An exaggeration in length

Before I proceed with this weeks blog update I want to bring two things to people's attention: the explanation of the cryptic title to this blog and the changes that I will be making to this blog.

Firstly, the exaggeration in length, and no I am not using this blog to publicly admit to having a little pecker. This is an admission that I have been overcooking my weekday swimming durations by 10%. On Friday I took one of my work mates, George Karolemeas, and fellow triathletes, to the pool that I use either before work or at lunch times for the last two years. On the bus ride I confidently responded to his question about the size of the pool stating that it was 25 metres. Now, in my defence if you are as short sighted as me and you use one '25 metre' pool you don't question the response of one of the life guards when asked him how long the pool is. Halfway through our drills my mate repeated his question and despite me reiterating my belief that it was a 25 metre pool one of the other swimmers leant across and corrected me that the pool was actually 22.5 metres. The long and short of this is that my swimming session have been overcooked by 10%. The fact that he laughed all day at my lack of attention to detail is making me consider elevating George from critical friend to Nemesis :-). Still on Saturday, at the London Fields Lido, before taking my glasses off to swim I sought out the sign that provides the dimensions of the pool. Thankfully I can report that at least this one is 50 metres long...

The second element to bring to the reader's attention is the fact of changes to the blog. My Director of Communications/Spin Doctor, the very same George Karolemeas, has given me some suggestions. The first is to keep the blogs shorter. I will try to incorporate brevity over subsequent blogs but I think this one will trail on a bit. The second is to post the monthly stats separately, so you will find this as one of the posts this week. This status will also include reference to distance between Barking and specific cities or towns to give perspective to my monthly swimming, running and cycling totals. The final recommendation is to try to use the blog to raise revenue for my Mencap total. Over the next few weeks I will be contacting Google and Amazon to see what rewards I can earn through advertisement on this Google powered blog and by recommending books on Amazon.

Right, onto the blog. I decided to kick on with my training this week to recover from the fact that my last week pettered out so Monday started with a 1000 metre swim followed by a 10k run in 50 minutes on the treadmill, to beat the snow. As I start my speed weeks I will continue to incorporate 10k runs on the treadmill in my weekly schedule with the target to get these down to 40 minutes. Tuesday consisted of a 10.5 mile run home through the melting snow which froze the majority of my extremities and also involved dodging surprises in the snow. Why is that Dog walkers seem to enjoy leaving their dog's feces to be covered by snow to be discovered by some unsuspecting walker or runner?

Wednesday comprised of a back to back session of 700 metre swim followed by 45 minute spin session with Thursday scheduled as a rest day for an early Valentines Day meal with my wife. The meat sweats after eating nearly 550g of steak at Gaucho's was made tolerable by the fact that it has got me a pass of the real Valentines Day to watch West Ham against Southampton. Not very romantic but it is football and it is a big game that will hopefully keep momentum up on Big Sam's promotion bandwagon.

Friday, a 10.5 mile run into work to start the day and the lunchtime swim of 1000 metres that caused the exaggeration in length to be discovered. It was a real shame that I was really busy at work this week, the bastards, as it meant that I couldn't completed as many swimming sessions so Saturday's swimming session became a priority. The 1 hour 24 minute 4k swim was incident packed involving two collisions with some of the neurotic swimmers that seem to occupy the pools I frequent. Still, as I said to one of the swimmers, if they insist on doing tumble turns in a busy lane whilst trying to use the wall to overtake other swimmers then why should I feel guilty that his head made contact with my foot... Saturday concluded with a 15.5 mile run and Sunday consisted of a 1 hour core strength session of dumbbells and ab exercises.

The big change of the week was around my dietary habits. Its seems that the increased training has meant I am eating like a Hobbit. Using Friday as an example I started with a first breakfast of cereals, second breakfast at work after my run of granola, elevenses of tuna, first lunch of a baguette, second lunch of a bagel and cheesecake, afternoon tea of dried mango, a few beers with work colleagues and finally couscous at home. Just typing this is making me hungry... :-)

Weekly totals are 6,400 metres of swimming (revised lengths) and 41 miles of running.

Next week I will be starting my speed training as there is now only 9 weeks to go to the Paris Marathon. In addition I will be beginning to research the expedition food that I will take with me to the Sahara. Hopefully in my next blog I can also report on three more points for the Hammers.

TTFN...