My Swimming Coach

Top 40 number 14 - swim a mile of "proper" head-in-water breaststroke - completed this evening with some great support from Husband. As usual, I was on length 35 when he completed his 50, and I was expecting him to adjourn to the spa pool to wait for me to do the 64 lengths that I needed to do for my challenge. But instead, he coached me - helped me to keep my pace going & ended up doing a total of 85 lengths himself! Very much appreciated.

I have swum a mile before - and it used to take me over an hour. This time, it was around 42 minutes - demonstrating how much better my technique is.

I was more aware of how warm the pool was than of getting tired at the end - but I can really feel my arm muscles now! Legs are fine, but they are more used to being punished.

We went straight out afterwards to meet M & C's beautiful new baby girl. We were definitely dehydrated from the warm pool as the first drinks kind of vanished! And Husband didn't recoil in horror when I mentioned that perhaps I could progress to front crawl next (can only do doggy paddle atm!).

And number 25 was also completed today. Front room is now complete with new flooring, stripey rug - and the attached pic is a print I've had for about 6 years that's finally been framed! 15th century Iranian tiger that I loved at an exhibition about the silk road....

A run that clicked

6 of us braved a cold and damp dark evening to give the Eastleigh 10K route a go. Some runs go OK, some really click - and this was a click. L came along who I haven't seen for ages & it was great to introduce her to the other runners. We weren't amazingly speedy - darkness, puddles, tree root bumps on pavement and road crossings meant it was never going to be a PB kind of evening. Immensely satisfying though.

My only opportunity to cycle to work happened on Wednesday this week due to commitments in Portsmouth.

My mountain bike has finally been repaired - £340 of repairs! All wear, tear, salt and general abuse - no calamities. Price tag includes new brakes - but not the still needed new saddle. The bike shop bloke hinted that I may now be able to out pedal husband up hills - will have to see if that's the case on Saturday....

Fit head for running

There's a phrase I liked from coaching training that in order to be
fit enough to run, you need to run: run to get fit to run. This is
working for my head this week. I have been very upset by what happened
last Monday - this isn't the place for details but many of you know
about why. And i wasn't even directly impacted. I was really
apprehensive about running tonight but it went fine. I enjoyed it. I
think the runners enjoyed it.
So to get my head fit to run, I need to run. Like getting back on my
bike post face smashing. To appropriate a slogan, just do it instead
of obsess.
Ramble over.

Walk at the seaside

As I am mountain bike-less at present, we went for a wander at
Mudeford Quay. Water was really high and there were waves - a novelty!
There's also a new path being built - couldn't see why as it parallels
the current one. Read an info board and non the wiser - sailing
training at the olympics was on the list of reasons.

Swimming later this evening that I am looking forward to for once!

And I'm back

I went skating today with G. We'd done lessons together about 2 years ago for a while, but quit when my progress plateaued and G finally acknowledged that it was a heck of a drive for her every Monday evening. Today, we went up to Basingstoke for a great hour plus scooting around. I can't remember many of the fancy-ish moves we learned - but was chuffed that I could still get around without sliding on my backside! I was also relieved that my skate blades hadn't rusted away. And G looked as cool as ever on the ice. Lunch afterwards at a cafe on the way home - lovely day and much needed fun.

Even learning about the £340 worth of repairs required to my mountain bike when I got home didn't dent my improved mood.

Ran well at the gym on Friday - 10km in 57:10. I think my lack of exercise this week may have contributed to being able to run well. And it was fantastic to be able to work off some pent up frustration on the treadmill. I'm hoping I can get back to WRN next week with a positive attitude - WIP.

Off to surf for avid juicy 3 brakes for my poorly bike now....

Holding pattern

I've attached a photo from a fabulous weekend with parents and fabulous-in-laws. Nothing more to blog at the moment.

Walk free ride

No walking today! But this is a good thing as we were on a bike ride in the Forest. Husband & I did the uber loop - a 39km perimeter of our regular Forest rides, completed in 2:55 of pedalling. I am feeling happy about not resorting to walking on a slippery, sticky stretch where the week's rain had made an impact. And happy about actually pedalling all the way up a slope where I've always resorted to pushing my bike in the past. It's just after the tunnel under the dual carriageway (often full of horses, but not today) with a gravel short and steep stretch just as you come out. Perhaps this compensates for my miserable performance at the gym on Friday - and maybe for the chocolate dessert I had last night with ice cream.

My bike is broken though - front brake was scraping from the outset, making progress a tad more challenging. And about halfway around, my front wheel started making metallic twangy noises. Husband has diagnosed a broken bearing in the front wheel - and I have no idea, so he must be right!

I definitely prefer bike rides where the ride is the point of the day - not just an obligatory piece of exercise to be squeezed in somehow/sometime. I like being able to focus on enjoying myself, not worrying about getting back in time to hit the supermarket. And a mug of tea from the thermos is a lovely way to round off a day in the Forest.

I was in domestic mode yesterday - 7 jars of seville orange marmalade and we cooked for Kitty & Goldfish which was an op to discuss allotment plans for the year. Domesticity may recommence in a sec as I've found a recipe for my spare oranges....

Objective revision time!

I'm changing a few of my top 40 goals - some circumstances have changed and I'm having to apply a little realism!

31. Level 2 coaching - UK Athletics have revised their coaching qualifications and the new next level for me to do isn't available until September. And I'm 41 in August! If I did do the existing level 2, it would train me in coaching all types of athletics. Katharine from RiE apparently had to coach someone to do triple jump - having never done triple jump before. The big change with the new qualification is that it specialises in "Off track endurance" and specifically mentions mass participation running in the description. I think this will be more useful for me so I'm holding off. So I'm swapping objective 32 for "Swim in the sea on New Years Day" - which I did in Wales. So that's another done - yay me (with some fudging!).

32. Eastleigh 10K in sub 55 minutes - I'm changing this to sub 57 minutes - and that will still require some hard work between now and 28th March. I've found that coaching running 2 nights a week has done wonders for my endurance - but has not directly helped with speed!

I've been feeling a bit under the weather this week which may have resulted in me feeling like I was about to die at 6.5km at 10.5kph in the gym on Friday - or I might just be rubbish! Pedalled on Thursday & Friday - and I'm proud of pedalling to the pharmacy & paper shop this morning.

Fitness Equipment Al Fresco

I'm not sure if you can tell from the photo here (poor quality - sorry!) but some intriguing equipment has appeared outside the Hub (home to Eastleigh WRN amongst others). It's next to the kids playground, but appears to be gym style equipment - there's a cross trainer thing, strider thing and a weird skiing thing. We did give it a try after running on Tuesday - fair play for trying something new for adult fitness.

I was really impressed with Cragside's "fitness trail" that was more of an adventure playground for grown ups that I tried in the summer - and the popularity of Go Ape demonstrates that this is a potential growth area.

Monday's 8pm group did some great hill work, but numbers were as patchy as last week. My marketing efforts are going to be helped by WRN linking with Race for Life again this year - and I think I can organise the required training sessions around the Winchester and Southampton events.

Too pooped to go to Body Combat today - I slept badly last night and had an earlyish start - so it was just a walk up the hill today plus I will dig out the wii in a sec. Pedalled on Mon and Tue.