Bedford Mile Swim

By Friday I was totally fed up of doing nothing so I checked out whether I could head to our normal lake for a 30min swim or so over the weekend just to keep the 'feel'. However the lake was being used as part of the Bedford Multi-Sports Weekend so I wouldn't have a chance to swim. Then I noticed they were running an Open-Water mile race on the Sunday morning which would suit - I would go easy of course........!

The race atmosphere was actually great. The sprint triathlon was also being run that morning and it was good to be back on the fringes of the sport I have been out of for nearly three years. It was like when I went to watch Sam at Bournemouth and now I just can't wait to get stuck into proper winter training and get strong and fit again!

A minor drama with my wetsuit ensued, which was basically due to the fact I haven't had in on for three years and had forgotten it was a top-down zip and having a two-minutes-before-start ripping it off panic as I thought the zip had broken, only to realise my mistake and have a frantic re-put back on scenario! We were set off at 7.45am and I tried to hold back and not get sucked into the whole competitive thing. I settled into a nice rhythm and felt smooth over the first 800m, I hadn't managed to get a draft off the start as there appeared to be two very distinct groups, one super fast and one slower and I seemed to be in no-man's land between them. In fact I basically swam alone for the entire race. I did get a bit more competitive in the final 800m and sped up a bit to try and catch up with 2 people about 15ms in front of me. I sighted better round the course and nearly caught them at each buoy only for them to pull away again down the straights. Nearing the end I caught someone trying to come up on my shoulder in my peripheral vision and, whilst mindful of the fact that I could have a Channel relay call-up later in the day, stretch out a bit just to hold them off. A scramble out of the lake and a 25m sprint into transition and we were done. I timed it around 28mins and the official clock came out as 27.55. Pretty happy with that compared with old OW olympic times done in 2005-2006 especially considering it wasn't full-on race mode.

All done and home before 9am for a lovely bath and a raisin bagel - good set up for the day!