C O L D

It was one of those mornings where your alarm goes off, you roll out of bed, then think to yourself, 'it feels like it is three, maybe four degrees out there, what I need to do now is head to the pool, strip off all my clothes and jump in'. At this point a little bit of your brain called common sense pipes up and says, 'wait a second, this doesn't sound like the best idea we have ever had'. But luckily in most athletes, including triathletes, common sense doesn't get much exercise, so it isn't very loud. This means the rest of your brain is able to easily shout it down and say 'Shush you, this will be awesome'. So off to the pool you go.

Needless to say it was cold, although the pool was lovely and warm.

The swim was good though, a morning of 100s pretty much. All 100s all the time. The main set was 5 groups of 4 x 100. Each set of 4 was done 1 second quicker than the set before. Using the wetronome you have nowhere to hide, if you aren't making the quicker time, you know about it. Very interesting set. During the first set of 100s, which were on a pretty easy time, I was still finding I was only just making them. I was left thinking, 'I have to find another 4 seconds to make the last set, how am I gong to do that'. But interestingly as the sets get quicker, you tend to find the speed. Finding another gear for one set, holding your pace in the last 25m for another set. Each little change finding you a bit of speed. Don't get me wrong the last set of still tough, but we got there. Was one of those sessions where you feel quite happy with yourself for completing. I have found the Thursday afternoon/Friday morning session with SwimSmooth tend to be like that.

Somebody at the pool had one of these this morning. My three year old daughter has a similar towel, hers looks like a crocodile, but I have never seen an adult version. I now want one. Sure this one doesn't look like a crocodile, but you can't have it all. I think I would settle for the toasty warm.

Hoodie Towel

At the pool we discussed adding a belt and tie and just wearing it all day. Sounds like a plan.

The ride from the pool to work is only short, but my motivation to do it was severely lacking this morning, given the temperature. I had a T-shirt on under my cycling jersey, just for a bit more warmth. I also had my arm warmers on. As a result, there was a small sliver of my upper arm that was under an arm warmer, the sleeve of my T-shirt and the sleeve of my cycling jersey. That bit of my arm was in a happy place. The rest of me was in varying degrees of less happy. Still the ride is only short, so the less happy didn't last long.

I am now off to get a cup of coffee so I can soak my hands in it to warm up.