Day 253 - Tuesday 17th May 2011

Another extremely tidal day today. The air temp around 16 degrees and the sea around 11.8 degrees, however, windy again and a crazy strong tide pulling East to the Marina. To add yet another level, there was also a constant barrage of waves, nothing too high, but just a constant run of them starting from the end of the pier and hitting the shore in succession.

My arms and legs were already achy as I did a really good hour in the gym last night, including a very hard 15 minutes on my swimming trainer. Also to add to this I moved four planters from our drive to our front door; 15 steep steps up; each one weighing in at silly numbers. When they were delivered by two hefty looking chaps they refused to take them up the stairs as they said it was a job for 4 people. Of course as soon as Sharon went out I was in the drive doing it on my own. To say it was tough is an understatement and when it came to the last one, I was at the top step and my strength gave way and it almost took me down the stairs. Considering it was about 4 foot in height and made of marble it would likely have caused many broken bones, so to avoid that I put my weight forward and managed to just get it over the top step onto its side; landing unfortunately on my left arm! Nothing broken except the skin, but fairly bruised and swollen. When Sharon got home, instead of saying a big “well done you”, all I got was a “how stupid was that, you could have broken something or worse (not sure if she meant the pot or me!). Of course she was right, but it’s just what I do!!

Back to this morning; I was in the sea by around 6.25am and I headed against the tide to the West Pier Just from the middle of the beach to the groin (only a few hundred metres) took about 20 minutes and then by the time I got to the start of the Brighton Centre I was already at 40 minutes. At this point I turned back and got to my beach in around 8 minutes; that just shows the strength of the tide. Coming out I met up with Shoichi, Paul & Damien, who had all started from the Brighton Centre (having walked there in their trunks) and then swum back with the tide; tomorrow they are planning to do the same from the West Pier. If I’m there early enough I’ll join them, if not I’ll do the same again as today as it’s a really good strong swim. As soon as the tides settle down I’ll need to knock out one marina swim plus a marina/west pier swim.

If the arms will take it, I will use my VASA swimming trainer again tonight after work as it’s an amazing workout on your shoulders and arms; really builds up strength and muscle memory. I now need to use this every single night, if only for 10-15 minutes, it will do me the world of good.