Friday, May 7, 2010

I love chlorinated H2O

Woke up this morning feeling absolutely freezing and thinking to myself it's still too dark to see what the weather is going to be like - I hope it's warm. However as the sun came up over the horizon I realised that today was going to be another miraculous day. A new day with new opportunities to grasp with both hands and make of it as I wanted.

Firstly the usual routine - wake up the family, make lunches for school and work, help Kurt get dressed as he is a "one armed bandit" for a while and have breakfast. Stephen then took the twins to school (Kurt felt well enough to go) and I took Kyle to a dentist's appointment much to his disgust. Nothing majorly traumatic went down at the dentist and then took Kyle to school late - once again "Not happy Jan". Never mind - I had a date with the pool today.

I really truly could not have been blessed with a better day to get in the pool. Perfect blue skies, slight cool breeze in the air and just right water temperature. If all days could be this wonderful. Whenever I get to the pool I don't have a set session, I kind of make it up as I go. There are many variables to have a set session - mood, weather, family, time. So I just see how I go.

I had all intentions to do a 500m Freestyle warm up, but as I got to the 500m mark I felt too good to stop. So I did another 500m Freestyle. After 1km though my arms did need a break so I let them rest for a couple of minutes, put my flippers on and off I set for 10x50m Freestyle kick with flippers. I set myself a bit of a target though to do them in 40 secs, give myself a 20sec break and take off on the minute. This totally canes my legs, you can hearing me grunting as I get to the end of the pool. It's not a loud grunt like a wild beast, more like "oh dear god - somebody bring the end of the pool to me PLEASE".

After finishing those kicks and realising I had only done 15oom and being a bit of a glutton for punishment I added 5x100m Freestyle at about 75% effort. That was hard. Very hard. I only gave myself 20 secs rest between sets. By the last one I could feel acid rising up my throat. But that had taken me to 2km. My last swim session saw me complete 2.3km - and not being one to go backwards I cooled down with a 300m Breastroke up Backstroke down. Ahhhhh bliss. I would say my date with the pool went swimmingly.

UPDATE: my left knee feels heaps better today. No pain, my nutritionals cream from Neways has been a godsend. I have been applying it religiously before and after activity and before bed as well as icing the affected area and it does not hurt at all. I love this stuff.

Your hard work will be rewarded.

"The path to a dream is paved with sacrifices and lined with determination. And though it has many stumbling blocks along the way, and may go in more than one direction, it is travelled by belief and courage and conquered with a willingness to face challenges and take chances" Barbara Cage