For the past 3 years I (Manda) have got to September race/swim fatigued but instead of wanting to rest, I seem to be in this race to fit in as many swims as possible. This isn’t driven by panic training, as often there are no races left to be training for, but more a pure sense of packing in as much al- fresco-non-heated swimming before the opportunity is gone and we have to return to indoor heated pools. I haven’t swum in an indoor pool since May 6th! So to say I am dreading it is an understatement.
In order to try and make the winter more bearable this is what we do:
1) Incorporate non-swimming stuff into the weekly routine… This is something that me and Katie have done well over the last couple of years by adding in track sessions with Karen Weir at Battersea, free yoga with LuLuLemon, lunch hour spinning and various forms of pilates into the routine.
2) Do one off specials… We have made infrequent visits to Parkruns. Often we accompany them with some yoga, tea and cake. Some of our one off specials were less successful, like the time we ran to a spin class and then there were only the 2 of us in it, so there was nowhere to hide and I could barely walk afterwards, let alone run back to Katie’s. Or the time we tried synchronised swimming and realised that being good at swimming doesn’t mean anything in the synchro world!
3) Eat lots of cake.. its winter.. you need to keep warm!!
4) Mix up the swimming stuff. Whether this be taking it in turns to write swim sessions, visiting different pools, doing the swimathon, attending masters session (ok I only ever managed 1… they wanted me to do Breastroke!!) or attending a SwimForTri swim camps, there are still plenty of things to keep us interested in training through winter.
This year these are a few of things we have planned to keep us busy over the winter:
· Having a baby. Katie is doing this one alone!
· Aqua spinning
· Visiting as many new pools as possible. Although we have covered a lot of them already there are some other ones it would be good to visit.
· Become masters of the Parkrun token scanning. It is time to give back and volunteer
· Shoulder rehab – hoping to do a healthy shoulder workshop with a physio friend.
· Swim outside – Hampton pool and London Fields are heated but outside, so a good half way house.
· Barry’s boot camp – although this isn’t really baby friendly, so something I am going to potentially have to take on solo!
Happy Winter swimming 😀
TEAM Mermaids 