By Virginia Winder
Last night I was too exhausted to write, so went straight to bed as early as a chicken.
This week I discovered they retreat to the roost at first sign of darkening skies and so that's what I did.
Have been out of kilter with work-life balance and did a 2.30am start yesterday, which is plain stupid. But after feeling under the weather on Monday, I had no choice because meeting deadlines is an absolute must.
So is getting out there and exercising, which helps with everything - body, mind and spirit.
Went swimming with my niece, Rebekah, yesterday and she's not powering away as fast as before. She hasn't slowed down; I've sped up!
But one thing we did discover is that our kicking isn't great. We tried using flutter boards and kicking, but barely moved. We normally put on flippers for this, which gets our leg muscles working incredibly hard.
But au naturale we were useless.
Feeling despondent, I've just looked up a website called Swimsmooth and it's made me feel better.
It says: "Elite freestyle swimmers with world-class kicks only get a small fraction of their propulsion from their legs (about 10-15%). Most triathletes and amateur swimmers get next to no propulsion from their kick."
It goes on to say that we still need to kick a little to help with body position, but we only need to do a minimum to reserve energy. It's also important to kick with a straight leg from the hip because a bent knee causes drag.
That makes me want to get back in the pool right now to try it out.
I've also been doing Spike's schedule and that's working fine. Once again, I think I'll need to mix it up a bit more and to keep me challenged.
Also chatted to one of my brother's old friends, a bloke who, back in his rugby days, we called Tank.
He's done quite a few triathlons and says your fitness levels soar and the weight drops fast when you start doing two training sessions a day.
Had a few double-dose days, but they wipe me - so do 2.30am starts.
Tonight I'm going to go for a short bike ride and a long walk, to ease into those triathlon transitions.
See ya on the streets.
Yesterday, I:
Worked 13 hours
Slept for 3.5 hours
Swam 40 lengths of a 50m pool
Ran 14 lengths (so total 54)
Ate smaller meals and had more healthy snacks
Still failed on the water!
Drank two cups of coffee
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