Hard Core Baby!

This has been a far more productive week. You will be pleased to read that I am back to my bubbly self after my brush with the dreaded lurgy. The highlight of the week was Thursday's training session. I did 2 hours in the pool and then went straight to the Swimgym in Market Harborough. This is definitely hard core! For those of you unfamiliar with such places, the swimgym is like a swimming treadmill where you swim in the middle of the pool against a powerful current blasting at you from the end of the pool. I swam very hard and didn't move forward at all. Sounds like my normal pool sessions. I loved it and will do at least one session there a week in the build up to my August swim.
This week I will announce the charity that I will be supporting on the Jersey/France swim, so watch this space.
On Saturday we are doing a sponsored swim here at school for the school's charity this year, Mountain Rescue. Each year group will swim for an hour and I will swim for the whole 4 hours. A good excuse for a decent training swim.
Don't forget, it's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.

Hebdomas Horribilis!

Yes folks, this has certainly been a hebdomas horribilis, or for those of you not fluent in Latin, a really rubbish week. It all started so well on Monday, a good swim in the morning and then a great meeting with Jim Rees from http://www.votiveleadership.com/. From there, my snotty cold/hay fever developed into a full blown epidemic of personal proportions. It was so bad that I could not even think about getting into the pool. Like a brave soldier I battled on at school but felt horribilis all week. What a soft boy I have become.
Happilly, I feel much better this week and will hit the pool with a vengeance. Now it is fewer but much longer swims as I approach the big build up for Jersey/France. Still well on course and looking forward to the challenge.
Still rocking after all these years.

Votive Leadership Support and Sponsorship

This week I had a fantastic, inspirational meeting with Jim Rees from http://www.votiveleadership.com/. Jim is an ultra athlete who has competed in Ironman events and has had success in the Cycling Race Across America. He has kindly agreed to help me regarding motivational methods for now and the future.

I am pleased to announce that Votive Leadership will sponsor and support my Channel swims. They are Britain's market leaders in corporate leadership and have an impressive list of accreditations to their name.
I am thrilled to be involved with them as I am certain that I will benefit immensely from their knowledge and expertise. Their website at http://www.votiveleadership.com/ is well worth a visit as is their facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/VotiveLeadership
Rock on.

Privet!

Privet to all my friends in Russia! Somehow I stumbled upon the stats for this blog and I was amazed and delighted to see that I have a number of people in Russia reading it on a regular basis. What a hoot! People are also reading in the USA, New Zealand, Germany and of course the UK. Come on you other countries, you don' know what you are missing. Well perhaps you do.
Lizzie and I went to the 7s at Twickenham on Sunday. A great crowd, great entertainment and a thoroughly top day out. Such is my dedication to the cause that I went through the whole day without touching a drop of alcohol. No you read correctly, not a drop. Mind you, the rest of the crowd certainly had my share.
I have already put in in a couple of hours in the pool this week although this is a busy week at school as I have cricket matches and Open Day on Sunday. It is looking like a couple of really early pool mornings in the offing.
Rock on baby.

Chlorine cure all

I have been a little under the weather this week. Nothing as deadly serious as man flu, but coldy and not sleeping well. Never the less, it didn't stop me swimming and I have had 4 pretty good sessions. My breathing actually felt better in the pool than out. The wonderful cure all nature of chlorine at work.

 Thursday's was the highlight as the pool at Market Harborough was rammed, wall to wall old people. I know that I am one as well but at least I move slightly faster than dead slow to stop! I like the pool at Harborough as the water is nice and cool. The people are also very pleasant although there are too many of them. The ever helpful lifeguards saw the problem and put an extra lane in for us front crawlers. (Are you reading this Corby. Your lane management is a disgrace.) Anyway, I digress. I put in a hard 6k in the time allowed before the schools arrived to take over the pool. Busy week this week so 4 good swims totalling nearly 25ks is a reasonable return.
Keep rocking.

Pyramid defeated!

My speed week ended with the dreaded pyramid on Sunday. 20 lengths down to 1 and then back up again. I maintained a really good pace and felt great that I had worked hard throughout the swim. I am back to longer swims this week, fitting everything around school days. I should get 4x 5k+ swims in this week. Lizzie and I are going to the International 7s at Twickenham on Sunday so here's hoping that I don't undo too much of my training!
There is one aspect of life that has me baffled. In packets of jelly babies, the endurance athlete's favourite rush, why are there dozens of red and orange ones but only a few green and yellow. They would probably say that it is customer response but I have never been asked, nor has anyone I know. This is frustrating as I hate red and orange and have to buy multiple packets to get out the green and yellow ones.

Speed Freak Week!

I am more than happy ploughing up and down the pool for hours on end. One in every four weeks is devoted to speed, not my favourite week! This week I have had two hard speed sessions with one more to come on Sunday. Unfortunately my Wednesday session was wiped out as the school pool had an ecological breakdown so I had to double up on Thursday at Kettering. I covered 7.5Ks, including 50 x 100mts. I will man up and do 100 x 100mts but I couldn't this week as I didn't have enough change for the car park! Why does Kettering charge so much to park outside the pool? If I am swimming long, I have to get an all day pass. Nuts.
Friday night I did 3200mts hard, managing to do it well under an hour. I wanted a bit faster but then remembered that I am 55.
Sunday is my worst nightmare. The pyramid! 20 lengths hard, 19, 18 down to 1 and then back up again. A great feeling when I finish, trepidation at the start.
Great news this week. I passed my medical for the Jersey to France channel swim. All a bit real now.
Keep rocking.