Had 4 pints and half a bottle of wine last night…. had to be done….. United won for the second time in a row and I just needed a beer…. and a spicy curry…. (note to self – no more spicy curries the night before a huge swim).
Even still, I woke up fresh, got my swimming plan done, energy drinks made, loaded up on carbs, shaking with energy ready to go….. get to the Horwich Leisure Centre….. Closed due to the Sports Relief Swimathon???
Luckily, the helpful lady at the desk called all of the leisure centres around and found Farnworth Leisure Centre was open and available for the 4 hours needed to do the distance training.
I went unsure what to expect but Farnworth Leisure Centre is GREAT! It’s clean, the changing rooms are fantastic and the pool had lots of room to swim, even on a “busy day” as they had the Swimathons on too.
I spoke to lots of people who were interested in what I was doing, received a lot of excellent feedback and good lucks 🙂
The swim went really well, my energy wasn’t too terrible as I’m learning to take the energy drinks at the right time, every 10 mins when I was really feeling the drain. I spent a bit more time having breaks between each section including talking to people, taking toilet breaks and making up more drinks. I was still completely exhausted though and can sympathise with Angela with having a quarter of a husband for the rest of the day.
| Warm Up | First Sub-Section | Main Section | Second Sub-Section | Cool Down | |
| Lengths | 50 | 60 | 120 | 60 | 50 |
| Pace | 60% | 80% | See Below | 70% | 60% |
| Minutes | 50 | 44 | 79 | 51 | 50 |
| Actual | 31 | 38 | 74 | 43 | 34 |
| Main Section 1 | Main Section 2 | Main Section 3 | Main Section 4 | |
| Lengths | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 |
| Minutes | 25 | 25 | 25 | 25 |
| Actual | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| Pace | 80% | 80% | 80% | 80% |
I found the swim a lot easier and it went a lot quicker than the 280 length swim I did last Sunday. It was a bit surreal seeing all of the people doing swimathons and the support they were getting from family and friends who came down to support them.
I celebrated in my head when I went over the 300 and 333 lengths milestones! 420 next week and I’m going to Farnworth again because I was really impressed. Plus I found out that the pool is open 9am to 4pm which is 7 hours, probably enough to do the 600 lengths practice swim but still not enough to do the 800 practice swim.
I’m starting to feel really confident now, actually believing I can do A Thousand Lengths in several weeks!
Run Fat Ging Run 