Playing the waiting game.....

This has been such a challenging week. I was tired after walking in the dales so I decided that it was sensible to take Monday off from training and just have a good stretch. With a little latent fatigue in the muscles I decided just to swim on Tuesday to keep the 'feel' for the water. By Wednesday I was somewhat tearing my hair out with the lethargy I was feeling which always comes when I have to taper my training back. The big problem with not knowing when we are due to swim the Channel is that I cannot taper properly. In a normal taper you would reduce the duration of sessions but keep the frequency and intensity pretty much the same, this helps avoid the stale feeling you can get whilst tapering but also allows the body to rest. I don't want to do anything high impact or strenuous before the swim but because I don't know exactly when I am swimming, this means that pretty much every day has to turn into a rest day, 'just in case' we are summound on two hours notice to head to Dover. And I am going a bit doollaly! I broke free a bit on Thursday and did a very gentle and short brick session with 30mins on the bike followed by a transition to a 5min run. Am trying to not run at all at the moment to keep the impact down but I figure 5mins couldn't hurt! For once, and this is quite quite rare(!), I am missing running. I was just feeling like I was making progress and with the drop in weight, it was starting to feel a bit easier. Grrr........

So, rant over (you can see I have too much energy!). On the positive side I have been in talks with Chocolate Fish Merino who supply fantastic merino training products from base layers to beanies. I LOVE training in merino wool especially for things like hiking and cycling where you want something lightweight that is flexible enough to cope with both the increase in heat from climbing and the decrease in heat from descending or reaching a windy summit! I used merino products whilst I was racing the Mark Webber Pure Tasmania Challenge adventure race and they were perfect for the cycling and kayaking phases. The wonderful Amanda McCaig has agreed to provide me with some kit support in return for product review and I can't wait to try them out! As I said Chocolate Fish Merino have a wide range of products available and if you haven't tried training or racing in merino wool before I would definitely give it a go. It can also help to reduce the likelihood of cramp and muscle fatigue in the same way as compression tights. I had to ask the very knowledgeable Amanda for the science behind why and she said this: "it is to do with the way it keeps a steady "body-climate" in both terms of temperature and moisture. If moisture is dragged away from the surface of the skin too rapidly, it causes dehydration. Because the wool absorbs the moisture and then lets it evaporate gradually, this doesn't happen". Interesting eh?! The chocolate fish website can be found at http://www.chocolatefishmerino.co.uk/.