Earlier mornings

 A couple of days after returning from Auckland and the not-so-cold Iceberg, a new adventure presented itself.  WRAC, where I swim on Tuesday and Thursday mornings with Bonobo Squad, would be closing for its five-yearly maintenance, meaning that the squad would move to Thorndon Pool during this time. Not only would this mean swimming in an open-air pool during the two coldest months of the winter at 6am, it would also mean getting dressed in the very 'well-ventilated' changing sheds. This sheds, picturesque and well-loved as they are, can be cold in summer, so 7.30am in the winter would be quite the experience.  I was very fortunate that our patient and forbearing coach, Timon, was happy to collect a few carless swimmers from outside WRAC at 5.45am on swim days, and I was very grateful for this! However, getting up at about 5.15am instead of 5.30am – alongside starting a new job for a term – proved surprisingly tiring. The first two weeks were a grind, and while I love Thorndon, getting used to swimming 30.5m per length rather than 25, also felt weird. Still, we had some glorious sunrises as compensation for the appalling and gruelling hardships, as well as the benefit of the ‘$6 breakfast’ available at the café over the road after swimming.

Behold the glorious view of the sunset o'er the showerblock 

As the weeks went on, and I became more used to the loss of 15 minutes of sleep, and the extra 5 metres to swim in every length, it did become fun. After six weeks – and only a few times when there was really cold weather/rain/hail – I felt much livelier. As we were swimming in yards (the pool is really 33 1/3 yards long), the opportunity to see what it felt like to ‘swim in American’ (i.e., yards) offered opportunities to test oneself over different intervals/distances. On 17 August, we did a fun set of 3 x 400, (1) cruise, (2) stronger, (3) effort. My first was about 5:17, the second 5:10, and the third, 5:03.  I’d actually thought we were doing a fourth, so had held back a tiny bit … and wished I hadn’t because it would have been nifty to go <5:00.  ‘Next time ….’ I thought.