The 6am Swim

Up at 6am and off with L for an early morning swim in the 50m pool at Harvey Hadden. The boys come too and then I drop the three of them back at Harrow Road for their morning walk and ball chuck.

It seemed to work quite well, although L did get home to find that next door’s builders had cheekily parked on our drive. They did at least have the decency to be apologetic about it and she let them stay put.  I make it to work on time, just. As everyone is off ill, there is at least room in the car park.

It's back to the grind for both of us. L dealing with all the work her office junior has diligently saved up for her and me with all the work nobody’s even looked at.

The much anticipated and much dreaded A52\Pride Park junction roadworks start today with a month of pre-works, mainly tree felling I believe, which won’t apparently affect the A52 itself but still manages to lock up Sainsbury’s at lunchtime.

After work, L and the new lodger head off to the gym while I go for a quickie myself.

The Oscars have been presented, again before we have managed to see all of the candidates. For saying the boost the awards season gives to film going they don’t seem to manage is very well in the UK. Most of the films were out in America late last year but don’t tend to be released over here until about now, at the point they’re already handing the awards out. Surely it would be beneficial to either get the films out here earlier or push the awards ceremonies back a month or so?

(Monday 27^th February)

Rattle Unrattled

Apparently the two new tramlines in Nottingham have started running today WITH passengers after months of ghosting around empty.

L is having her latest injury diagnosed by her GP, the verdict is a trapped femoral nerve or something or other. I'll google it but whatever it is I’m jealous of yet another eclectic injury.

The car is back in the garage hopefully finally getting its rattle unrattled. It’s having a new timing belt fitted which will hopefully cure it.

I partake in possibly my last ever swim at John Carroll with the new Olympic Pool opening next week. I do 50 lengths which is enough so close to Saturday’s Vitruvian.

(Tuesday 25^th August)

Secret Sessions

Nottingham’s new 50m Olympic Pool is opening imminently or more precisely on 1^st September or at least that’s the rumour. Hard facts such as opening times and swim timetables are proving impossible to come by.

The rumours are being fuelled by the nomadic former Beechdale dwellers whose pool is in a phased closure and they seem to be dividing their time between secret sessions at the new pool and clogging up the shower cubicle queue at John Carroll where L swims most mornings.

I wonder if they will have more than two showers at the new pool? Fingers crossed. L requests that they come with no doors and absolutely nowhere for people to hang their bath towels, dressing gowns or slippers in order to bring down waiting times. I hope she put that on the pre-opening survey they sent out a few weeks ago.

L runs with Sweatshop tonight and I take our champion hound dogging. Doggo manages to drag himself up off his new bed to join us in a supporting role. He does love his new bed although I’ve not seen him thank MD for it yet. 

(Monday 17^th August)

High Security

I always diligently collect Sainsbury’s Active Kids vouchers and then hand them over to our local Primary School. Today I try but couldn't get anywhere near the place. The existing high security fences have now been joined by high security electronic gates controlled by keypad access. So I have to abort, I’ll try again tomorrow. In my day they used to do that sort of thing to keep the kids in, these days it’s to keep undesirables baring vouchers out.

I'm back on the bike today and I risk the freshly stone-chipped road through Borrowash. As long as you ride two foot away from the kerb, where’s there’s a scale model of something akin to the scree slope at the top of Snowdon’s Watkin Path, its ok. Some drivers don’t seem too happy with that but that’s their problem. I pay my ‘road tax’.

L points out a book called ‘Sex, Lies & Triathlon’. What a great title.

 

A couple of quotes

“Basically, a good hard workout is like the exact opposite of casual sex: You always dread it beforehand, but afterwards you’re always really glad you did it.”

“Competing in the Ironman is hardly the kind of windfall one normally associates with winning a lottery. It’s like getting a letter in the mail that says, in giant 24-point type, ‘CONGRATULATIONS! YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY WON 12 HOURS OF EXCRUCIATING MISERY AND PAIN!!’”

Sounds great, it’s on the Christmas list.

Talking of the ‘T’ word, swim training tonight. We again head up to Sheffield’s Olympic pool at Ponds Forge and I do the required 16 lengths e.g. one mile. L has to outdo me of course and does a full hour but then she does have double the distance to do next week.

(Tuesday 4^th June)