Day 256 - Friday 20th May

Friday today and a planned coffee after our swim, so Bob and I decided on a gentle one; not a bad idea as my arms and shoulders still aching from the swimming and gyming I’ve been doing this week. We were in the sea at 7.15am and did a once around the pier. The temperature was down on earlier this week to 12.1 degrees, however the sea was very flat and the tide was hardly moving. It was shallow enough to be showing more sand than sea at the beach and we probably walked out to around the end of the Pier sign. Even though it was a nice morning swim, for me every swim is considered “training” ; simply no time for fun, so I made sure I swam as quickly as I physically could the whole way around (I seriously envy every sea swimmer who has no goal to get to and can just have a morning swim).
Tonight I would use the gym as well, however we have a fundraiser for the Trust at the Grand Hotel; an evening with Marleen Woolgar; the Clairvoyant and it’s really important on so many levels that I attend.

Tomorrow I want to do a big swim as I need to start racking them up now. There are a few people from Brighton Swimming Club doing a swim from near the lagoon to the pier and I could go with them, but as ever they are all super fast and I doubt it’ll do me much good mentally. So assuming I can get a decent nights sleep and can get myself up and about early enough I’ll start my swim at the lagoon 40 minutes before them and swim on down to the pier (5k in total) and then, assuming the tide is with me and I am in the right mind set, I will carry on past the pier towards the marina and see how far I can get. I would love to be able to get to the Marina and then come back again, but I don’t know if I will be able to, so without pilling on the pressure I would not be at all disappointed if I was able to swim from the lagoon all the way to the marina and then walk back; it would certainly be the longest sea swim I’ve done since last summer. I simply need to get my mind right; my body is certainly up to it. It will definitely be a case of wetsuit and food in me, but that has to be my aim for the morning.