Day 249 - Thursday 12th May 2011

Birthday over, media gone and back to just yet another 6.30am sea.

Back into my wetsuit I headed off on my own to the Marina and swam there in 1.20 minutes against a very strong tide. The swim back to the pier took only about 25 minutes and I headed around the pier and back to the beach – total swimming time about 1 hour 45 minutes I guess.

Not much more to say on that apart from it was a decent swim to start the day and I was pleased that in the wetsuit I could do that time without feeling the slightest bit cold – shows that I should have invested in this a while ago. The only thing I didn’t realise was that in a wetsuit one really must apply the Vaseline quite liberally around the neck; swimming for over an hour has left me with rather uncomfortable burns on my neck. Oh well you have to learn somehow.

Tomorrow I’ll do a West Pier Swim if the tides allow and then I plan another Marina swim Saturday.

Food – all I will say on that subject is that if I don’t put on a stone in weight in the next 8 weeks I may not be allowed to do the swim. A massive statement at the end of a simple blog, but I don’t want to give it any more power than that! I will start upping my eating and will put on that stone whatever happens – no way after all that training that I will let a lack of a few donuts stop me!!