Exhausted.com!

Thankfully today is a rest day before I hit the hills tomorrow at the Grasmere Gallop 17K Trail Race!

The way I feel at the moment the last thing I want to do is force my weary body up a bloody hill but its booked, its paid for, so I'm doing it!

On Wednesday evening I met my Open Water Swimming friend David and had another dip in Lake Windermere.

I think the waves and the cold I experienced on Tuesday must have traumatised me more than I had realised as I really struggled to relax into my swim!

Although it was a nicer evening than the previous one, we had had an awful lot of rain in the preceding 24 hours which must have made the lake even colder with all the water running off the fells etc because it felt shockingly cold!

I could only do about 10 front crawl strokes before having to go into breaststroke to settle myself before trying again!  I was truly pathetic for the 1/2 mile outward section, but thankfully I managed to swim the entire 1/2 mile back in front crawl!  

The water was so cold my fingers started to cramp, and I was slightly worried they were going to go into the painful spasms I have experienced before!  

Luckily they didn't and I was pleased to get on dry land, however, I was cross with myself as I had swum 4 minutes slower than last week!  I got a severe case of the shivers and struggled to actually get my wetsuit off and my clothes on!  My hands and fingers felt old and arthritic!  It took me all evening to actually feel warm again!

On Thursday I think we had our "for one day only" day of Summer!  I took the opportunity to go out on my bike in the evening sunshine!  It made a pleasant change to be basking in the sun instead of shivering in the wind and rain whilst riding!

I rode 17 miles at an average of 14.6 MPH (15 MPH moving speed if you cut out all the traffic lights!) which I am pleased with! 

My gears felt better too after taking it back to be rechecked, although I didn't go up any hills big enough to test out my granny gear!

So what do I expect to do tomorrow?

I have very low expectations because I truly do not feel run fit at all!  

If I enjoy it I will be happy!

If I get a sub 1 Hour 50 minutes I will be ecstatic as well as amazed!