What do you do when you are swimming for close to two hours, and you get bored easily (PETER RYAN!!!)? What songs do you repeat over and over again in your mind? What songs are going to keep you going, are motivating and inspiring?
Whilst I would be quite happy listening to Sanne's version of 'Daar gaat ze' by Clouseau (very funny!), I think Pete (still not able to pronounce Geke's name properly) might struggle a bit with this Dutch classic.
Meanwhile we are training and training and training. Indoor swimming pools, outdoor swimming pools, ocean pools, and bold and beautiful ocean swims (see photos). Two steps forward, one step back. We increased our distance of open water swimming to 4km, only to have the flu knock us back down to 3km, and back to 4km again. This seems to be our ongoing routine.
As winter approaches, temperatures and daylight hours start decreasing. Our 6.30 am Sunday ocean swim turns into a swim in the dark. Whilst the die hards amongst the group (not us) happily swimming in the ocean in the dark with their little colored marker lights, we decided to stay at the beach and watch the floating Christmas tree of lights disappear around the corner.
I decided to put on a wetsuit, major struggle on a Sunday morning, but considering the temperatures (12 degrees air temperature, 21 degrees water temperature) worth a try. The first lap quickly cured me of that approach, three angry rub marks made me run out of the water to take off the wetsuit, and quickly jump back into the warm water to join the 7am group for our second lap. That was not the only reason though. All I could think of was this: it is dawn, we are swimming when the sharks are feeding, I am wearing a wetsuit and I look like a seal, the 6.30 am group is small, noooo, I dont like this, I dont like this at all!
One week later, on April 7, we put our swimming skills to the test: 5km at Balmoral beach at 7am. Two long skinny loops. It was difficult, very very difficult. But we did it! Both finishing in about 1 hour and 36 minutes!
And what have we been doing since: not much. Our rest week has turned into a rest month. Pete was down with a sinus infection and I was just being lazy. But we are picking up our training regime again. The question is, did we peak too early?!?!
Pete & Christa
