Left, Right, Left

It is raining when the curtains are drawn, the trees and plants are loving all this rain. My rhubarb seems to have grown six inches since Monday! Make cream cheese and smoked salmon on rye toast for breakfast again, the salmon had to be used before it went off. Sit and watch the rain whilst eating breakfast, there is something soothing in simply watching the patter of raindrops on the path. After washing and dressing in my rain gear, drive to Cherry and take Louis to school, Alice is there as well, as my daughter Sarah is down with a stomach bug. Later just walk the dogs round the village in the rain, stopping now and then to gather the "treasure" they lay and deposit it in the next available waste bin. The cherry and the apple trees are full of blossom and the new leaves on the beech and chestnut seem almost luminous in this dull light. Unfortunately it is beyond my powers to capture this on my camera phone, but the colours are transcendentally beautiful.
As it's a shorter walk than usual I arrive poolside for ten, there are several lanes roped off and the one marked, "fast lane", is free. I used to be fast once upon a time, and as everyone else in the pool seems slower than me today, decide to use it and yield it later if some flying youngster joins the lane! After yesterday's revelation of having to swim with at least four to a lane on Sunday, decide to practise two stroke breathing today and to balance the muscle use by breathing alternately left for the first 20 lengths and then right on the next 20 lengths, etc. etc. As I'm planning to swim 100 lengths freestyle this morning, the last 20 lengths will be swum breathing left for the first ten and right for the last ten. This way 50 lengths will be completed breathing to left and right. To my surprise the first four lengths hold to thirteen strokes, but this then climbs to fourteen, it's much easier breathing every second stroke, as you get a third more oxygen, and I will need that in a crowded lane on Sunday. Today my luck holds, no fast swimmers enter the lane, and I am able to complete the session undisturbed. I also find, that by throwing in one three stroke breathing pattern per length, that my last breath is just before the tumble turn. This makes the turns much more comfortable, however it will depend on the competence of the other swimmers in the lane on Sunday, if they can't tumble turn it is unlikely to be safe for me to do so. These are issues to be resolved on the day, for now, considering the illness, things are going as well as can be expected. There is just one training day left tomorrow, as I shall rest on Saturday before Sunday's event.