I Love the Smell of Chlorine in the Morning

Wednesday I spent sulking and doing plenty of back stretches at home, but Thursday I dusted off my swimming costume, grabbed my face mask and headed to the pool.

Having played Underwater Hockey for years, I´m very experienced and comfortable in the water. However, having not actually played underwater hockey for years, I was very nervous and wondered how quickly I´d drown without my fins and snorkel.

I decided to take it easy and swim for a kilometre (33 lengths) or an hour, which ever came first. Took off from the edge, did 1/2 a length underwater (good, still got that), then surfaced and started the first of many ¨what am I doing?¨ lengths. Breathing was initially every third stroke, then reduced to every two strokes with the occasional every stroke thrown in - no, it wasn´t pretty.

Got to the end of 33 lengths and checked the clock. 25mins. Damn. Cranked out another 33 lengths, stopping to stretch the back occasionally and got out of the pool pretty pleased that after 4yrs absence I could still do an hour of swimming. Admittedly it wasn´t comfortable or pleasant to watch, but although other swimmers were going faster, I was the only one who cranked out anything like that distance... tortoises can swim!

I was also aware that my shoulders were an inch wider in the changing rooms and the return to ´swimmer´ physique is not far away. Also, scarily, I now understand why the triathlon was developed - being fit in all 3 disciplines (swimming, biking, running) would be excellent and I´d only have to double my swim to be at Ironman distance (3.8km), throw in a bit of biking (180km) and speed up my running ....

Might get over my hip injury and the Kepler first though.