Sinking not swimming…

This year I need to focus on my swimming. A month of 2015 has gone by and I’ve really not achieved very much yet. If I’m going to complete the Scilly Swim Challenge, I’m going to need to start pushing myself soon.

I have to be able to swim a mile in 40 mins (consistently), which is just under 25 mins per km. My average for January was 26:32/km which isn’t good enough. I also only swam 2.8km in the whole month*. That’s the least I’ve swum in a month since I got my Garmin 910XT at Christmas in 2013. I’ve already swum 2km so far this month, so I should be able to surpass my January achievements.

*Maybe I should cut myself a little slack as I wasn’t allowed to swim for most of January as a consequence of having laser eye surgery in December.

I’m trying to work out what I should do as training for the Scilly Swim Challenge – I’ve got 30 weeks (7 months), but in that time, I need to train for: my cycling trip to Japan, Southampton Half Marathon and Ironman Dublin 70.3.

I’ve had a look at various training plans online:

• Training manual – Dart 10k
• Long distance training plan by Kate Vines (targeting a 17km swim)

The recommendation seems to be that I need to swim at least 15-20km a week. As a minimum, I want to be able to swim 6km in one go, so I’m going to need to get myself to the lake for a lot of open water swimming. However, the lake doesn’t open until April and I know that my lungs really dislike me being in cold water.

If anyone can recommend a training schedule (either online or a book), I’d love to hear from you. I’ve read plenty of training plans for iron distance swimming (3.8km) and for 5km swims, but there’s not a lot out there for the distance I want to do.

Several of the sites that I’ve read whilst looking for information have said that cycling and running won’t really help with swimming, but that Pilates or yoga will. I’ve not been able to go to yoga for a year now, but I’d love to go back. One of my yoga teachers has shared some short practices online. This one, yoga for neck and shoulder tension, is a nice five-minute practice:

If you enjoyed that, Laura has a YouTube channel, so you might want to subscribe.

I’m also on the look out for a new wetsuit. My 2XU wetsuit has done me well for the last couple of years, but it’s now too big for me, so I’m searching for something that fits me better, to get me through the 2015 season (and hopefully beyond!) I know that it will come down to what is available in my size, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on different brands and models.

If nothing else works, I’m hoping that this TED Talk by the completely awesome long distance swimmer Diana Nyad will inspire me to get back in teh water more frequently. It’s called ‘Never, ever give up’:

---

Stuart is doing the Scilly Swim Challenge with me. This event will take both of us out of our comfort zone, so we’re hoping to raise some money for an important charity (Chestnut Appeal for Prostate Cancer) along the way. If you’d like to sponsor us, please visit: https://www.justgiving.com/TamsynandStuswim/

A slow start to January

I went out for my first run since I had laser eye surgery yesterday. I’ve been desperate to go out for a run. I didn’t want to push too hard and was looking to have a social run, but I didn’t see anyone I knew who was going to be running at conversational pace – possibly because it was cold, wet and windy.

Nearly finished!

I knew that the run was going to be tough as I’ve not eaten well for the last two weeks, which was made worse by the total lack of exercise. I also realised at the start of the run that I had forgotten to pick up an inhaler, so I had to be careful. Every time that I started to have breathing problems, I slowed down a bit. Fortunately,  this strategy seemed to work. It wasn’t a fast run, but I finished:

Now, I just need to start eating healthily again and get back on the training wagon, to knock three+ minutes off that time!

Amusingly, in the evening, I received this email:

Clearly, if I want to receive a cheerful email, I need to go out at a fast pace on my first run of the month!

I read this post on RunKeeper this week: Brian: Losing 365 pounds and getting my life back. It’s really inspirational, so I urge you to read it.

If you use RunKeeper and want to connect with me, I’m here: http://runkeeper.com/user/fatgirltoironman

I tend to ‘use’ quite a few exercise trackers (mostly as I use tapiriik to sync my data to all of them)

• Garmin Connect: http://connect.garmin.com/profile/Tamsyn
• Strava: http://www.strava.com/athletes/tamsyn
• RunBritain: http://www.runbritainrankings.com/runners/profile.aspx?athleteid=246411
• Endomondo: https://www.endomondo.com/profile/3332013

GarminConnect is my main tracker, but I quite like what Strava does. I also like their new code of conduct: Stand with us.

If you want to find me anywhere else, you can also find me:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fatgirltoironman
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/tamsynsmith
• Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/tamsynmsmith/
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/tamsynmsmith

I’m also doing Jantastic again this year: https://www.jantastic.me/ It’s a challenge that runs through January, February and March, where you set your own goal sand then aim to meet them. I had to reset my goals as I had intended to swim at least twice a week throughout January. I’m not allowed to swim again for a few more weeks, so I had to change that goal.

This morning, Teri and I had agreed to run, but she also needed to go to junior parkrun with her children, so I agreed to go along and marshal as well before we went for our run.

Initially, I didn’t think it was very cold out as there wasn’t any frost, but after standing around for just over half an hour, I was definitely feeling the cold. I took off my jogging trousers and put them in Teri’s car, but couldn’t bring myself to remove my running jacket as I just had a short-sleeved t-shirt on underneath.

We started off at a steady pace – mainly because I couldn’t go any faster. We ran around Riverside Park, which was a nice change from running on The Common. Then we headed along some of the route of Southampton Half Marathon. It’s quite hilly, so I know that I need to do lots of hill-training between now and April.

On the way to The Common, we saw Irene and Alice from Lordshill Road Runners, then on The Common we saw Rob and Nick out running. It’s lovely that whenever I go for a run I see people I know.

Still wearing sunglasses to protect my eyes

This afternoon, I’ve been in the kitchen. I’m hoping to plan all of my meals for the week and also prepare my breakfast and lunch for tomorrow to try to get the week off to a good start. For tea tonight (and tomorrow and Wednesday), we’re going to have a home-made chilli – yummy! It’s quite a simple dish:

• 3 cloves garlic
• chilli powder
• paprika
• coriander
• cinnamon
• ginger
• 2 tsp chipotle paste
• 2 tsp molasses
• miscellaneous dried herbs
• 2 tins tomatoes
• 1 small tin tomato puree
• 2 large onions
• 2 carrots
• red pepper (capsicum)
• green pepper
• spinach
• 2 sticks celery
• 4 mushrooms
• 1 large courgette
• 1 can borlotti beans
• 1 can kidney beans
• 1 can pinto beans

It’s a smoky bbq type chilli as a consequence of the chipotle paste and the molasses. It’s also a dish that improves after a day or two. I quite often cook large one-pot meals like this, so that I don’t need to cook every day.

As I’ve not been able to go out and exercise, I’ve watched a few TV programmes online. I finally had a chance to watch ‘The Adventure Show’ on BBC iPlayer. The episode that I was interested in was episode 5, which is one that focused on a group of cyclists doing an Audax event in Scotland. This is something that I would like to do one day, but I need to build up my cycling quite a lot before it happens!

I also watched an excerpt from the Graham Norton show, featuring Bradley Wiggins:

What have you been up to?

4:59/km – my best ever average race pace!

My second swimming session with SUTRI was much more successful than my first session. This was because the pool was far less crowded. There were three of us in the slow lane: Rebecca (who I met last week), a young guy who was just learning and me. In total we swam 1500m, mainly broken into 25m and 50m reps. We did quite a few drills, with fairly long recovery times, which I found helpful. I’ll definitely be going back again.

Today was my first ‘race’* since my training holiday, and it went better than I expected. My 5k PB is 25:08 (with my Southampton parkrun PB being 25:14, which I ran on 30/11/13).

I’ve only run under 26 minutes 5 times at Southampton parkrun – this was my 3rd fastest time on the course. In total, I’ve now run under 26 minutes 11 times. I felt quite strong and think that if I keep training, eat well and start in a better position then I might be able to achieve a PB. It was also the first event where I’ve managed to maintain a sub 5min/km pace 😀

I love the stats that parkrun produces. I was 35/178 women, which means that I was in the top 20% of the female runners, and in the top half of the entire field. I was 3/26 women in my age category – yay! Podium finish!

This afternoon, Stuart and I went to watch our nephew, J,  play hockey. Given that he’s only 14 and his team were playing against the University of Southampton team, he did really well. It was raining really hard, so we took cover at the main stand. This meant that we were trying to watch J’s match on a pitch beyond where an American football match was taking place. It’s not a game that I understand, but I think Stu appreciated it!

I’ve also been adding lots of items to my Christmas wish list today. This blog post – The 10 must read cycling books of 2014 – has inspired several of my choices. I read Gironimo! a few weeks ago and loved it… it made me feel that I have the ability to restore a vintage bicycle.

Something that isn’t on my Christmas wish list is an entry to The Swimmer – at least not until Spring or early Autumn. It sounds like a fascinating event, where a half marathon is broken up with six open water swims. Thanks to Teri for sharing a recent Guardian article about it: The perfect joy of swimming and running through London.

Stu has now booked flights for our trip to Japan next year and he’s also booked a lot of the accommodation. Firming up this part of our plans means that I can start to plan my spring events more carefully now. It’s very exciting and I can’t help but feel that I ought to go back to studying Japanese as I’ve got a bit rusty.

I’ve also booked a consultation about laser eye surgery, which I’m hoping might make triathlons easier… although I saw my optician today for a contact lens check up and he suggested just using daily disposable lenses. I’m going to find out what they say at the consultation before making any decisions. It would be wonderful to wake up and be able to see without glasses. It really is something that could change my life.

*Yes, I know that parkrun isn’t technically a race, but I was racing myself 🙂