Swim little fishie, swim…

Yes, I’m still doing it, I’m still getting up early and heading out to the pool to get my kilometre of breast stroke in before work. Phew, but it’s hard sometimes I can tell you. Not necessarily the getting up, I’m getting used to that and going to bed earlier certainly helps, but, oh, ok the getting up… Some mornings it’s just impossible. But thankfully, I seem to do ok on enough mornings to make a difference at the moment…

Last week I managed to get my backside out of bed and go to the pool twice. Monday I already blogged about, but I went on Thursday as well. This was not such a good swim time wise (I’ll put all the stats at the end so as not to bore you), doing the km in 34.00.97. But the important thing was I went. Flâneur was back on Friday morning and I went to meet him at the airport at the hideous hour that his flight got in, so Thursday morning worked as training for getting up early too… ;o)

As well as having missed him tremendously and wanting to see him as soon as possible, I always like to be met at airports when I travel alone and therefore believe that other people might also want a friendly face waiting for them when they’ve just come off a long and boring flight on their own. He’d also had a nasty twist to the ankle while away, so I thought it might cheer him up to see me at the airport when he got back and I could also help him with any bags if the ankle was still bad.

We had a nice relaxing weekend, chilling out on Friday (gave me a chance to get started on his washing), until he fell asleep on me around 8:30pm… Saturday started out relaxed and then we headed out to LS’s wedding in the afternoon. They had decided on a Humanist ceremony, which I must say I had had my reservations about. Stories of hand holding, hippy type affairs (God that makes me sounds old) had me wondering what to expect, but it was actually really quite lovely. The celebrant was very charming and warm and it was frankly miles better than the dreadful civil weddings I’ve been to in Scotland which can be extremely unromantic and legal (By this particular law of Scotland of this particular date blah blah blah). Maybe it’s just one bad experience, but they always seem short and sharp and just a bit of a let down to the romantic in me. There were two readings and we all said a Celtic blessing to them at the end and it was all about mutual trust and respect. The bride looked beautiful in a very classic style sparkly gown and very simple hair arrangement and both were beaming the whole day (which you’d hope!). There was plenty of bubbly sploshing about and the food at dinner was much better than I had either expected or it looked! We did spend most of dinner just talking to each other though, as everyone else at the table knew each other and didn’t seem to want to engage us in conversation, even though we did try. Ah well, it’s often the way when you don’t know so many people at weddings… but a bit of an effort from the other people at our table would have been nice.

Poor Flâneur’s ankle had swollen quite considerably with all the standing around before and after dinner so he was unable to join in the dancing, but I had a good boogy with TS and a couple of other collegues before we sloped off home around 11… It seemed a shame not to stay later but some of the other people we knew had left and poor Flâneur was still jetlagged and sore.

Quite a busy end to a busy week. As well as my swims I went out for dinner to The Kitchin with Wastrel and SAM, a lovely lovely treat from Wastrel. Tom Kitchin was in the kitchen too, which seemed like a special treat, and the food did not disappoint! I had new season asparagus wrapped in parma ham with scallops, followed by saddle of rabbit with stuff…. and then an apple sorbet with champagne sauce. Hmmm….all sooo sooo tasty! Good food, good chat and a good time had by all. Thursday night I was out again this time with all The Girls to La Favourita, which is a nice Italian restaurant, when it isn’t full of lots of very loud people. Which is was on Thursday. Lovely company, nice food, but a shame I couldn’t hear most of the conversation. I was also bloody knackered, so happy to sit and listen to what I could hear and join in when I wanted to. I sloped off home when they all went for a drink after dinner as I needed to do a few bits and pieces before bed and then get an early night for the early start on Friday.

And so on to this week and back to the swimming. I managed to get out of bed both yesterday and today for my morning swim, today being randomly easier than yesterday. Going to bed around 10 last night probably helped… I have now joined the university sports centre too, so don’t need to worry about having enough swims left on my voucher (got Thursday’s last week free as the girl didn’t check my card when I went it, result!). I certainly am still enjoying it and was delighted yesterday to see my quickest time yet (33.07.81, nearly the same as the first swim of the year, which was in a smaller pool, you will recall).

The pool is a little quieter as the university is on holiday and I managed to get into a nice rhythm with another girl in my lane so that neither of us was bothering the other. I like it most when it’s like that. Today was a little different as it was mostly me and this bloke who swims at about the same pace until we were joined by this deeply irritating guy who I’ve seen there before who swims with a float and just kicks his legs. He is the most inefficient swimmer I have seen in a while – rather than neat, steady kicks he almost thrashes in the water which means that he not only goes quite slowly, but if you come up behind him you get tons of spray in your face. Which is what happened this morning. Most of the time he’s ok because he’ll wait and let you turn and go off ahead because he knows you are quicker, but on at least two lengths I was trapped behind him, forced to go a bit slower and to tilt my head away from the massive splashes. Sigh. I ended up swapping lanes to the other slow one, which was a bit quieter, and finished my lengths in peace. I don’t usually like to use that lane as it tends to attract faster slow swimmers than me, but it was just one other girl who was not so fast, so it wasn’t so bad.

I was a bit sore this morning and seemed to be going quite slowly so I was extremely surprised when I looked at the final time on the SportsCount and saw 32.47.81! That’s the first time I’ve been under 33 minutes in this pool and coming close to the times I chalked up in the local one. Woo hoo! I had been trying to improve my technique a bit this morning, having found a few tips online yesterday and maybe it actually paid off! Goddamn, get down to 30 mins and I’ll have to add another 10 lengths… Knackering!!

So the tedious stats for the last three swims are:

Date: 02.04.2009 / 06.04.2009 / 07.04.2009
Lengths: 40 (1000m) / 40 (1000m) / 40 (1000m)
Time: 34.00.97 / 33.07.81 / 32.47.81
Average: 51.02 / 49.70 / 49.20
Fastest: (1) 40.11 / (1) 38.88 / (1) 39.30
Slowest: (32) 54.77 / (14) 53.94 / (10) 53.27

It’s not quite the table I would have liked (quite difficult to make out sorry) but if you squint you can really see the progress over the last three swims. Very excited about getting my first lap in at under 40 seconds now, but I should probably aim at consistency over the 40 rather than a very speedy first lap and then slowing down through overexertion! Something to work on…

Hmm… I really ought to blog more frequently, then you wont be stuck with massive posts like this!! Ah well...