Finally, I've managed to say that I'm going to do something on a particular day and actually do it on that day! Today was a swimming day. In spite of all my ranting and raving about how much I disliked Clissold Leisure Centre the last time we went, we went there again on the grounds that it takes half the time to get there as it does to get to Ironmonger Row. (By the way, the reason the weather would have mattered in deciding where to go had we gone yesterday was that there was a "Pets in the Park" event at Clissold Park that we thought it might be nice to wander through before or after our swim, but we weren't going to be doing that if it was rainy (and so we would have gone to Ironmonger Row instead) and then we ended up going today after all, so the weather didn't matter.)
We wandered through the park on the way to the pool and saw the deer mooching about. Once we got to the pool, we were surprised at how quiet it was. However, there were several groups of kids about - this is, generally speaking, not a problem at all but the main pool at Clissold is supposed to be lane swimming only and the lanes are clearly marked - the kids didn't seem to be interested in adhering to the lane-swimming etiquette and the pool attendant was more interested in trying to pick up her water bottle (which she'd dropped) with a long-handled water scoop without having to climb down from her lifeguard's (high) chair than she was in making sure that the pool rules were adhered to. Thankfully, there was a shift change halfway through our swim and the new, fresh pool attendant was not taking any nonsense. James spied her walking along the pool side swinging her whistle in an officious manner and knew immediately that she was going to do something about the kids, who by now had started bombing into the pool. They were told, in no uncertain terms, that if any of them did anything they shouldn't again, then all of them would be thrown out of the pool. After that, swimming became a lot more pleasant.
I have to say that while the kids were annoying, I did think that with the pool being as generally quiet as it was, the staff could have given over one of the lanes to splashing about for confident swimmers (bearing in mind the pool is 2m deep the whole way across) - that said, at Clissold, you can't see what's going on in the training pool from the main pool (it even has separate changing rooms!), so I've no idea how busy it was and, hence, why these kids had chosen to go in the main pool instead.
Today's session was quite tough. James decided to follow what I did (without having done the seven weeks of training I've already done). He agreed that it was tough. We started with 4 x 50m breaststroke as a warm up. Then we were on to 4 x 25m crawl kicks - the only floats that were available for use looked like they had been hewn from the polystyrene blocks that protect new appliances in their boxes and then someone had chewed around the edges. Then it was the main event. This was the first time I had to swim the race distance of 400m without stopping. Seven weeks ago I was dithering about whether I thought I could train myself to swim 400m of front crawl in the 3 months available and contemplating that it might be rather easier to just do breaststroke. Today I swam 400m of front crawl without stopping, a full five weeks before the event. In addition, I had already swum 300m before I even embarked on this bit of the session. To say I'm feeling proud of myself is an understatement.
After the main set, I still had 3 x 100m arms only to do and then 50m breastroke and 50m best stroke front crawl. Once that was done, I did another couple of lengths while waiting for James to finish what he was doing, taking today's tally to 1.15km and my overall swimming total to 10.36km. Over 10km! That's a blimming long way! If you think my 10km of swimming deserves a reward of a few quid for Marie Curie Cancer Care, please click the Justgiving link on the right hand side of the page and make a donation - I'm not far off the £100 required for me to post that picture of me in my oh-so-flattering swimming hat...
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