With my travel date to Dover a mere three months away, it's time to tip the balance to open water versus pool. Also, Coach is going to kick me out of the pool very soon, so this way it feels like I’m making a choice! Perhaps yesterday’s 12km pool session will be my last? Thankfully, my buddy Dougie Howlett made an appearance. I think he might be stalking me. I mean there I am sitting in his garden with nightvision goggles, minding my own business and he turns up with his family - #awkard!
Anyhow, there I was starting to flag and Eilis stops me. “You were looking a bit tired so I told Dougie to give you a dig out” It worked. My pace revived, I sucked in my stomach – to be more streamlined don’t you know, nothing to do with vanity! I also swam closer to the middle of the lane – again for streamlining, nothing to do with hoping for a better view…..
After finishing my set, I climbed out for a chat with Eilis. Dougie paused - I tried to look as cool as I could given my 5.30am start, and 5hour goggle eyes. Far less starstruck, Eilis asked Mr. Delectable 2012 had he his set done. The number one all time try scorer for the all blacks replied “ But my pacesetter got out!” I didn’t trust myself not to blurt out “ Oh my god, you’re amazing, you’re so talented” that sort of thing. So my witty comeback was … nothing …. I just giggled.
Showing posts with label source. Show all posts
Showing posts with label source. Show all posts
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Night Swimming
Last Night was the Source Overnight Charity swim, where 25 odd swimmers raised thousands for charity. Odd in the sense that I didn't count them .... as well as the swimmers being a few sandwiches short of a picnic - seriously who chooses to swim through the night people! Well, we did ... apparently.
It went suprisingly quickly and dare I say I even enjoyed it. The body held up okay, I seem to have the constitution of a mountain goat whilst pool swimming, and had coffee, ham sandwiches, jellies, hot chocolate as well as my 2:1 High 5 drink. It seemed to work in that I had a fairly consistent output of power until my left shoulder got a bit sore around 5am.
I did an overnight swim this time last year so was aware that there would be a mental & physical dip in the middle of the session. Things are also a bit more difficult to comprehend with sometimes funny consequences - I asked a swimmer how they were getting on - their reply of "Fine until the kick in the goolies" made me laugh until my brain processed it to "fine until i ate the blueberries". I also found the ripped togs of another swimmer quite giggle inducing - I revert to the sensibilities of my 4 year olds when tired apparently.
At one stage I just couldn't be arsed swimming any more. So I just let my arms keep turning while I switched off and went for a walk with this pair
It did the trick AND i managed not to swim into a wall ( though I did grope Karen in the land adjoining!)
Paraic and I tend to bandy a few inspirational quotes about - his of last night was from the Rolling Stones. To paraphrase Lucious Lips (Jagger not Paraic) "You can't always get what you want ... but sometimes you get what you need".
Mine was "We are what we repeatedly do. Therefore excellence is not an act but a habit" While Aristotle was not actually present last night, that idea helped when you're doing 21km of 100m on 1.50 - maybe just maybe we'll be able to swim at 3.3km per hour during our English Channel crossing. Now that would be excellent.
Post Script - it's Monday and it's tired I'm getting! Yesterday's sea swim was sore enough and I was frozen after 34mins in 10deg but since the air temp was 14 or so it shouldn't have affected me as much. This morning's pool session was akin to swimming in an old style diving suit through molasses. Here's to tomorrow!
It went suprisingly quickly and dare I say I even enjoyed it. The body held up okay, I seem to have the constitution of a mountain goat whilst pool swimming, and had coffee, ham sandwiches, jellies, hot chocolate as well as my 2:1 High 5 drink. It seemed to work in that I had a fairly consistent output of power until my left shoulder got a bit sore around 5am.
I did an overnight swim this time last year so was aware that there would be a mental & physical dip in the middle of the session. Things are also a bit more difficult to comprehend with sometimes funny consequences - I asked a swimmer how they were getting on - their reply of "Fine until the kick in the goolies" made me laugh until my brain processed it to "fine until i ate the blueberries". I also found the ripped togs of another swimmer quite giggle inducing - I revert to the sensibilities of my 4 year olds when tired apparently.
At one stage I just couldn't be arsed swimming any more. So I just let my arms keep turning while I switched off and went for a walk with this pair
Paraic and I tend to bandy a few inspirational quotes about - his of last night was from the Rolling Stones. To paraphrase Lucious Lips (Jagger not Paraic) "You can't always get what you want ... but sometimes you get what you need".
Mine was "We are what we repeatedly do. Therefore excellence is not an act but a habit" While Aristotle was not actually present last night, that idea helped when you're doing 21km of 100m on 1.50 - maybe just maybe we'll be able to swim at 3.3km per hour during our English Channel crossing. Now that would be excellent.
Post Script - it's Monday and it's tired I'm getting! Yesterday's sea swim was sore enough and I was frozen after 34mins in 10deg but since the air temp was 14 or so it shouldn't have affected me as much. This morning's pool session was akin to swimming in an old style diving suit through molasses. Here's to tomorrow!
Friday, March 9, 2012
Friday night's alright for ....swimming?
8 hour swim with a twist
Since September, I've had the ...er... pleasure of completing three 8hour+ swims, all in Source 25m pool, so I should be used to it. Some I have started in the dark, some I have finished in the dark - tonight it'll be both.
It's a charity swim from 10pm to 6am. I have had a tough enough week, but then they're aren't any easy weeks these days are there? I swam this "event" last year, my first ever 20km swim and I remember a serious dip around 2am and when i finished i could barely lift myself out of the pool. I could barely lift my left arm, had serious chlorine lung and shouldn't have driven myself home i was so bloody tired! It will be interesting to see how i fare this evening.
Since September, I've had the ...er... pleasure of completing three 8hour+ swims, all in Source 25m pool, so I should be used to it. Some I have started in the dark, some I have finished in the dark - tonight it'll be both.
It's a charity swim from 10pm to 6am. I have had a tough enough week, but then they're aren't any easy weeks these days are there? I swam this "event" last year, my first ever 20km swim and I remember a serious dip around 2am and when i finished i could barely lift myself out of the pool. I could barely lift my left arm, had serious chlorine lung and shouldn't have driven myself home i was so bloody tired! It will be interesting to see how i fare this evening.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Just another Saturday morning in Source...
Dean managed to do his long run last night - he's training for Cork City Marathon so I managed to be at Source for 7.30am as it opened. (Amazing how a 7.30 start is a total lie-in nowadays!) I had planned a swim on my lone-e-ownsome, but was delighted to see fellow channel aspirants Carmel Collins and Jennifer Lane and joined in with them for their 12km session. As it turned out we were but three of SIX 2012 aspirants who happenned to be swimming in Source this morning - as well as Ciarán Byrne, part of 2010's "magnificient seven" channel aspirants training with Eilis. It got me wondering - would there be any other pool in the world where you'd randomly bump into so many channel swimmers/ aspirants of a morning?
Mind you Source Pool really is one-in-a-million. Last week, I took a half day as I needed to catch up on metres and knew the pool would be quiet enough. In a serendipitious moment of good timing, I managed to share a lane with the one and only Dougie Howlett - easily the second best looking man to come out of New Zealand! I mostly kept swimming to stop myself from saying anything really stupid. But let's just say I always breathed to Dougies side!!!
Mind you Source Pool really is one-in-a-million. Last week, I took a half day as I needed to catch up on metres and knew the pool would be quiet enough. In a serendipitious moment of good timing, I managed to share a lane with the one and only Dougie Howlett - easily the second best looking man to come out of New Zealand! I mostly kept swimming to stop myself from saying anything really stupid. But let's just say I always breathed to Dougies side!!!
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