www.tanstaafl.co.uk

I had a more successful pool visit today, swimming to the end of the session, but I did have to skip the odd rep here and there (four in total I think) to get through it. Still clearly quite tired. I’m wonder if my body might actually be fighting something off as I was suddenly very shivery and cold after work today, lay down for a while, fell asleep for an hour and a half and shortly after waking up felt very hot.

And I know I said I was going to stick at thirty press-ups for a while, but yesterday I did thirty-one without stopping, perhaps thanks to not having pushed too hard in the pool. And tonight I did thirty-two, although I did have a break at twenty-five as the alternative was landing on my nose 🙂

Hopefully a bit of recovery time over the weekend will see me good to go again on Monday, though things get a bit messy for other reasons from next week. For the next two months from Monday, the only road from here into the town where I swim that isn’t single-track is closed for repairs to a railway bridge. The posted diversion is in the region of twenty-five miles. I’m going to need to find a better way…

Well, I went to the pool today and it was absolutely awful 🙁 I had no energy and became so tired so quickly.

Not entirely surprising perhaps. I worked 9:15am to 2:30am (not a typo) on Tuesday and then 9:15am to about 1am yesterday, was quite stressed and slept very badly as a result.

Half an hour into the session I decided there was no point exercising badly, so called it a day and came home. I feel a bit down about it, but these things happen. I always knew this was going to be a very tough month work-wise. I’ll still try the press-ups, but a bit later. Coming through the day with one success would be good.

Off to the pool today having skipped yesterday thanks to the bank holiday. After the success of last week I knocked another five seconds off my interval time, so I was starting a new rep every 1’25s. By a dozen reps in this was noticeably harder than anything before and I couldn’t completely recover my breath before starting the next rep. I made it through another dozen ok, but after that it all got a bit ugly, technique started to fall apart a bit and my times were pushing out to 52 or even 53s for some of the reps. I did however make it through to the end of the session, though quite how I managed that without drowning I’m not really sure.

I had to allow myself a little grin when one of the other swimmers who looked at least ten, perhaps fifteen years younger than me appeared to take exception to the fact that I’d caught him (quite comfortably really — he had between five and ten seconds head start) and overtook him on the turn, and not for the first time. He obviously decided to cane it down the second length, keeping alongside me and then fell gasping against the wall at the shallow end. I can’t claim to have been in the best of shapes either at that point, but he was still desperately sucking in air when I left for my next rep 😀

As soon as I got in the water today I could feel that they weren’t fully recovered, although I did manage 46s for my first rep. After that things settled down and I was swimming around 49s/50s for most reps. After twenty I was really struggling, but surprised myself by keeping below 51s until the last three or four reps of the session when it all got a bit too much and I was basically surviving rather than swimming. With barely a minute to go of the session and only one other person in the pool the lifeguard shouted over to me “You’ve got time for one more, James!” so I felt I had to try, but it wasn’t pretty 🙂

However, I did the full session and not really any worse than yesterday, so I’m actually feeling very pleased with myself. Another reduction in rest interval next week. No swimming on Monday though, because the sports centre is closed.

As I was leaving I was followed out by a woman who had also been swimming in the fast lane. I’d caught up with her and passed her quite a few times on the first length of my reps, only to find her right on my feet at the end of the second length. We got into conversation and she admitted that she’d been drafting me off the turns so she could have a bit of a rest during her endurance set!

The aim today was to keep going with my 50m reps, but with a reduced interval of 1’30s. Things started well enough and I was maintaining a pace of around 49s, but it started to get tough fairly quickly. After twenty reps it was becoming quite a battle and the last half-dozen were just done on will-power alone as my pace sank to 52s and then 53s. But I made it! Thirty-three reps in the allotted fifty minutes. I have no idea what to expect tomorrow 🙂

It was crazy in the pool today. I arrived at the sports centre, probably five minutes before they start letting people in, and there was already a queue of about a dozen people! By the time we got in the pool and a few stragglers had arrived all the lanes were quite busy. Lane discipline is getting a bit better now though and I managed not to swim over anyone today. There was one occasion when I ended up alongside someone overtaking them as they were already alongside someone else who they were overtaking. Not ideal, but much safer than it has been, at least.

Most of my early 50s were around 48 or 49 seconds which was very pleasing and quite unexpected. I even dropped down to 47s occasionally. After two dozen reps though I could really feel the tiredness in my arms (and still can almost six hours later!) Still, I got to the end of the session and then had to have a bit of a rest before I could get out of the pool 😀

So, Thursday must see things get more difficult yet again. I am genuinely surprised by how it has gone so far, I have to admit. I was expecting to have reached the point where I just couldn’t start the next rep at some point by now.

There was excitement on the way home, too. During the time I’d been at the pool a tree had fallen across the road, completely blocking it. I had to find another route and arrived home with only one minute to spare before a conference call I had to be on. Given how wet the ground is now and that trees are still in full leaf I’d not be surprised if there were quite a few falling today.