Friday, April 24, 2009

Hat-trick

No nothing to do with football or millinery, but rather a note to the fact that I actually dragged my self out of bed 3 times this week to go swimming before work. Well, on Thursday Flâneur tried to drag me, literally by the ankles, but I was getting up anyway, so it doesn’t count as coercion.

I failed to go at all last week while off on leave, despite us setting the alarm early one morning… I just couldn’t do it! Thankfully Flâneur didn’t try to make me and let me just drift off back to sleep. I did manage to put about 3 or 4 pounds on over the course of the week (1 week!!), but it seems to be edging off again. Why does it never come off as quickly as it goes on??

That’s the problem with weeks off though, you loose your routine and all your good intentions go out the window (well, mine do). Although we walked quite a lot during the week, it just wasn’t enough to counteract all the extra eating I seemed to be doing… And having done well with my Easter chocolate (not getting much and then making it last over a few days, rather than scoffing it in one go), this was then scuppered by the future sisters-in-law giving us more!! I tried to let Flâneur eat most of it, but still managed about 100 grams in one day. Urgh.

We did manage a good day on Sunday to try and make up for it though. The weather was beautiful and we decided that we should be out and about in it, rather than stuck inside in our dark flat. We had wanted to picnic during our week off, but the weather stopped us, so it was nice to have an opportunity to pack some sandwiches into our picnic bag and head into the park. We had fruit kicking about that we hadn’t been eating too, so we put that in to make it a more virtuous lunch. We had been intending to walk in the park anyway, but decided that rather than going our usual route through the valley between Arthur’s Seat and the Crags, we’d go up, and (taking frequent breaks for me to catch my breath, Flâneur is something of a mountain goat when it comes to this stuff) we got up there in not too bad a time. We were so near the top that I declared that it would be rude to come all that way and not get to the top of the Seat so up we went! It was a glorious view (through all the other folk up there) and very satisfying to get to the top. The picnic was eaten half way back down and a thoroughly good day it was.

And then back down to Earth with a bump on Monday as I was back up at 6:30 to go to the pool and then back at work. Man I was grumpy that morning!! Still, I managed a fast swim (very surprising as I felt like a lead weight for the first 10 lengths), which I kept up on Tuesday and Thursday of this week too! There were some annoying people in the pool, but it didn’t seem to make any difference to my times. There was one girl whose breast-stroke technique was really lovely, text book stuff, but boy did she swim sllloooooowwwwwllly…. I ended up nearly swimming on top of her twice and eventually ended up swapping to the other slow lane (the one with the scary faster people in it!) to stop myself getting truly infuriated! I think that’s why my time was so good on Monday – I was forced to swim harder and faster for the last 8-10 lengths by the pressure of other people!! She was back on Tuesday, but we managed to keep enough of a distance between us that she didn’t bother me so much. Yesterday was fantastic though. A really great swim. By the middle of my 40 lengths I really felt ‘in the zone’ and it was just me and the water and I was just cutting through it without much real thought. Beautiful. Another annoying person (who didn’t know what stick to the right of the lane meant and nearly crashed into both me and another swimmer), but it didn’t seem to matter. Just me and the water. Bliss. Rather than bore you with all the stats (which I buggered up on Monday anyway) here are my over all times for the three swims:

Monday: 31.54.82
Tuesday: 32.20.15
Wednesday: 31.52.53

Top quality stuff. Very happy. :o)

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