 hours I was pleased that I went, very much getting my mind back to where it should be. My shoulders were very tired though, actually they were tired after about 2 hours, so tomorrow I shall join Bob and the Arches team on the beach at 7am for a very very cold dip in what is likely to be a wavy fun thrilled dip. That should sort out any aches I’ve got.