Seasonal disruption

That would be "leaves on the line" if it was the Autumn, but its the combination of the weather and the busyness of Christmastide that is compromising things here.

It started off with the peeling of a butternut squash, that saw my thumb sliced open on Sunday afternoon.  Not really sufficient to impact on training until Mr W replastered it too tightly on Monday night as we went to bed  which meant I woke up with it throbbing, and bleeding again.  Swimming on Tuesday morning was not a possibility :-(

On Wednesday, I was supposed to run home.  But I was feeling overwhelmed by Christmas tasks, still sore of thumb, and knew that the tasks I had to do on Thursday wouldn't leave me with enough time to take the bus so that had to be cancelled.

Then on Friday morning, cycling to the pool at 6.30, I got out of the house, and our drive was icy.  It has been the last couple of days, so I wheeled my bike carefully out onto the road which looked ok.  However, as I turned left at the top of the road, I hit an enormous patch of ice.  In slow motion, I watched myself fall to the ground.  Braking obviously does nothing on ice, and probably makes the skid worse as I discovered.  I was extremely lucky not to be more badly hurt, coming off slightly shaken and with a bruised left ankle and inside knee.  It was lucky I was tired and going slowly.  I never thought it'd be my trusty Raleigh Hybrid that I'd be coming off!  I wheeled the bike over to the main road where I discovered that my chain had come off.  I had to call Mr Tuna in tears to get him to come to fix it as there was no way that I was facing that patch of ice again to get 500m back to home.

On the plus side, I did swim Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings, and with the exception of Monday, they were good strong swims. Thursday is worth mentioning - I only had time for 5 of my 6 x 600m, but I did them off 10 minutes, rather than the 10 minutes, 15 seconds planned, and they mostly came in at 9.30-9.35 (with the first one being 9.25).  I'd like to get doing these intervals down to being off 9.45 (i.e. I swim them, and whatever is left out of 9 minutes 45 seconds is rest), because that should be the correct pace for a sub 1-hour 3.8k swim.  Which I'm determined to achieve in the early part of next year's outdoor swimming season and which I'm hopeful is a likelihood!

Tomorrow I'm off to Hampton Pool with Tuna Friend Fiona to use my new toys - pink fins! - and play our drafting game "catch the tuna".  Can't wait!  Will try to get a picture of the beautifully steaming outdoor pool if I can.  Hope to swim 3k to take my total to 15k for the week.