Day 282 - 29th June 2011

After two days out of the sea due to exhaustion from the lack of sleep I was back to it today. The morning was dry, the air temp about 18 degrees and the sea still down to just under 14 degrees. It was 6.35am when I tiptoed into the ocean on my own, having said my good mornings to the homeless couple just waking up outside the arch; I need to get their names as calling them the homeless couple feels very degrading; what is the etiquette on asking them their names, am I allowed to even do that without offending? Tough one.

The sea was very calm and the tide was mid way through its change, so it was quick to get out of depth and the movement was very little; both conducive to an easy start. Heading out I swam past Shoichi and Damien who were heading back from a 6am start and continued to head around the pier. A nice easy swim all the way around so I carried on from the head of the pier and to the fourth buoy out to the marina; a decent distance in the morning. The swim back to my beach was also nice and easy and in fact the whole swim was most pleasurable (you had to be there!). Back in the Arch afterwards I only saw Little Bob and managed a catch up with him which is always a pleasure (he and Lindy did a 2k swim in the Thames at the weekend at 3am with about 600m people – I’m clearly not the only lunatic in Brighton!).

After my swim and two early meetings I headed to Esporta at Falmer to present the Starr Trust and our fundraising to a meeting of 26 Esporta managers from branches around the South and East. The meeting, which Ross put together for me, was really good and we now not only have Esporta Brighton fundraising for us, but also the other 25 branches! A fantastic result to get such amazing support for the Trust. Afterwards I had a session in the gym with Ross for an hour, just on core and shoulders as I've had leg problems today.

On the dark side of today I have suffered quite a lot with my leg pain; the electric shock variety I had a few weeks back. I haven’t had this for a few weeks and when I have had it its been maybe 2 or 3 times in a row and about twice in a day lasting about 20 seconds each. For some reason today I have had about 6 episodes, each one with about 5 shocks each and each lasting about 30 seconds. To say it’s been a painful shocking day with that is an understatement. I’m not sure why it’s started again, but hopefully it’ll go away and leave me in peace. I certainly don’t want to see the doctor or specialist as they will just say lay of the training for a while! Hardly gonna do that!! Probably just the chrons and the tiredness getting together to tell me to have an earthy night and a healthy dinner!