Back down in Marlow this morning for a standard swim from the Rugby Club. I must admit it was difficult finding the motivation to get up this morning as when I peered through the bedroom curtains at 5:50am it was a dull grey drizzling morning. Not exactly inspiring.
Got down to the Marlow Club for the meet at 6:15am. Swimming this morning was me, Freddie (from our swimming club), Matt Baker, Heath, Pete and Charles (a work colleague who is keen to take up triathlons).
Took the water temperature - 17.5 degrees. Eagle eyed readers will note that that is 1.5 degrees cooler than normal and we could feel this dip as soon as we got in. With nothing to keep you warm apart from a pair of speedo's the cold hits you instantaneously and it takes a few minutes to acclimatise.
We swam upstream to the weir right by the Compleat Angler hotel and I pushed all the way from just before the Marlow Bypass bridge; more to keep warm than anything else. Matt led the way and I was trying to chase down Freddie who had a jump start on the rest of us but didn't manage to catch him.
We regrouped at the weir and then set off back down stream towards the boat yard. Again, I kept up a fairly decent pace which helped keep the cold at bay and after Matt swam through managed to open up a bit of a gap between the others. Swam hard to the boat yard and turned round ready for the final upstream stint back to the jetty. The house opposite the jetty is our landmark and I look out for this as I'm on the final leg willing it to come into view as soon as possible. The house looks like a castle and has mock ramparts to boot! I'll take a picture next time I'm down so you can see what I mean. As the "castle" was coming into view I introduced my lazy leg beat and only succeeded in getting cramp in both calves. Nice one! I wonder whether this was down to the colder water or the cross training weights session I did yesterday morning or the run I went on yesterday lunchtime. Probably a combination of everything. The cramp is a little bit of a worry as I do not particularly want to have to deal with this whilst battling waves in the channel so will have a look at some magnesium supplements to try and get this sorted.
Right before the end we ploughed through an eyrar of swans (yes - eyrar is the collective noun!!) which can potentially be quite dangerous as swans can be quite aggressive. Fortunately they gave us a wide berth and we were not attacked.
Swim time was about 54 minutes which is pretty good going. I normally do 55-57 so it was definitely a little faster. Nothing like a little bit of cold water to get you going in the morning.
After the swim we were joined in the water by Billy the dog a Kerry Blue Terrier (I think). Billy belongs to the ladies that I have mentioned previously and seemed pretty interested in all the commotion. Perhaps he could join us next time!!??
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