Swimming takes an evil twist!

 I've made the decision that although I can swim now, I'm going to continue with the swimming lessons to work on technique and ability and had my latest session last night. 

Normally the pool is quite warm and nice, and is a pleasant wind down from a busy day in the office.  However it would appear that who ever is in charge of the temperature gauge was not working last night.  I got in the water and I'm sure I saw an ice cube float past it was that cold.  This was such a surprise as its an indoor pool!!!!  Now I can swim front crawl I am also starting to experience different swimming experiences.  Last night I was introduced to two of these new experiences.  The first was cramp in my foot whilst swimming, which was a bit of an eye opener, and the second was underwater swimming.

Now, I can hear you saying "But surely to swim front crawl you have to be underwater to a certain degree you fool" and I would agree with this comment, but last night I was again trying to swim along the bottom of the pool.  This started with me dolphin style flipping in the water, trying to dive to the bottom of the pool.  This didn't seam to work, but did get the attention of the pool guard!  Once it had been established that I couldn't do this it was decided that maybe I needed something to aim for.  So a hoop was placed on the bottom of the pool for me to try and swim through.  After a brief discussion technical discussion with the instructor, and me trying to argue that if I had been swum up to the hoop, put it over my head and then stood up then I had swum through it, it was pointed out if I was standing up I could not be swimming and told to do it properly.  Several attempts were made, and I was starting to get a little audience watching.  In my head I was moving gracefully and athletically through the water, from the outside it looked like I was doing my best impression of a dolphin having a seizure. 

I was not going to be beaten by a hoop, and started to suffer flash backs to the hopper war (see earlier blog entry)  and made one last attempt to do this.  I managed to get to the bottom of the pool, I swam across the bottom of the pool, I got my head through the hoop, I got my shoulders through the hoop and then had to stop as the hoop was stuck.  Yes, the instructor had got a CHILD'S hoop out the cupboard.  I'm over 6' tall and now had this light blue child's hoop stuck round my chest and shoulders.  I'm glad the audience found this funny!  After removing the hoop it was decided it was time to end the session.

On the way out I saw my PT trainer, now got a PT session booked Sunday.  I'll keep you updated.

41 days to go and I still havent run 1/2 the distance I need to!

As the title has hinted, I have just realised that I now have only 41 days until the half marathon.  Had I managed to follow my training plan then this would not be daunting at all, however I lost track of my training and have been concentrating on my swimming.  Now not doing the half marathon is not an option, but I may have to adjust my aim from finishing within 3 hours to just finishing in one piece. This does however leave me with three pre-race options:
1. Continue with the level of training I am doing and just accept that I will get round in my own time and use it as a bench mark for next year.
2. Up my training NOW, forget about weights and swimming and just concentrate on running, risking a recurrence of the dreaded shin splints.
3. Stop running all together, negate the chance of an injury before the race and increase the chance of an injury during the race.

No brainer really, its got to be the first option.  Just got to remember its not a race for me.

For those of you in or around Sussex if you fancy a morning out and laughing at/supporting me then feel free to email me and I'll pass you details of where Team Lawrence Gold Challenge (Mrs L and my parents) will be meeting that morning. 

I'll keep you all updated on how things are going!!!