Swimming machine (aka the Swimathon 2013)

Alarm at 5.15am this morning, but luckily it is now lightish at that time, so it wasn't too bad getting up, especially as I saw some bunny rabbits whilst cycling to the pool.  Gathered in reception where I was pleased to be issued with a pink swimming hat for my Swimathon swim before heading into the pool.  There were maybe about 8 people doing it so I was lucky enough to have a lane to myself, hurrah, and it was my usual swimming lane too.  Warmed up on the side, then 6.20 and we started.

To be honest, there's not much to say about the swim itself.  It was pretty tedious.  200 lengths of a 25m pool.  Up and down and round and round.  Tumble turns at the deep end but not at the shallow end as it's too shallow.  Backwards and forwards.  Counting fractions of the 200 lengths.  Timing each kilometre. 

Splits were as follows:

km1: 16:31
km2: 16:34
km3: 16:40
<took a 30s break for 2 swigs of water, to shake shoulders out and check that the lifeguard counting my lengths had the same number as me>
km4: 17:01
km5:

So a total of 1:23:20, which I was really happy about.  Last year, I was 1:30:30, so that's over 7 minutes off.  I was hoping for sub 1:25 so that really really pleases me.  Especially as I still have a dodgy shoulder, and it was hurting pretty much all the way from length 90, and I knew that I wasn't able to pull as well with that arm.

It was tedious, but it was a nice atmosphere, with 2 of the other early morning regulars and one of the lifeguards also swimming.  My favourite manager was on and the nice marketing lady was there too, and they played loud music whilst we swam!

A twitter friend said to me that with a time like that the maths just doesn't add up that I have not yet swum sub 1h for a 3.8k.  I really hope it's on its way this season.  In some ways, I think I was just unlucky last season - my first 3.8k attempt coincided with high winds, and a lake that resembled the sea.  My second involved an obstacle course of bouys, and I was only 17 seconds over, if it had been a better course, I'm sure I would have made it then.  My third, I was absolutely shattered from too much racing already in the previous week or so, and I was only 2 minutes over. My fourth, I probably shouldn't have done as I'd had a bad cold that week.  So fingers crossed for May 26th!