My body is somewhat broken. Today I have made it pump a kite. Which is good for the kite. I did that because owing to reasons outside my control, I didn’t manage to go swimming at 8am this morning although I would have been up on time. I did, however, go swimming this evening, and then after that I turned right and went to the climbing wall. This was perhaps not wise as now I am physically jaded.
Sometime in the not too distant future I’ll be designing a cute piece of art work with a thermometer – that looks wrong – and an F-One Bandit 3 or whatever replaces it in August (cos it’s usually around then we start hearing about the new season’s kites).
The deal is this. If I can front crawl 400m, preferably in 8 minutes, by the start of August, and if I get up on my board in Achill Island on my 5000th attempt to be some way competent a kitesurfer, my reward will be a 9 or 10 metre Bandit 3. It is going to be a long slog.
I am not as fit as I used to be and that’s because I haven’t gotten much exercise beyond occasional climbing. This is obviously something I want to turn around.
In the past, I’ve been significantly fitter; in that I could swim 1600m which sounds hugely impressive. But then again, it’s not bad either. But I backstroked. Only backstroked. However, there are practical applications to being able to swim forward (you can see where you’re going) and if I’m going to be doing more kitesurfing, then it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to be a fitter swimmer in a practical self rescue sense. I’ve already had to swim in an inflated kite once. It sucks.
No. IT SUCKS BIG TIME.
So I’m back in the swimming pool swearing because you know not only can I not front crawl 400 m – because I never could – but I can’t backstroke worth a 5cent coin at the moment. And that bit is soul destroying because 1600 m down to 25 is pretty bad, really.
So currently I can string about 40m together front crawl which means I’m 10% of the distance there distance wise. I haven’t half drowned myself yet. My sinuses are not going berserk the way they did after the diving saga last November. Where I am now is pathetic but not overwhelming.
I quite like swimming. I feel far better after it than I do after walking or running, for example, and it’s a useful tool for, as I say, the kitesurfing. I’m also looking at going to France at the end of September to go to an ASP event in Hossegor or Lacanau or wherever they think they’ll have waves, and if I can, I’ll try to go back surfing again. I could do with the body strength to paddle as well. And a few people reckon that the additional upperbody strength will help the climbing which, post swim today, was an utter fiasco. Oops.
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