Day 252 - Monday 16th May 2011

A very mixed swim today; enjoyable, frightening and good exercise;

a) Enjoyable – Was at the Arch by 6.20am and on my own; clearly I’m reverting back to my introvert days when I enjoy being on my own. This is in no way a reflection on those I swim with regularly, it is just somehow good for me mentally to swim on my own for at least half of the week. The sea was certainly bumpy today, in fact I think bumpy is an understatement. The temperature was 11.5 degrees exactly and I swam for 45 minutes (skin only), the air temp around 12 degrees and windy. The wind was pulling to the West as was the tide, so it was a battle not to be blown into the pier or to the other beach. When I first walked in I was very much at peace in my mind so even though the sea was rough I was very calm. I swam out and around the two buoys, then headed for the pier......

b) ...... and now the Frightening bit. It wasn’t so very terrible, it was just a mind issue. I got to the helter skelter near the end of the pier and found myself swimming on the spot for a good 5 minutes; this doesn’t sound like a long time but in a rough sea so far out on your own every minute of not moving feels like 20 minutes. The waves and tide were so strong that they were trying to keep me back and it had the effect of swimming in an endless pool; basically on the spot. My mind then decided to tell me that I was in a rip tide, which is basically something that holds you still or pushed you out; very hard to get out of. It was a nonsense of course as I know for a fact that there is no rip at that point, but when you’re out there alone your mind does try to take control and throw negatives at you. It took quite a lot of resolve to stop swimming, float for a minute to take control of my mind and then continue my swim further out around the pier.......

c) ..... which of course I did; I had to go around or back and in truth around was safer as it was with the tide. Battling around the head of the pier against the waves and trying to avoid being pushed into the pier struts was a fantastic physical adventure; great exercise for the morning. When I got around the head and headed back down the pier the tide really did speed you up; however it also was doing a fine job of dragging you to the West rather than back to the East. It took a strong swim to get back to the pier and under it to my beach and then a stronger effort to land on the beach without hitting the groin by pier.

A good swimming start to the week; hopefully the rest of the week will be as challenging as I could do with a decent weeks swim in terms of mental ability and strong currents, however, at least 2 days of calmness would also be useful as I want to add a couple of marina swims in if I can; impossible in conditions like today.

Tonight after work I’m going to use my home gym as I need to start building up time on my vasa indoor swimming trainer; it really builds up strength on the pull through which I desperately need now for speed.