Return of the Mack(erel)

I've been ill (cough, cough, splut) and, as a result, off swimming for the past 3 weeks. For shame. To be fair, trying to swim when you can't breath for hawking up globules the colour of 70s carpet swatches isn't pretty and can be a little distressing when you don't have the natural ability to absorb oxygen through chlorinated water. I can live with not going for that reason. But, that kept me off for two weeks. This third week of laziness is attributed to me being a little princess and refusing to go to the pool until I had bought me some new nose clips. "Why", you don't cry? Well, I'm allergic to the pool and suffer from a blocked nose for two days after swimming. Given that I train 2-3 times a week then I would be premanently bunged up. I don't want that. However, I should have ordered the clips sooner - as soon as I got ill - so I could start as soon as I was better because I knew swimming stamina drops dramatically if you don't go for a while. What you can achieve is only good to about a week of when you last thrashed in a pool. I didn't act fast enough and now I have to claw my fitness back and beyond to hit three miles, which began today with a mile that pooped my little arms out.

10 weeks. 2 miles to go. Eye of the tiger.

If at first you don’t succeed…

Hauled myself out of slumber for an early morning swim yesterday and, although the head was switched on the body was refusing to start. I think I managed 10 lengths, which in no way makes up for Friday’s dismal performance or justifies hauling myself out of bed before 7. Out of the three early morning starts I’ve trialled, only one has been successful. It sounded like a good plan on paper, but in practice it’s not looking like my best time to train.

As with most things in life, the true measure of success is not how you cope when things are tickety-boo, but how you rise from a setback. This time last year I had started training for Nettle Warrior, the summer version of the Tough Guy Challenge, which involves a 6-mile fell run followed by 2 laps of an obstacle course. To prepare I ran cross-country so I could cover the distance. This included hill-running to improve my general fitness and because I knew there would be a hill-running section at some point during the event. Slowly, but surely my stamina improved and a few months before the event I felt confident in my running prowess. But then, at about T- 6 weeks, I couldn’t run up hills anymore. Well I could manage one and then kaput. I was knackered. No matter how I tried to remedy this decline I only managed a feeble recovery. On the morning of the run I was crossing my fingers and put my faith in my adrenaline.

If anything this experience taught me one important lesson: just because you’re training don’t take it for granted that you’re getting incrementally better at whatever it is you’re training for. We all have our off days and the most important thing is to take whatever lessons we can from them, eject them from our minds and carry on. As the day progressed I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew I was fitter than this. I remembered that Friday’s failing was down to underlying tension in my shoulder that had since resolved itself and reasoned that 6am starts were probably not a good idea. My following thought was not so rational: I decided to return to the pool in the evening and try again. As the spirit of Rocky embraced me and clasped me ever tighter, so my hunger to progress increased. I got to the pool after work eager and raring to go. I propelled myself forward.

Half way down the lane my nose clip fell off.

Now this shouldn’t have bothered a trained and focused mind, but I don’t respond well to distractions. This was a major distraction. Pool water affects my sinuses and leaves me feeling like I have a head cold for a few days after swimming. Having bought the nose clip a number of months ago, I had convinced myself for a very long time that it would slip off my nose as soon as I got in the pool as it didn’t fit very tightly. When I discovered this wasn’t the case and that it worked really well I made sure I always wore it. Now I faced the prospect of tackling two miles and suffering the consequences. Despite a futile search of the immediate area I had to make a decision. Rocky yelled. If he would get in the ring despite being too old or out of shape / in danger of suffering permanent brain damage / or because his wife didn’t want him to then I could swim without the nose clip.

In I went and out I came a champ: 2 miles in just over 1.5 hours. Victory tastes sweet, or at least it would if I had my sense of smell.

Win some, lose some

As I have often found with physical challenges, for every good training session there is a bad one. Mine seem to alternate between good and bad at the mo., and considering Monday's mile in a 50m pool first thing in the morning was something I considered to be a positive, well you can guess the rest. A pre-existing tension in my left shoulder grew into a pain I couldn't shake. Instead of completing two miles I did one..in a 25m pool...when my body was fully awake. "No pain, no gain", you may say with whoops, cheers and urgings to push on through. I could have, yes, but last time I did that - a very gallant 2.5 miles some months back (yes, I've been having a crack at this swimming malarkey for some time) - which put me out of action for about 6 weeks. Promised Charlotte I'd never repeat the mistake and I can't let her down. Speaking of Charlotte, she racked up 2k and overtook me three times. I'm really proud of her for that.


The only thing to do is take away the positives. Mine are:

1. It wasn't a fitness issue;
2. The pain in my shoulder was due to tension that had been building through the day rather than poor technique (the cause of my 6-week hiatus) and importantly;
3. It was a Schwim Cap night. To the uninitiated a Schwim Cap is what you find a-top of certain bottles of Abbey Well water and can be exchanged for a swim at participating pools during certain times. Wel worth a punt and if you keep your eyes peeled you're likely to see a Schwim Cap discarded as litter. I think I've found 20 of the bleeders just lying around thus far.

So onwards and upwards. Monday morning's going to be fun...

Eau My God It's Early!

6 o’ clock and I make excellent bedfellows, each of us historically sharing the understanding that the other is not be disturbed. For me, this hour has always been the domain of insomniacs, revellers, the accidentally awoken and that odd group for whom it is a welcome part and parcel of their natural biorhythm. My personal introduction to this last group goes by the name of Dave.

It might be a plausible time if I were still in India where it is wise to enjoy the relative comfort of the early morning before the furnace day wilts the body into limp submission. But 6am in January in the north-west of England is no mean feat. Ever since I can remember January and February have been the double-dip nadir of the region’s annual meteorological gala of wind, rain in all its varied and splendid forms, and that fortnight of summer that creeps forward each year. Bitter memories of standing in the school playground, the wind biting through my school-issue, pavement grey jumper with the three school colours running around the collar like an austerity-era rainbow. The Vince-Cable knit.

This temple of learning also doubled as a man factory: you go in a boy; come out a man. And one of the first, and most effective, manufacturing processes centred on swimming. We had a pool, although from a close distance it had the shape of a PoW dormitory and resembled a moss and fungus clad medium-scale polytunnel. The pool had a changing section. But we weren’t allowed to change in the changing section. Instead, we were instructed to kit out in the main gym changing rooms at one end of the school and march across the playground in our trunks to the pool on the other side of the school. On a hot day this could be quite pleasant, but, as mentioned previously, I live in the north-west of England and we don’t see many hot days. So one of my enduring childhood memories is running to the pool through a blanket of wind, rain, hail or a combination of all three with nothing to shield my delicate pre-pubescent complexion but a pair of BHS budgie smugglers. The abrasive north wind tanning my cheeks to a lobster hue. However, such trials were feather tickles in comparison to the return journey when the pores in the skin were open and ready to gulp in the cold. It may have helped shape me into a man, but it didn’t feel like it at the time. Mind you, I couldn’t feel anything at the time, especially my fingers.

Given such exempla and my long-held belief that any day beginning before 7 could never be a good day, I was astounded to find myself facing the prospect of lifting my bottom out of bed at 6 o’clock. Not for necessity (job) or reward (holibobs!), but to swim. What’s more, I’ve managed this miracle twice so far.

My first attempt at 6 o’clock came on Wednesday. Bleary-eyed, my brain roused the dangling figure for which it had partial control and motioned it towards the window to survey the day. On drawing the curtains the city raspberried a bleak, dark, sodden gust of cold reality through my semi-conscious confidence. I squinted into the hitherto unseen extra-dimensional basement of the nadir and it squinted back in disgust. I turned away and looked at the cat who was very pleased to see that his breakfast and morning rubs were to be a good deal more prompt and in-keeping with the service he had received while holidaying at the aforementioned Dave’s. The presence of a relaxed, purring and well-fed (the first two dependent on the last) cat is a difficult position from which to tear yourself away, but I didn’t get up at this forsaken hour just to tend to Phillip (T. cat). In record time I gathered my gear and ventured out into the darkness. It was cold. And as I drew closer to the pool those sweet school memories came crawling back, and with them the temperature dropped. Still, my efforts would not be in vain if the pool was quiet and I got in a good session. I was to receive neither. The main pool was being used by the water polo team leaving the 25m diving pool as the only option to surprisingly large number of nutjobs who wanted to swim before work (later inspection of the pool timetable confirmed that Wednesday mornings are the busiest of the week). As I squeezed a spot in the middle lane for middle speed swimmers I soon realised that my body was revolting. Against my brain, that is. I was resting after every two lengths. My body couldn’t muster the energy to keep on going. My breathing was laboured. I was tired; I hadn’t even started.

Naturally such a valiant display spurred me on to try again this morning, reprising the kind of pig-headedness that motivated me to take A-Level maths despite a complete absence of any sound aptitude for the subject. I found this morning to be a very different morning. The streets were calm, dark and quiet Edward Hopper scenes. I had porridge for breakfast, not cereal. I was wearing a different tie. These changes portended a change in the quality of my swim. The whole 50m pool was open and, though it was busy, there was space enough for all. I jumped in and banished all thoughts of last week’s failure out of my head. The initial 5 lengths (equivalent to the 10 lengths on Wednesday) were tough, but I pushed on right through until I completed a mile.

Maybe 6am and I aren’t all that different after all.

I'm thirty and my swimsuit doesn't fit

Last week I experienced a defining moment, an epiphany if you will. I finally forced myself to buy and fit new batteries to my electronic scales, a task that would not have been so arduous had they just taken normal batteries rather than alien, coin-shaped, lithium efforts. Anyway, whilst fitting them – and managing to drop the plastic piece from the back of the scales down the toilet, resulting in kneeling and delving whilst wearing one rubber glove, and then washing said piece one-handed whilst still wearing the rubber glove – I placed them on the floor, turned them on and prepared myself for the worst. Fear struck me upon lifting my foot in order to take the first step towards svelte, slinky beauty. This feeling was compounded into horror when, instead of a reading of zero showing the scales’ eager anticipation of their first use in two years, I heard an ominous beep, looked down and discovered that the screen instead read “OL”, for overload, without my foot ever touching them. Words cannot express the feeling of despair when your scales protest at the mere sight of you.

...this, and the fact that my swimsuit doesn't fit is making me seriously rethink my decision to swim 3 miles for the charity for which I work. The simple answer would be “buy a new swimsuit” but when you’re already wearing the “tent” model and the next size up could be stretched over a frame to accommodate 80 people for a wedding breakfast, that’s no easy answer. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure they make them in “marquee”….

Those of you who know me will know that I’ve always been a swimmer, or rather than I’ve always liked swimming. Actually I’ve always liked being in water and the swimming just kind of goes along with that. I’m pretty good too, well, I was anyway. The movement and the technique come quite naturally – it’s merely the stamina and fitness that elude me.

A few years ago I joined a triathlon club in order to get in shape whilst doing something I loved - obviously ignoring the running and cycling. The coaches were hard, the drills were painful and the feeling of completing a session was wonderful – here was something I could do! I would no longer be the black sheep of my family, preferring a lie-in and a slice of cake to a 7am gym session! Of course, this jubilation was short-lived and with in a year I’d given up. Although, to be fair, I never actually made a conscious decision to give up, I just realised that I’d stopped going about two months earlier. The lasting lesson I take from that experience though is that I can, in fact, do it. If decadence and lethargy were not my ruling planets and motivation was widely available, I could certainly do it.

Last month I turned 30 – years old that is, not stone – and now that I’m starting to come to terms with it I think there are a couple of things I should own up to. Firstly, I am fat. This is something I seem to have been avoiding for the last few years, but I’m afraid there comes a time when you suddenly realise that you might indeed once have been slim and lovely, but that was 10 years ago and it’s time to update your residual self-image. No more untagging myself in double-chinned Facebook pictures – it could possibly be time to just admit that I’m fat. Also, I’m old. Yes, yes, I’ve heard that 30’s the new 20, and that wrinkles are back in fashion, but when you’ve spent the last twelve years thinking that you’re 18 it comes as quite a shock. So, yes, compared to the long-legged teenager I thought I was, I am old.

Funnily enough though, age and wobbliness have very little to do with why I decided to swim this 5 kilometre nightmare. It was my boyfriend and his enthusiasm for races and challenges that spurred me on – not to join him and share in his enthusiasm, but rather to avoid being left behind on the couch until I inevitably merge into it and he replaces me. Age and weight were periphery reasons until I thought about them closely and decided, in short, that it would be far more pleasant to be 30 and have the ability to slide into skinny jeans rather that vacuum-pack oneself into Bridget Jones knickers.

Watch this space....