kismet

Today, is a day out of sequence, the first day of May, and yet a day unexpectedly that I have no duties. What should one do with the gift of time, other than savour it gratefully and spend it judiciously. This I did by having a slow and languorous breakfast, whilst gazing at the grey clouds that blaspheme against this most auspicious of days. Before leaving for my swim, commenced my assault on the basket of ironing that is now sixteen shirts deep. Not my favourite task, but manageable if xbroken into bite size, digestible chunks, of around six shirts at a time. The first sextuplets smoothed out, arrived at the pool for midday, and found a clear lane. In fact the pool was quiet and I had time to compose myself and practise meditative breathing before beginning my session. The endurance training for the Swimathon seems to have helped my running and as I intend to do the Hull 10k, a 2.5k swim is the equivalent distance in water. So decided to split the distance between backstroke and freestyle and pushed off on the first 500m backstroke. Backstroke is surprisingly tricky! First off, you don't really swim it on your back, rather on your side, switching from right side to left and back again as you progress down the pool. Whilst breathing is unproblematic, as your face is mostly in the air, the timing of the stroke is crucial, the arms are in continuous but alternative motion, and once mastered, there is a slight catch between the leading arm falling back into the water and the start of the pull. The mantra for backstroke is rhythm, relaxation and rotation, as you switch from left side to right. In the end it comes down to the "feel" of the body as it moves through the water. Those tiny, micro adjustments, that only become possible through continuous practise, and our faith in our body's innate kinaesthetic wisdom. Today's session was 2 x 500m backstroke interspersed with 2 x 500m Freestyle and finishing off with 250m in each. Backstroke was managed at 17 strokes per length and freestyle at 13. The first 500m breathing left, the second 500m breathing right and the last ten bilateral. Conditions were perfect, a whole lane to myself. After changing, ate a scone and a tea in the cafe and met someone who seemed to have been tracing my footsteps through life in a most uncanny way, it could only be described by the Arabic word "kismet"