Back to Southampton
I returned to a hectic day at work. Before running I managed to read Chrissie Wellington’s latest blog post about body confidence. I agree with her proposition that everyone has some issues with body confidence. However, there is a difference between being paranoid about what you look like and being acutely aware that you are a significantly larger build than the majority of your fellow athletes. I’ll try to bear in mind her suggestion that it’s how your body functions that is more important than what it looks like. However, that’s difficult in an image-obsessed world!
I also read a really interesting blog post by Tough Mudder of 4, where she demonstrated how she has significantly increased her flexibility in a really short space of time. I’m concerned about how much flexibility I’ve lost since quitting gymnastics and karate, so I must start stretching again.
Running
My Lordshill group did a sprints session tonight. As I wasn’t sure whether I would be back from Cornwall, Steve and Trevor had organised the session, which was good. There was a large turnout, which I guess was to be expected as lots of people have decided to take up running as a New Year’s resolution.
Swimming
After running, I headed down to the swimming pool. The warm-up has changed to 200m crawl, 100m kick, 200m crawl, then 100m pull. I did the first 500m before Coach Peter told us to stop. Pull is one of my favourite drills, so I was a little disappointed. I also had a little go at swimming underwater, and managed 17 strokes before I bumped into someone else’s feet!
The drills included swimming on our sides to work on body position and a new drill called the Popov drill.
I found it really difficult as I couldn’t work out when to breathe. Then we moved onto the main part of the session: 8x100m. We had to do 1 length easy, 2 lengths medium and 1 length fast. Coach Peter timed me on a fast length and told me that I had recorded the fastest time on a length: 24 seconds! I was really surprised. He also gave me his usual ‘praise’: “If only you could swim without breathing, you’d be really good!”
Becoming a GOTRIbal Ambassador
Finally, I found out that I have been selected as a GOTRIbal Ambassador. I don’t think this will conflict with anything else that I am doing. Essentially, it is working with other women who are looking for support, connections and a network to help them lead healthy, active and adventurous lifestyles.
I love encouraging people to network with others who are interested in health and fitness. The idea of being able to meet up with sporty women who are a similar ability to me anywhere in the world that I might go is fantastic. How many times have you been on holiday and wished that there were a local who could show you where you can run safely? Or just wanted someone in your local area to be able to train with?
[Apologies – I have had to disable comments on this page due to a high volume of spam!]
Thanks for the session at LRR today, glad to see you back. Also well done on your 24 sec length, proper speedy 🙂
Thanks, Jo – it was good to be back. Swimming feels so much more difficult than running. I sometimes wonder whether I’ll ever be able to break my bad habits!
Congratulations! GOTribal is an awesome community! 🙂
I’m really looking forward to meeting some new people and hopefully being able to find people to train with when I am away from home. Most of my friends don’t see how running can be part of a holiday, whereas I love running in new places and seeing the sights!
Way to go! Congrats on being selected as a goTRIbal Ambassador!
Thanks, Lindsay – looks like you’re also having a fantastic start to 2014. Anticipating the arrival of my Team SOAS kit is like counting down to Christmas!
OMG, I know!! I can’t wait to get mine also! I keep hoping today will be the day!