Swimming day 463 - Monday 16th April 2012

                              About 17 miles in and stopping to get a high five from my Asher

And the marathon is done – Crossed the finish line at 13:44, total time 4.37.57 and position 5433.  I was expecting (hoping) for 4.30, so am happy with that.  In truth the idea of time vanished completely when I got to the 20 mile market; at that point I couldn’t care less how long it took, I just wanted to finish it.   Lindy finished in 3:19:00, what a remarkable lady.  And LB in under 4 hrs despite being in a lot of pain; a superman for sure.

I had good start and was steady up to the half way point (13 miles) and was at 1hr 57 minutes, but by the time I reach mile 18 my legs were starting to burn and by mile 20 my thighs were in serious cramp.  It was interesting though that I saw a lot of people throwing up and plenty at the side of the road being helped by physios and ambulance, yet at no time did I feel tired or in trouble.  My only problem was my thighs at mile 20.  I think if perhaps I had taken the training more seriously I could have avoided that and also would easily have bettered the time, but for me whilst training for the channel, running 3 businesses and having 3 babies and no sleep it would have been impossible to have done any more training than I did.  All that aside I am really pleased to have completed it and in the time I wanted and I can now throw all my efforts into my swimming; the channel is calling! 

This morning I was back at the arch by 6.50am and was in the sea with Big Bob, Lindy, LB, Mike and David by 7ish.  The air temp was a chilling 1 degree (had to scrape ice from my windscreen) and the sea was back down to 7.7 degrees.  It was painful getting in after a week off, but when I settled in it was good on the aching legs.  I was going to just float around a bit, but Big Bob (who also returned today from 2 weeks away) wanted a swim, so we headed along the coast to the end of the Thistle Hotel and back again.  Not a massive swim, but much more than I planned.  The sea was extremely flat and calm and despite the cold the sky was deep blue and the sun was out.  Sadly I think that we are expecting rain and wind for the rest of the week; hopefully not!  I now need to really focus my training in the sea and the gym on my swimming technique and strength.

One thing I am very pleased about is to have Superwoman Lindy on my team; we will definitely need super strength!!