Lockdown swim training - in the absence of my own private pool, lake or pond.

I’ve almost lost count of the weeks since we went into lockdown, and after spending the first few days in a complete panic about not being able to get in the pool, or the lake to train for my Channel Relay swim scheduled for the end of May, I realised that no amount of worrying about it was going to change anything. It was best to stay safe at home and take the opportunity to explore some alternative forms of exercise, in the hopes that WHEN everything re-opens, I will at least have maintained a certain level of fitness.

Lockdown has meant I’ve had a lot of time on my hands, some of which I have spent doing some rather pressing jobs around the house that desperately needed doing, like painting my summer house with the paint I bought last summer when it ACTUALLY needed doing, but instead chose to spend pretty much all of my spare time at the lake, swimming. I have also filled in an enormous hole that my dog had spent several long afternoons digging, for no obvious reason that I can think of, aside from a quest to find the centre of the earth, and it needed sorting – under the current lockdown circumstances though, I seriously contemplated excavating it further to, I don’t know, approximately a 25 metre rectangle! 

I’d like to think that I would use this opportunity to spend quality time with my family, however realised this probably wouldn’t happen on the back of discovering we are living in different time zones, severely reducing the hours of possible opportunity, but I will keep trying… probably to their horror! I also had ideas of using the time to do things such as learn a new language – I was thinking Chinese or Russian, however it was suggested by my mum that I perhaps wasn’t destined to be bilingual, and reminded me that it took me the best part of three years to master the words pencil case (trousse) and pencil (crayon) in French when I was in school…I am yet to use them in my adult life, but I am confident that one day my efforts will all pay off when I’m finally asked if I have a pencil or a pencil case! 

I also thought it would be a great opportunity to attempt more cooking, however after the first night in isolation, and a disastrous meal, that included the tinned prunes I panic bought, despite not actually liking tinned prunes (or even non-tinned prunes), turned out to be frankly quite disgusting, my kids suggested (begged) me to not see it through, and they decided they would take their chances cooking their own meals. It’s a complete mystery as to why I ever thought that because we were in lockdown that I would suddenly turn into Nigella Lawson overnight, and make meals that were both edible and delicious, when usually they were awful or inedible. 

Sadly, because building a makeshift pool/lake in the garden was out of the question, I have also had to find alternative ways to exercise to replace my swimming. My Channel Relay has already been postponed to the end of September, which afforded me some extra time to train (please, all being well), and so really needed to lose as little fitness as possible between now and my first swim post-lockdown. 

I knew that I needed to choose exercises that had the same mechanical purpose to swimming, but I also wanted to use the opportunity to explore other forms of exercise that would also challenge different muscles. I have been guilty of sticking to the same exercise routines, reluctantly doing anything other than front-crawl, and only modifying it occasionally, despite knowing that after the initial improvements, I would plateau, which so far hadn’t stopped me repeating the same process, and what made it worse is that I became frustrated and moaned at the lack of improvement, even though I knew they wouldn’t happen, because my body had adapted, and so I spent quite a lot of time, accompanied by many coffees and the one thing I can cook – decent cake, scouring the internet for some training ideas and programs, for example, weight-lifting and HIIT cardio. I’ve also dusted off equipment that hasn’t seen the light of day in a long time (actually I can't remember buying one of them), and even back then had used only a handful of times on account that I was a bit sh*t at it…. well, all of them really! 

One other thing that I am unable to do, always have been, and so was very keen to master whilst I had some time to fathom out where I was going so wrong, was the press-up. It astonishes me that I can successfully complete a 21 mile swim without stopping, and yet I can’t do a single one. Not one. I can do a half of one really well, unfortunately that’s the down part, but I am yet to complete a whole one. 

Sigh.... won't be long. Hope I can still remember how to do it.
I may be a bit rusty!

I suppose the question is, will my swimming improve as a result of any non-swimming lockdown training? And the answer would be, who knows? But what I do know is this… after lots of days, nay weeks in lockdown already, several rather astonishing things have happened: 

• I have become a bit of an expert at rowing, well I say an expert, what I did was to go onto YouTube and watch Sir Matthew Pincent’s ‘Top Rowing Tips’ video, and you can’t get a more qualified coach than that, can you? And as there’s a very obvious lack of any experts (Sir Matthew) being able to see me to tell me I’m doing it wrong I’m going with it. I might just like to add that when I say expert, what I mean is that (as of yet) I haven’t fallen off it, broken anything - included in this are body parts and furniture, and nor have I needed to phone one of the emergency services for help because I have incurred an injury.

• I've learnt that buying a professional rope does not automatically make you an instant professional. On the back of this discovery I have decided not to continue with the skipping, because unlike my daughter who has taken to it like Rocky Balboa, my first attempt resulted in me becoming a little entangled in the rope, with no-one willing to help me until several photos had been taken (regardless of my objections) to remember the moment...

• I would never have discovered how much I really love weight training. Not necessarily the horrid arm jiggle that occurs whilst doing it though (pretty much like sails on a boat), but I am working exceptionally hard on transforming them, but also because weight training is great for building bone and muscle strength, and a way of helping to decrease my chances of getting osteoporosis, which the risk for me now, has increased dramatically (this is because oestrogen is needed to help lay down bone), and actually, I really should have been doing it a lot sooner... 

• I couldn’t have appreciated how difficult it would be to coordinate taking part in a step exercise class whilst watching it on the television at the same time! I’ve now overcome my fear of headbutting the T.V in some freak accident, and as long as I stick to the low intensity ones that include no sudden, or quick movements, I’ll be fine… and with rock solid thighs as well!

• Lockdown has also revealed to me, and the rest of the household, just how much I really needed to replace those, frankly obscene, leggings. 

• Another, unexpected bonus, was the discovery of the ten pound note I found under the sofa whilst doing some core exercises on the floor. I am yet to let anyone in on my findings. I probably never will...I'll use it to go towards some new, less revealing leggings!

• And finally, on the whole elusive press-up fiasco...  I can say, with confidence that I can now comfortably execute 1 whole press up. It’s not technically perfect, and it’s not pretty, but what it is is a whole one. That’s an improvement of 100%. It’s a really big deal! 

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