Just keep swimming

Following the marathon, with the next six months stretched and whilst we are waiting for summer to load I’m contemplating what to do with my next….. it’s true that marathon training really does consume you both physically and mentally, there is little time to think or do about anything else. 

This happens slowly and you don’t notice it happening, nearly every waking hour is taken up with thinking;

• about the route you will take, 
• the pace you will run, 
• have you got enough gels to get you though,
• will last night’s tea make and unpleasant reappearance where there are no facilities….
• do I have the energy to run again, 
• race day is T-minus x, 
• RACE DAY
• Finish line photos posted to the social media of your choice,
• retold the story about how the wheels fell off, or that you had an amazing race and yes you are pleased with your time!!

and then all of a sudden you have all this free time and mental capacity to do stuff….but you don’t know what to do with yourself. Personally, I’m not going to go on a 20 mile training run for shits and giggles if I ain’t got a marathon to do!  During my long runs, I’d dream about the stuff that could fill my day when not running, and now it is here I’m at a bit of a loss. 

So there was only one thing for it…sign up to a triathlon!  Which I have the North West Sprint Triathlon the end of September it’s a pool based Triathlon so (hopefully) there will be no getting out of the swim and bursting into tears! But what it does mean and with all this additional time I can finally get back in in the pool and back on my bike. 

So far it is week 3 of the new training plan and I’m keeping up my 2 early morning pool swims a week, it’s not easy and something I don’t enjoy that much, mainly because it is pure alone time with my thoughts…which is a scary place to be, because believe it or not I’m not very interesting. The strategy to keep me amused is to a) try not to imagine what those other weird floaty things are in the pool and b) remember what lap we are on.  Another good game is how many laps can I get done before other people join my lane Wednesday's record was 36.  But in the words of Dory “just keep swimming swimming”.

There has not been much in the way of bike training year other than spectating at the Potters Arf the other
week, so I need to up my game there but the awful summer weather hasn’t helped and my bike is need of some TLC maintenance to sort out the squeaking disc brakes.  Currently, my knowledge of how to sort this out has come from two YouTube clips and it looks easy enough what’s the worse that can happen...