What happened next (Part 1)

Freyberg, looking a little empty on Wednesday 18 March.

If you bravely persevered to the end of my previous post, you'll have read that I had my post-swim breakfast on 20 March at Source. It was delicious, French toast and some sort of grilled banana, with bacon. Anyway, while we were sitting there chatting the news came through (why does news always 'come through'?) that Auckland City Council were closing pools, libraries, the art gallery, and other similar council facilities at the end of that day. News that the pools were to shut gave the table of swimmers pause for thought, but as we were sitting about five minutes' walk from some very nice sea, the loss of pools didn't seem like the end of the world.

I spent the rest of Friday lodged in my cell-like room at Auckland YHA International. Actually, it was more like a sepulchre than a cell, and the smell of stale greasy food permeated the air. The window was horizontal, narrow, and very high up the wall. When the torrential rain began, the window seemed to catch most of it, and funnel it down onto my neck. When I closed the window, the smell intensified. Still, I could absorb myself in doing some marking.

And so Friday night passed. The news on Thursday night that NZ's borders were closed, and the new news about the council facilities closing in Auckland made me distinctly uneasy, as did the crowds in the YHA cooking and eating area. Meanwhile, friends I'd tentatively arranged to see on Friday and Saturday morning were beset with Covid and work-related difficulties, so my plan for Saturday morning breakfast in Mt Eden (handily on the SkyBus route) wouldn't work. Besides which,  The best plan seemed to involve a good sleep (even if I hadn't swum 20km, the busy Thursday, and the very early start on Friday and a longish swim all conspired to make me a bit tired) then get up at 8am, have breakfast, pack up my room, and head to the airport. It was hard, in fact really hard not to think about 2019, and all the feelings of elation after finishing Chopper, the happy hugs with my kayaker and other swimmers whom I didn't know, but we'd all done something joyous so hugging was natural, the glorious feeling of the hot shower, the delicious dinner with friends, and then falling into bed (before waking in the small hours of the morning with bewildering arm-agony and vast thirst). Everything started to feel a bit sad and doom-laden.

Saturday's plan worked well. I was at the airport by 9.30am, and there weren't many people around. I went through security, and settled down near gate 23 (I think) to wait for my 1pm flight, drink some surprisingly delicious coffee, eat some baked goods I'd carefully transported from New World) and do some more marking... The flight itself was also pretty empty.

Shortly after I arrived at home, unpacked, and showered away all the Auckland/aeroplane grime/germs, I saw the news that Wellington City Council was closing pools, and libraries, and other recreation facilities.

To say this news felt as an existential blow would be an understatement. The pools, particularly WRAC, Freyberg, and Thorndon, are not just places to exert, hurt, gasp, and flail. They are social centres: places to loiter, chat with other regular habitues, enjoy hot showers and the occasional spa, drink coffee on cold days after winter swimming, relax, imbibe the ambience, inhale the disinfectant, watch people do weird stuff - the man who decided that hand paddles should be worn on the feet, for example. 

In addition to the social blow, there was the horrifying thought, 'what will happen to my interval set project?' This, as dedicated readers may recall, is my goal of doing 10x100 @1.30.  As of the second week of March I was getting much closer, doing the 10x100 as 1 @ 1.40 - 2@1.30 x 3 three times. What would happen to me if I couldn't pursue this project?  Surely my life would crumble? I'd lose all fitness, I'd get SLOWER.  It is amazing that, in the face of global catastrophe, misery, and much death, all that really worried me was the possibility of getting slower.

But is this really so irrational? There's really not much that I can do about global catastrophe (or is there? I shall pursue this theme in Part 2)  but one thing I can control, with the aid of my great friend the Pace Clock, is how fast I can keep swimming 100-metre intervals. It's really quite disorientating to have that little daily/weekly goal taken away.  I suppose it's much like having an injury, but then an injury isn't imposed on you from outside (hmmm, well, often outside factors contribute to an injury, but still, the process of recovery comes 'from within').

Anyway, the sea was still there, and I figured that if I perhaps splashed out on a swim watch or a tempo trainer, I could incorporate some sort of structured interval training into sea swims. This would be the autumn/winter in which we all became incredibly tough. Thus I made public my intention to swim every morning at 7.30am from Freyberg Beach.