Half way to the start line...
Training for a long swim (well, long for me!) has a lot of similarities to training for a marathon, I’m discovering.
There are the first couple of weeks where short distances seem uncomfortably long, and hitting a certain pace is difficult, and you wonder how you ever think you’ll be able to run a marathon that fast when 4 miles of it reduces you to a sweaty mess... All that happened in the pool too. And then the lake, and the docks, and the reservoir once I stared taking 2 swims a week outside. Then the tiny niggles started, and there was a bit of panic, (and dramatic overreaction when you refuse to realise that you may only discover where the inconsistencies and weaknesses lie when you put your body under a little bit more stress than before), and then I took some action, strengthened the weak bits and took out one swim for 2 weeks, then the breakthrough happened, and now I’m facing the biggest mileage weeks of my swimming to date and I am in a place I never get to with my running; in this sport I haven’t found my limits yet.
This weekend I was planning to swim with my friend who is tackling the same race as me at a new lake, about 2 hours travel from my house. We had wanted to go somewhere new together, as well as to give her some open water experience, but we had picked this lake mostly because the amount of time we needed in the water was greater that any open water facility was open for any closer to home.
My lovely friend is fighting off a chest infection that hasn’t quite disappeared yet, so with the start line at the forefront of her mind, she is resting hard instead of swimming this weekend and I’m suddenly quite apprehensive about travelling out to Surrey at daft’o’clock and swimming in a new place by myself. It will be my longest swim to date, and I’m really excited to be in the water and doing it, but nervous about everything else surrounding it. (And yes, I’m aware that for a lot of people, the actual swimming would be the worry!).
I’ve reached the point where every long swim now is a step into the unknown, which brings with it a certain amount of apprehension but I’m really pleased with how I’ve dealt with the training so far; the little niggles, the taking extra rest days when needed, and I find myself looking forward to training and my swimming more than ever before. I think that maybe I’ve found my element.