Cracking drive to and from the pool today. On turning down my usual cut-through to avoid the closed bridge I came up behind a flat-bed truck that was reversing down the lane because it had met another truck coming the other way and there was nowhere to pass. By the time they’d actually found somewhere suitable to pass there were loads of cars queued up in either direction and it was all very jolly. Then on the way home on a section of road that is probably impossible to avoid if you need to get into the town from the north, I ended up stopped behind a scaffolding truck, two cars and, at the front, another large flatbed truck, though it appeared to be trying to get into the gateway of a field. Meanwhile cars were pulling up behind me around a sequence of blind bends. Eventually the flatbed started reversing towards us and we all had to reverse around the bends (I was relieved not to be at the back) so it could reach a place where there was space for something coming the other way to pass it. That “something” turned out to be a flatbed articulated lorry with a large trailer in tow. I really must grab the video off my dashcam for that one.
Anyhow, I was just in time for the start of the pool session, but to my surprise there were far more people than usual. I ended up sharing the fast lane with four triathletes, judging by their swim hats. I don’t know what it is about triathletes, but get a bunch of them together and they seem to turn the pool into something resembling a major Atlantic storm. Despite being bounced up and down by the waves and getting a faceful of water every few lengths when I was breathing, things were actually going pretty well. At least until I got into the high twenties of reps I was an easy two seconds a rep faster than yesterday and whilst the last two reps were a bit of a fight I managed to get through the entire session without needing to skip a rep. I was tired, but not as tired as I was last Friday. So, very pleased overall with the result. I’ve no idea why I should have been so much quicker than yesterday though. I did draft one of the other swimmers a couple of times having caught up with him, but that doesn’t explain the improvement over all the reps.
Hopefully I can repeat the performance on Thursday, without the added sea-sickness 😀 I’m not sure where I go from there though. I might reduce the rest interval again and then try to push down the swimming time as well, doing fewer reps but adding a second set of 25m sprints aiming for a time of about 20s and gradually work to bring that down as well. That would be pretty much back where I was in February and I’d be exceptionally happy with that after little more than two months back in the water.