Aquathon

The swimming continues. For my endurance swims I'm up to 750m. So I had my first sea swim today and was surprised at how it went. I didn't seem to mind the cold, though today wasn't particularly cold so that probably explains that. Swallowing sea water was a pain in the arse though. What was going wrong was the fact that I kept panicing, for reasons unknown to me, and stopping and standing up. I have no idea why. I couldn't swim further than a few metres without stopping. Other annoying things include my goggles letting in water the whole time. God only knows what's gonna happen at tomorrow night's Aquathon I've entered but I'm hoping that in a situation where I HAVE to swim that I'll just get on with it. Here's hoping I can complete the 750m. Otherwise I'll be gutted.
On the positive side apparently I was swimming in a straight line and that's good.

Training continues.

Well I'm continuing with the swimming. The kids being off this week has meant getting up at 6am to swim before Tony goes to work. This has left me knackered because I'm not going to bed early to make up for it.

I have improved but I'm unsure if I'm on track with the deadlines I've set: 400 metres in 4 weeks. I've enlisted the help of a triathlon/ swim coach and I'm meeting him for the second time on Tuesday. He's going to make me up a training programme for the ironman suited to my strengths and weaknesses i.e. lots of swimming and probably winging the other stuff for the time being!! Like he said, it won't be pretty, I'm not looking to break any records, just to complete it. I've already agreed if he thinks it's not do-able I will scrap the idea and continue training, but for one next year.
I won't be wallowing in disappointement; if it doesn't happen I'll pick an Autumn marathon or maybe even an adventure race and try learn new skills.

Until the decision is made though it's all swimming, swimming, swimming....

Ironman Attempt

I met a swim coach early on Wednesday morning so that he could assess how my swimming is. Last January I secretly (!) entered for an ironman but always knew my swimming would be completely starting from scratch. Before the marathon I kept up basic swim lessons just to learn to swim the strokes properly. I always knew it would be after the marathon that I would decide fully if I was gonna go ahead with the training. So I met the coach and after a few minutes he said he was 70 per cent sure I could attempt the ironman in 4 months. They sounded like good odds to me. After the hour he reckoned if I could swim 400 metres in 4 weeks I would be capable of continuing with the ironman training. That sounds like a plan to me. So I will give that a shot. My technique aopparently isn't too bad but my biggest problem is the breathing. I can't get it right. I swallow tonnes of water. I panic and keep my head up or if anything upsets me in the water I stop. I can just about make a 25 meter length without stopping. But one length is it...... It doesn't sound good does it? But I'll give the 4 weeks a shot. I'll try and swim almost every single day and see if I can do it. Hopefully I can keep up a little cycling and running too. ;-)
If it doesn't work out I will go for it again next year.