Sitting Next to Lois Lane

New wetsuit arrived last week. Although the sponsor logo looks stitched on in Photoshop ( some unkind people have said my head does too ), it hasn’t. I have to own up to admitting choosing the colour scheme. Blue, gold or black were the base colours to choose from. Not wanting to look like an extra from ‘Priscilla - Queen of the Desert’, I eliminated gold. Not wanting to overheat waiting for my boat to arrive, I eliminated black. Left with blue, and feeling somewhat patriotic, I added red and white. Unfortunately, I hadn’t really considered how the whole ensemble would turn out. I soon found out when I tried it on at our pool training session. Some people asked why I didn’t have red underpants on over the top. Others made flying poses. Some kind people didn’t laugh, but the majority behind me did. Not much I can do now….other than get a red satin cape to complete the outfit.

Training continues reasonably well, and I managed to set an unofficial depth record in Constant Weight at the NDAC two weeks ago. Sixty-one metres is 14 short of the current UK record, but it is still a record at the NDAC. A great clip of the session it was part of can be seen here, expertly filmed by Simon the Jedi Knight. I discovered that part of the solution to my leg fatigue is to drop lead weight. By losing an 800g weight, my descent slowed significantly. The increase in glide time gave my legs an increased rest period. Ascending was then a breeze - kicking all the way. Of course there's a bit more to it than a bit of lead-weight-loss. My coach has been investing lots of her time and my agony down at the local gym. No pain, no gain.

Training will be having a short pause mid-September, while I have a couple of moles ousted ( my body, not my lawn ). No swimming for 3 weeks, they tell me. I’ve postponed the procedure until I’ve performed my judging duties at the Saltfree Splash competition, but if anyone wonders why I’m not resident at my normal pool training sessions after that, this is the reason.

People who know me well, may have noticed a sense-of-humour failure of late. I can only apologise, and report that an engineer is working hard to correct the problem. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.