New for Old

Day 3 of this Darwin trip and my adventures in exercise continued today. Today's adventure was swimming.

Being away from home for work certainly has plenty of downsides, not seeing my family rating highly among them, but one of the few upsides is the free time that is suddenly liberated. When you are away for work there isn't much else to be doing in the early mornings and evenings, no kids to feed or put to bed, no stories to read or games to play. Even starting work early and finishing late you tend to have a bit of time for some exercise at one end of the day or the other, so that is just what I have been doing. I don't have quite enough time for any crazy training, but it has been nice to get away from the work at least a little bit to spend some time doing some enjoyable exercise.

The swimming part of today took place at Darwin's newest old pool, the Parap pool. I say the newest old pool because I am pretty sure it was the first pool built in Darwin. However, the pool is also brand new because it has undergone a complete refurbishment. When I say complete I mean it, they basically dug out the pool and started again. Parap was a lovely old pool that had a few quirks (like it being 50 yards long rather than 50m), but the new facility is simply an awesome modern aquatic centre. The only pool in the Northern Territory to be FINA compliant and also the only pool in the NT to be temperature regulated. Also a 25m lap pool, the only public one in Darwin I think, plus a whole bunch of shiny new building etc. Very nice. The only thing lacking is the kids facilities and play areas but I gather they may be on their way.

The swimming itself wasn't to bad an experience either. Being a new pool it was a little busy by Darwin standards, which meant I had to share my lane with one other person for part of my swim, but all the same I had a good session.

The session was quite a simple one. I didn't bring any pool toys up so I didn't include any drills, opting instead to have a straight up swim set. After a bit of a warm up which was quite a shock to the system I got through a simple session of 10 x 100m and 5 x 200m. It was nice to see that I was able to make it through a set of 200s, but rocketing I was not. Still I was pretty happy to be holding an average pace of 1:30/100m pace or quicker. I needed a bit more recovery time between 100s than I would usually have (15 seconds), but still it was great to be able to consistently work through the set.

Tomorrow I have another long day at work and so if I am lucky I might be able to sneak a run in the morning, but I think that will probably be the extent of my exercise. Friday morning will be quiet again before I head home to Perth and so hopefully that means I will have a bit of time for another swim down at Parap before work. Fingers crossed.