Day 148 – 16th December 2010

Had a night of number crunching for work; which meant a lot of brain drain into the wee hours plus one or two rather large JD’s on ice. A true athlete would have shrugged this off and headed straight to the beach for the daily ice bath, but being just a wannabe rather than a true athlete, I ended up skipping the ice and went for the warm pool instead! I did a 90 minute pool swim at Esporta, in what was probably 28 degree water (I think that alone was a shock to the system) and then got to work by 7.50am all warm and with nothing hurting (except muscles of course). It was good to do some pool lengths as my long distance swimming has suffered in recent weeks and I desperately need to get back to my 5 hours and beyond (I sound like Buzz Lightyear now!). Tomorrow I’m in the pool again and also at the gym being trained, so all in all it will have meant a decent weeks training at various levels. Diary permitting I am going to try a 4 hour pool swim next week and perhaps a 2 hour as well; but it will be diary permitting.

I just had a text from Bob to say that “waves” had returned this morning; waves and ice temperatures, blimey that must have hurt; maybe the pool isn’t so bad after all!!

Today at work we have our CHOCS [Children Helping Other Children Smile] meeting with some of our charities, some of our business supporters, some of our schools and some new interested parties. Darren has basically put this together and has worked so hard I am really proud of all he is achieving (hopefully that doesn’t sound patronising). CHOCS is such a big part of the Starr Trust going forward as its head of development he is putting so much time and thought into it that it is really starting to take amazing shape. I have no doubt at all that CHOCS will soon be on the lips of every school in Sussex. If you get a chance why not log onto www.starrtrust.com and visit the CHOCS page; it’s really very exciting and inspirational to see what is being developed here.