Day 301 - 26th July 2011

A fishy start to today; mackerel city. Walking down the seafront at about 6.45am I could see literally hundreds of fish jumping from the sea; first time I’ve ever seen that. There were two large shoals, about 10 metre square each and they were right by the shore line and they were busy busy. By the time I got down to the sea’s edge they had moved from the east to the west and were at my beach. David ended up catching nearly 30, Evo around 20 and Paul & Shoichi bags of them. The seagulls were having a feast when the heads were being removed and thrown onto the beach. In fish terms it was a massacre, in bird terms it was a high holiday feast and in fisherman terms it was the catch of the day. In swimmers terms it was wondering if there were bigger fish chasing the smaller fish in!!

Not being a fisherman myself I simply took in the spectacle and then jumped in the sea and had a swim; around the two buoys, diagonally through and around the pier to the two buoys the other side and then back through the pier to our beach and in. A decent swim of probably a mile and a half in about 40 minutes; following big Bob all the way.


Temperature still low at 15.7 degrees; will it ever reach the dizzy heights of 16 again! Apart from the stirring by the fish, the sea was calm and flat with a fairly strong current to the west.

I have a gym session after work today with Ross for an hour and then I’ll do a short 5k sprint around the park before heading home for the business of books, bath and bed for the kids. I’m feeling a bit sluggish at the moment, possibly because I’ve pulled back on the training compared to the massive amounts I was doing earlier in the year. It’s not a great feeling so I need to start upping it again. It’s hard though to train in the evening, even though I’ve got a gym at home. Last night I decided to train at about 8pm after the kids were down; giving me an hour in the gym before we eat. The kids however had other plans and by the time the bed battle was over it was already 8.50pm and time to cook the dinner! The “will” to do it is there, but time seems to be a constant fight.