Tuesday 15 January 2013

Don't Bore, Drill

The CBA Fairy nearly got me again tonight. It's down to -3oC here and pretty slippy underfoot. Smallest girl went for her taster session at preschool today so it's been top-full of mummy-angst - I stayed with her and she had a whale of a time (headed straight for the water trough: born a waterbaby, can't keep her away from it). Straight from there to school through the ice and back down the hill to Eldest's swimming lesson. Smallest was having lots of fun in the main pool with me until some other kid vomited. That meant everybody out, and the floor had to be raised and cleaned. It takes about 15mins to do, but we gave up waiting when Eldest finished her lesson. We were all pretty cold by then and even after tea I hadn't warmed up properly. I know how to take care of myself coming out of cold open water and never really get chilled afterwards, but when you've two little ones they (and the mediation of their inevitable arguments) come first. By the time I'm dressed I'm often frozen. Roll on Smallest being able to dress herself!

Nagging and Janathon got me to the pool tonight, late, but present and correct. Two laps in I was bored silly. I'm not getting on well with this new cap - can't hear my MP3 player properly, and it ran out of charge halfway through anyway - and the numpty-creep was starting. In desperation I decided I was just bored because I'd done a few endurance swims lately and what I needed was to drill until I was grateful for the boredom of a long swim. And it worked! Four warm-up plus six drill laps and I was ready to start an endurance-build mile. This is something Dave has us do sometimes (I have no idea if it has a proper name, that's just what I call it) and it is tough, but I feel like I maintain a better speed. You start by swimming 25m, then rest 15s, then swim 50m/rest 15s, and keep adding 25m each time til you hit 1650m. The last set is 275m. By that point I'd swum 1900m and the numpties were absolutely swarming, so I finished with a 100m cool-down and gave up in disgust at just under an hour. It's ok; as work-outs go it was short and not too boring; I know I worked my core and my mental arithmetic to boot, so it'll do til Sunday. Please, please let Masters run properly this Sunday!