Weekend Training a bit hap hazard!!

A weekend or weird training

Well the weekend arrived and it was time to go off and get some proper training in. I had arranged to meet someone at the lakes on Sunday. So to get ahead of the game and also to try and get a longer swim in, I Snuck off to the lakes on Saturday morning. The Sun was shining, the weather was fair, I thought, This is going to be a good day to get in a swim above 2 hours. My hopes were up I was fully prepared with Sunscreen - I really had to dig around to find that!! 

ALAS, as I drove up to the entrance of the lake there was a big sign that Swimming was cancelled. Roll on Grumpy Gumps!!!  To say I was annoyed would be an understatement. I then bumped into one of the organisers and they told me the situation, the car park was waterlogged and they really did not want too many cars on it as it would just have churned it up and made it a lot worse. Oh how we love the British Summers, earlier in the week it had rained for about two days solidly. I thought Fair point. With the weather being so good - a sweltering 15 degrees celcius and the water temp predicted to be a balmy 17 degrees, they probably would have had about 200 swimmers pass through there on the Saturday alone.

As the organisers were hanging around, I could not even hop over the fence and take a dip on my own. I would never dream of breaking any laws but bending them is always a possibility. Oh well, onto PLAN B. What did Plan B entail? 

This is me you are talking about, PLANNING!!! What is that? That is for people who are organised. So without a Plan B I now had to make one. All the other lakes would be closing soon as it was pushing 9.15am. I really did not want to do a trip to Dover as I would be ridiculed for being SOOO late. So I was left with the only option available to me, lets head to the gym. Not really where I wanted to be on such a great day, but, I NEEDED to do some training.

So Gym it was, I dragged myself, begrudgingly out of my car and disappeared out of the sunshine into the depths of the gym with its Chlorine soup  bath (pool) to swim in. I got in and started on a set which was being devised on the fly. After the 6th 500m swim, My thoughts drifted to other open water swimmers and their Challenges. One, of particular interest, and one that I am following quite avidly is by a lady from the Netherlands called Anoushka Bold. A truly inspirational woman who is swimming a mile a day of  BREASTSTROKE for a year, in order to raise money for Cancer Research. After my 6 x 500m swims, I was getting a bit bored so decided that I would give this madness a try - at least once. So 64 lengths of breaststroke it was. after 29 minutes it was over and my thoughts were, WHY ON EARTH WOULD ANYONE PUNISH THEMSELVES LIKE THAT? - 365 times?? Whilst also gaining huge respect for her and her efforts and also how many people she has got following her and keeping her inspired.

That swim finally ended after about 5.2km as I was starting to overheat and was yearning to be outside in the sunshine.

Sunday Bloody Sunday!!!

After waking up aearly and getting a whole lot of admin done and tidying up, my thoughts turned to a bit of swimming. I knew the lakes would be closed, I DID NOT want to go to the gym on such a great day and I wanted to do another 5km at least!! Armed with my UNUSED suncream, after the trouble of trying to find the dam stuff the day before. I headed to a new gem of a pool that I have discovered down at Guildford, a lido with the following credentials

50m

Outdoor

Heated

Two out of three aint bad. Arriving about 9.30 and ready for a great swim I was informed that I would only be allowed to swim for 20 minutes before they kicked us all out for half an hour and then reopened at 10.30am. When I would have to pay again, for the daytime swim. Hence to say I was GUTTED, and, maybe a little bit annoyed.  Who on earth comes up with opening hours like that on a Sunday- when the weather is so great????  But one thing I have learned in the first world, RULES ARE RULES!! to be asked to deviate from said rules, requires someone to think, Thinking is the enemy in the modern world!!! That is why there are RULES, so people do not have to THINK.

You can now guess where I ended up. Yes, THE GYM chlorine bathtub. Sadly my mojo had deserted me so I only managed to do a very slow, very paltry 2.2km before my yearning to be outside got the better of me. So outside we went, my weekend of outdoor swimming utterly dashed against the rocks of bureacracy and a bit of good old British weather. OR was it??

Later on Sunday

After a particularly lazy day, My friend Audra finshed her work and was wanting to do something so, quick as a flash, I suggested we head to Guildford Lido for a bit of a dip. She is currently toying with the idea of doing some openwater swimming and I needed to get my distance up a bit. As we were now in the pool, I had to start my training as I always do in the pool. A length underwater. there was just one minor problem. I normally train in a 25m pool, this one was 50m!! I mentioned to Audra that I was going to try it and a guy next to me overheard me. He then asked "are you seriously going to do a legth underwater?' My response, "That is the Plan." so after hyperventilating for a few minutes I disappeared into the 1.2m depths of the pool (it does get deeper in the middle) and off I went. SLOWLY to preserve my oxygen and however many minutes later, my head broke the surface at the other end follwed by a bit of dizziness and a HUGE GULP of air into my lungs. I had done it! It is a far cry from what I used to be able to do 20 odd years ago - 2 lengths of a pool that length underwater. Oh well, that is what many years of abuse and lack of training does to you.

I then went onto do a further 1.5km in the big pool. I had forgotten how different it was to swimming in a short pool. the lengths seem to go on FOREVER. I was jsut happy being outside and enjoying the latter part of the day in an outdoor pool.

All in all the weekend of outdoor swimming was a bit of a fiasco but that will hopefully be remdied tonight when - if the carpark is still not waterlogged, I will be at the lakes for an evening of watery wallowing along with some friends who will be out there doing 3 hour swims.

Monday Evening

HOORAY!!!  the lakes are open again so I arrived at about 6.15pm, met up with a few skins swimmers, Lisa and Vicky and joined them for 5km, Vicky is training for the channel in about 4 weeks time so although we swim at very similar speeds, she definitely has me on the endurance side. She was in for 3 hours last night. it was fabulous swimming with her ---and annoying people in black condoms, if you think they gt annoyed being passed by a male skin swimmer, you can imagine their disgust at being passed by a female. You vicky. Good luck for the channel.

Future Events

This weekend will see me taking to the rivers for a 10km swim again. I have a bit of a point to prove here. last year I won this event in the skins category.there were only three of us but i still won it and my time was not too bad at 2 hurs 27 minutes. My aim is to get somewhere near that time but considering I only managed 2 hours 44 minutes last week, it could be  a big ask.. Roll on the weekend.

A saying I have seen Recently on the internet.

I swim because

not even my troubles can

keep up with me there.

I hope you all have a lovely week and I hope to see some of you on Sunday at the jubilee River swim.