The first training session

Swimming isn't all that hard really, is it? Starting our training, as we are, almost a year prior to our trip must give us a good old head start when we first tentatively tiptoe into the ocean in our quest for fortune and glory. Well, that's the idea, anyway.

Wednesday 15th October 2008

Seb picked me up from my house and drove us to the Brentwood centre, for the start of the provocatively labelled adults only swim session. After parking up and marvelling at how much the trees had grown since I was last here, we headed on in and paid our £3.60. Seb extolled the virtues of his new swimming gear (goggles, a cool black hat and all!) straight from Fenton's, while I listened, silently bristling at the fact that he had claimed the cooler of the two nicknames for himself.

"Are you ready, Jetsam?" I asked.

"Yep. Are you ready, Flotsam?"

"......There is no ready...." I replied. There it was. The official start of the use of our new nicknames. At times like this, I find the best thing to do is quote from the movie Jumanji.

"Jumanji" I said under my breath, walked out of the changing room and dived into the pool.

As always, in the first few seconds after being plunged into a large body of water, I felt free. Something about swimming underwater seems to eliminate any thought about the stressful business of living life on land. If this is how I feel in a swimming pool in Essex, imagine what it'll be like on the open ocean!

Shortly, I fell into the delectable stupor of repetitive exercise. Length after length after length, time eventually lost its impact on my consciousness. Seb appeared standing on the side of the pool; he had come out of the changing room after me, no doubt admiring all his brand new swimming gear. "How many have you done?" He asked. I caught my breath. "Five." He got into the pool. I had to admit, he did look cool in his cool black swimming cap and cool goggles. I said as much to him. "You look cool!" He seemed pleased with my compliment, but I'm so very short-sighted, he could have been crying.

Anyway, back to the swim. I was still full of Chilli con carne and the odd drop of red wine, as I had dangerously neglected to wait for an hour and a half after eating before swimming (Extreme!!). As such, I think my progress was slower than usual. I also had to put in a lot more effort than I would have had to on a slightly less heavy stomach. After a while, I started to think some strange thoughts, of the type only allowed to surface during prolonged exercise.

"I bet I could eat an onion in less than 43 seconds."

"That woman looks like a garden centre."

I finally finished 40 lengths, which, at this pool, amount to a kilometre. I had been swimming breaststroke all the while, except for the last length when I swam flat out front crawl. Partly by necessity, as halfway through, Seb and I had been joined by a serious swimmer. Seb had sped up later on and drawn level with me, to say "I'd hurry up if I were you!" I looked over the shoulder, to see a velociraptor with a swimming cap on speeding towards us. This wil probably be the first of many times I'll say this, but I felt like I was in Jurassic park.

Once the kilometre was over, we swam lazily backwards and forwards to warm down the muscles. Very important! Then we timed each other while we alternatively held our breath underwater to test our respective lung capacities. After I had removed the Grange Hill theme tune from my mind, I achieved 47 seconds underwater. I'm excited to see how this will improve over the next 11 months.

Influenced as I was by an exercise-induced endorphin cocktail in my brain, I felt happy, and optimistic, not only about this adventure, but about about every aspect of my life at the moment.

Exercise can do some nice things to you.