The Road to London 26 days out: Desperate times require Desperate measures

Oh Bloody hell, only 26 days to go to the Europeans and no were near enough  water time for the Bingeswimmer.

But relying on my years of last minute cramming and finely honed ability to skid through life by the skin of my teeth, the solution seemed obvious to me and involved of course a Lanzarote binge.

With courage born of desperation I booked on the Spencer Swim Team’s annual training fest and was allocated an apartment with a couple of Butlers. I was disappointed to learn the resort hadn’t gone seriously upmarket and swanky. I was just kipping on the sofa of coaches Carol and Dave’s apartment.

By 5 o clock this evening I found myself in lane 4. being introduced to 4 swimmers I’d never met before, then the coach gave us the warm up. Oh dear simultaneous instructions and  introductions!

They were all of course incredibly polite and extremely reticent about  leading off, they seemed to think I was superhuman and invited me (actually pretty much insisted) to go first so I gamely struck out for the warm up; only to be passed in short order by everyone else in the lane and found myself in my usual position of hanging off the back.

Before I came out I received the training sessions for the week and figuring they must be important (well Brian only emailed me 43 times to tell me he’d sent them)

Being the dedicated swimmer I am, I had dutifully printed them out and in a moment of uncharacteristic OCD ness I’d even found a plastic pocket to keep them from completely disintegrating on the pool side.Anyway true to form I left them in my bag at the start of the session.

Looking at the 1:45 turn round time for the main set had filled me with dread. In a 50 m pool! in pretty blustery conditions! that was never going to happen!

Ah but our brilliant observant, compassionate and highly attuned to the needs of the swimmer “coach Dave” said we should do them on 2:15 what a relief! I wonder how long before he earns the title of Evil Mutant Swim Coach 9.0.

As you can see from the photo at the top the weather is very un Lanzaroteish, and I found myself after 1 hour and 20 minutes,the sole survivor in my lane,  a minor victory for the Northern fat lass against the Southern Softies!