Apocalypse Now

Been a bit of a day today. Well at least the first part was.

Yesterday I mentioned that some extreme weather was forecast and overnight it arrived with bells on. When we went to bed it didn't seem that bad, but overnight a reasonably aggressive storm hit town. By the time I was up to go swimming the rain was coming through in torrential squalls and there was a bit of lightning around. Never have I been so tempted to turn around and drive home on my way to the pool, not because I didn't feel like swimming, but just because I was so certain that the pool would be closed.

Sure enough, once I got to the pool there was a lot of people milling around, but not a lot of people heading in. However, it wasn't because of lightning like I expected, but rather because a power surge had knocked out all the lights and they couldn't let people into the pool in the dark. With nothing else to do people started to drift off and head home. I was chatting for a while and was just about to head back to the car, trying to figure out when I was going to do my swim, when all of a sudden the lights came back on and it was show time again.

It made for a very quiet squad session, since most people had headed home. But on the bright side it also meant that I did the whole session solo. Nothing like a solo session to test out exactly how you are going. Turns out that I am going okay. I didn't feel like it during the session. The set of was made up of a some longer stuff and a bunch of 100s on very tight turn arounds. During the session it just felt plain hard, but afterwards I had a think about the times I was doing the 100s on and realised that not so long ago that wouldn't have been possible. Slow but gradual improvements, until the remarkable becomes the norm. That is what consistent work brings and it is one of the things I love about the philosophy that Daryl and Swim Smooth bring to training.

Other than a bit of a wild swim session, the day included a series of other training related tasks. First it was off to Sportstreat for a massage. I only had time for a shorter massage today so I hit up the quads and hip flexors which have been a bit tight of late. It is always nice when you have time for a full massage, but something is better than nothing I figure. Certainly feeling a lot better after some tough but fair treatment from Amy the massage therapist.

The final activity for the day was to go and pick up the P5 from the miracle workers at Churchill Cycles. I can't thank them enough for the work they did, getting the bike turned around in no time. They had carried out their usual magic and the P5 is back to humming like a well oiled machine (which it is). As part of the work the guys removed and replaced the culprit bottom bracket bearing.

Doesn't look like much does it, but it sure can cause a lot of trouble. In this case the bearing is seized completely solid, you can't turn it at all, which I find amazing. Also shows how quickly these parts can degrade when they are exposed to unfriendly conditions. Hopefully the bike is back on song now.

The bike better be back on song anyway, since we are probably going to be spending a fair bit of time together tomorrow. I say probably because nice weather is not assured, although fine is looking likely. But that is an issue for the morning. First some sleep.