Sunday certainly started well. After a solid Saturday race of about 1 kilometre, at Balmoral, I backed up again on Sunday morning for another tilt. Swim number 1 was a conventional 1 km race around the track in front of the clubhouse in Edwards Bay. The water was so warm it was just a delight. I was off a seven minute handicap, so no favours for the cripple, old and infirm, from Tony Smuts. I think I finished about 30th after weaving through a fair part of the the field. No doubt about it, the snorkel takes a lot of pressure off my neck and allows me to swim faster. Don’t know how much longer I will be allowed to use it at the BBC in swimming races.

After that it was swim number 2 around to Chinaman’s Beach and back. This was out towards the dreaded channel that runs from the Heads up to the Spit Bridge were legend has it, the bull sharks rule supreme. Denise Elder had organised a very merry bunch of swimmers including Rob Johnson, Mike Kirkman, Pete McCormick, Jan Davies, Barry Feyder, Tony Bostock, Meredith Aveling, our English channel swimmer Duncan Adams and Alison Maunder. I really surprised myself and managed to push pretty hard for the whole journey but was pretty tired after the 2.3 km journey.

In the afternoon, after a much welcome sleep, in something of a drowsy state, I hauled myself off to the Frenchs Forest gym. I had missed Wednesday’s session because I was up in the country and missed Saturday’s session because I was just too tired. Sunday was a must do. I really didn’t feel like it when I got in the gym and had to force myself to sit on that rotten stationary bike. It has become a form of personal scourging every weekend. I now know how Franciscan monks felt when they walked around bashing themselves with their rosary beads. They must’ve all been recovering from tibial plateau fractures.

Anyway, I started cranking away on the bike doing the normal routine and I got up to level 12 doing the sprints and realised,

“I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m sick of sitting in a gym by myself every Saturday afternoon grinding away on a bicycle. What would happen if I just stopped peddling, got off the bike, had a shower and went home?

I was doing all of this just so I could go skiing again. Was it really that important? Would it matter if I never went skiing again?
Of course, layers of crusted-on Catholic guilt are hard to shift. I knew I could never live with myself if I quit. I can imagine one of the Sisters of Mercy standing over me as a small child admonishing:  “You’ll go to hell if you quit,” and then belting me with a ruler. I cranked on grimly although every fibre of my being wanted to stop.

Anyway, I ended up doing the standard bike routine – 5 mins on resistance 9, 10, 11,  12 and  13 – about 27 minutes. Sprinted to 100rpm, five times on levels 10, 11, 12 and 13. How indescribably boring is that? I raced through the rest of it as fast as I possibly could.

Leg Extension…………….10 x 30kg  x 24    both legs

Adductor…………………20 x 40kgs    …………20 x 45kgs

Leg Curl …………………..10 x 35kg  x 3      both legs

Plyo Soft Box No 1 ………………..20 two footed jumps

Leg Press………………….10 reps x 60kg  both legs  warm up

Leg Press………………….10 reps x 70kg

Leg Press………………….10 reps x 80kg  x 6

Pretty pleased with 6 reps of an 80kg leg press. That’s leg pressing my body weight 60 times. It was only a month ago and I couldn’t do it at all. And then I went home. Hooray, all over for another weekend. I know I’m starting to sound like a whinger but I really never want to go through this again.