Winter is Coming But Really Storm Doris?

For the first time this year the inclement weather threatened to derail my swimming. I had planned to do the Stanley Public Masters sessions with my new besties Claire and Shazza, but at lunch time all the talk was how we were going to have blizzard conditions by 3pm.

Now working in a rather remote area of the country at 900ft above sea level we know a thing or two about bad weather, and as the conversation turned to the impending climate apocalypse my swimming antenna began to twitch.

What if I couldn’t get home to get my swimming kit? What if I couldn’t get back up the hill to Stanley? What if the pool closed because of the weather? With visions of a February Fitness Fail flooding into my head there was only  one thing for it, go home and get my swim kit, so if all else failed I could walk to the pool from the office. Not really sure how I would’ve got home, mind you if things were so bad I was forced to walk to the pool.

Anyway costume collected and anxiety abated I sat out the afternoon waiting for the might of Storm Doris (god who on earth is charged with naming these things?) to drop 18 inches of snow on us.

Actually my curiosity has just gotten the better of me and I’ve googled it apparently it’s the Met Office and Met Eireann who chose this years names from 10,000 suggestions during a period of crowd sourcing!

But seriously guys “Doris” is the best you can come up with?  It hardly convey’s a picture of devastation or destruction. I think the rejected names are way more appropriate they include Baldrick! Voldemort! Vader! Stormaggedon and Branch Wobbler.  Looking at the list of names for 2017 I hope we get to 21 because I can’t wait for storm Wilbert!

Why should I be surprised that the Met Office are so inept at naming storms when they can’t even accurately predict the weather?  Although it was wet and windy and tried to snow on and off it was all pretty lame really, maybe Doris was appropriately named after all.

Anyway I decided to abandon the trip to Stanley with more than a little guilt for deserting Claire and Shazza (sorry girls next Tuesday?) and settled for the Public Lane Swimming session at Consett which advertises 4 lanes of swimming and then seques neatly into an adult session with 2 lanes. The miserable weather had obviously put everyone off because there were about 8 people in the pool when I arrived so I picked the best swimmer and got in  her lane.

I didn’t have a plan as I walked onto the pool side but I rather impetuously decided that I’d work my way through a 400 Hungarian, to my surprise it was going so nicely that I even added a final 400 swim down (8 x 50’s very slow) to cover 4000 metres in 75 minutes.

Thursday  23rd Consett Public session

400 Hungarian

• 400 swim steady @ 7:30
• 2 x 200 pull @ 3:40
• 4 x 100 pull @ 1:45
• 8 x 50 pull @ 55
• 16 x 25 pull @ 30
• 8 x 50 pull @ 55
• 4 x 100 pull @ 1:50
• 2 x 200 pull @ 3:40
• 400 pull
• 8 x 50 alt breast/free  drill/free @ 60
• 4000 metres