Day 149 – 17th December 2010

All four today; sea, gym, pool & unpopular!

Sea – Got to the Arches at 7am and as usual it was empty, however, within 10 minutes the boys and girls were there. The air temp was a chilling -3 and the pebbles had completly frozen. Even the pebbles that are on the slope leading down to the sea were completely frozen solid. Even David, our old man of the sea, said he had not seen that before. The sea itself was bloomin cold, probably circa 4.5 degrees and there were waves; chilling indeed. It also didn’t help that a sloppy shave left me with a huge cut under my chin that the salt water really took a liking to! Bob and I swam to the end of the groin, but for some reason I found myself heading out rather than along and very quickly was a few hundred metres out amonst the waves. Usually this would be normal and in fact not even a second thought, however I was freezing and it made my heart skip a beat to see how far out I had gone. I did get a little panicked as I knew I could only be out for so long before I simply couldn’t move enough to swim in, so with head down and bracing myself I swam as hard as I could to shore. As it turns out it only took a minute or so to get back in, so it was clearly not a problem, but once again it shows you that you just have to be so careful as it really can be dangerous. Coming out and heading back to the Arches, which was only around 8 minutes after I had gone in I was very happy to be drying myself off and wearing my superman wooly hat; superman however, I clearly am not! I guess every now and again a bit of the old fear is not a terrible thing as it does ground you and make you recognise the safety factor of this sport and the importance of making sure you are not being overly gungho. One thing to mention today was the sky; it was incredibly clear. There were loads of clouds about, but they all seemed to be on the horizon rather than in the sky; it really looked like huge mountaing range at the end of the sea; really amazing.


Gym – 1.30pm I had an hour with Ross at the Gym. Once again he pushed me on lower body and core work. This element of training is completely new to me so it is rather painful afterwards. Hopefully after a few sessions it’ll stop hurting and we can get down to increasing the reps and the weights. Maybe one day soon I will even have nicely formed legs rather than twiglets holding me up.


Pool – After my hour with Ross I did an hour in the pool. Just slow lengths back and forth, forth and back etc etc etc. The pool was very quiet, just one lady in the slow lane and me in the fast lane so it was rather relaxing and easy. Next week I’ll ramp up the hours, but it was nice after a hard gym session to unwind with an hour in a warm pool.


Unpopular – I must be unpopular at the Arches, even though I thought everyone loved me! Hey ho!! I just heard that they have the BSC Christmas Meal tonight in Brighton; both the Sea and the Pool swimmers. Considering its 4pm and I only found out because Gillian asked what time I was going, I guess my good sense of humour and striking good looks were just too much for people to have around the table!!