Sunday 5 May 2013

Binge in Swim Challenge Carnage

A busy month with all sorts of things going on including financial year end, a Ministry of Justice consultation paper which is simply bonkers contributing to a rather poor showing on the pool front in April, although I did also swim on the 13th but never found the time to blog about it.

So the Speedo "keep going day after day challenge" pretty well crashed and burned, leaving my with a number of burning questions which include; will I have to make it all up? (the swimming not the suit review) or should I just call it a day and give my swanky (although ill fitting) cossie back?

Undaunted by this epic fail I've come up with a new challenge for 2013 (if at first you don't succeed cheat) to complete the Tyne River Swim in September. You might remember I watched the start of last year's event here.

This particular swim is a whopping 10 miles starting at the Quayside in Newcastle and ending on the beach at South Shields ( a rather wetter and colder version of the Great North Run). I'm not sure if I should be filled with enthusiasm or dread.... but it might just invigorate my mile a day challenge as I will need to do some training.

Today was my first swim for three weeks, the fine weather and bank holiday meant that there was only 6 of us for this afternoon's session. Clarkie was there and solved a mystery that had been troubling me since Friday night in the pub. We had abandoned the office early (well most of the staff left at 4pm and I gave up after a further 30 minutes) taking refuge in a local hostelry Consett's Grey Horse which boasts  amongst other delights a micro brewery.

Now in my experience the noise a group of people make in a pub is directly proportional to the quantity of alcohol consumed and at the height of our hilarity a member of staff dropped into conversation the noun "rug muncher" I was quite impressed that a good proportion of my workmates, who I consider to be pretty streetwise were a little baffled by the term.

As the definition was revealed you can imagine the increasing shrieks and decibel count can't you (we were really loud), and then much to my horror I realised that the table of blokes behind us contained Sparkie Walton's dad and another bloke who I recognised as a swimming official but just couldn't place. We had a short conversation as I left as I was still racking my brains to identify him.

Demonstrating his true constabulary credentials Clarkie solved the mystery when he id'd him as his dad! Funny he didn't mention Rug munching at all. Anyway we cracked on with the session and I was struggling at the back, I was nearly lapped on the 266.

As you can see from the toosmartwatch print out it was an eyeballs out session (for me anyway).


Something tells me it's a long way to September.

133 free @ 20s RI
2 x 66 pull @ 20s RI (ish)
133 free @ 20s RI
4 x 33 kick @ 20s RI (ish)
133 free @ 20s RI
266 @ 4:30
2 x 133 @ 2:30
4 x 66 @ 1:30
8 x 33 @ 35s
2 x 133 @ 2:30
4 x 66 @ 1:30
8 x 33 @ 35s
266 @ 4:30
2 x 66 @ 1:30
2 x 33 @ 35s
2 x 33 @ 60s
100 swim down
Total 2,900 metres

1 comment: