Swimming day 452 - Friday 23rd March 2012

Unless one can include lots of driving and bags of meetings as exercise I did nothing yesterday; pressures of business simply got in the way of pressures of exercising.

This morning however it was with a smile on my face that I headed down Brighton beach with Big Bob at 7am and into a very calm and beautiful looking sea.  The sky was seriously clear, the sea was seriously calm and Bob & I were seriously heading for the helter skelter at a decent pace.  In truth we could have gone around the pier today as the conditions were perfect, however at 7.2 degrees it was still just a tad too cold for us to want to.  Instead after getting to the helter skelter we headed back diagonally against quite a string undercurrent to the donut groin and then back in.  Total swim over 19 minutes;  and as the pier only ever takes us about 20 minutes it shows we can do it now – so next week is definitely around the pier and then that means we are firmly heading towards summer and the buoys will be back in the ocean very soon; can’t wait.

Rest of today, ignoring the work in between, I have a 1.30pm physio for half an hour on my running knee problem, then 3pm-4pm session in the gym on shoulders, chest and back and then 6pm-8pm swim in the outside pool with my entire relay team.  So a very busy day trying to get my work done around all that and a decent physical day to end the week.  Even though it’s a lot of exercise in one day and that sounds extremely tiring to me, I’m pleased to be doing it as I am feeling like I’ve put on a bit too much weight.  That of course is a stupid statement as I am meant to be putting on weight for my channel swim and I spent all of last year stressing about not putting weight on so I should be pleased with that, and of course by the end of today I will probably have lost all the pounds that are bothering me anyway.  I guess it shows that my weight is still a “mental” issue for me that after 42 years I have still not come to terms with it.  I’m certainly not one who has an eating disorder at any level, however I do think that the line between having an eating disorder and not having one is a very short line; otherwise why do I look in the mirror and think I look fat when clearly I am not and clearly my swim needs me to put weight on.  A confusing dilemma for me for sure.