Swimming through August

Saturday 29 August


The grey and tempestuous picture is from the penultimate sea-swim of winter. On that morning I swam at WRAC 6am-7am, and then after a restorative snack, took the bus to Freyberg, met Rebecca, and we set out for a dip in the sea, taking in the 2nd yellow marker buoy, and the fountain.  The water was warming up, ever so slightly, and I had my big coat to wear so that the alfresco coffee afterwards was really quite toasty.  Total of 5km.




The previous week I did an early morning at WRAC, fitting in just over 3km in 55 minutes: the pool opened bang on 6am, which meant we weren't in the water until 6.05ish and had to clear out promptly at 7.00am.  After a scone and much-needed coffee, I pedalled like the wind over to Worser Bay to meet Eliza and Cat. After carefully stowing my brand new swim bag in their brand new car, we struck out for Seatoun and achieved our goal in bizarrely swift time, so made the return trip at a rapid rate to see if it was a fluke. Seemingly we were in a swift state that day, so once back at the Big Rock (pictured in the centre of the picture above), we went back to the pink buoy for an extra 500-metre loop. The day was extremely delightful, making our exit from the water an unwelcome prospect knowing that the air would be colder than the water.  I decided not to repeat the mistake of getting dressed in the freezing ice-box toilets and pedalled home as fast as I could. Total of 5.1km

In the pool, my aim over August was to make 25km weeks, and this I pretty much achieved. The week of 24 August didn't go quite according to plan, as our Sunday session was a bit short. 

Week beginning 3 August: 25.6km
Week beginning 10 August: 25.56km
Week beginning 17 August: 25.33km
Week beginning 24 August: 24.48km

The #5kFriday is now an institution, and I try do around 5.2-5.4km in just over an hour and a half, generally with quite a long swim at the start, and then some faster set, depending on crowds in the lane. As we're back at Covid Alert Level 2, because of the clusters in Auckland, Freyberg is using wide lanes for public swimming, and sometimes navigating these lanes is like dodgems. 

Here's the #5kFriday set from Friday 28 August, in a 33 1/3 metre pool. 






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