Give me patience!

It's been over a week now since I fell and it seems to be getting better but it's so, so slow! And of course I'm so, so impatient! I've spent the week with a pullbouy on, a couple of days I did some full stroke but it hurts-strangely it doesn't actually hurt while I'm swimming but when I stop it really does. Which isn't necessarily a good thing-it means that I could end up doing more than I should. So the easiest way to avoid that is to just keep on the pullbuoy.

I'm actually really enjoying swimming with the pullbuoy-I swim faster with it (which shows just how bad my kicking is normally I guess!). Unfortunately I'm getting very used to my faster times and really liking them-I'm not gonna be a happy camper when they go back to normal!!

So after the week using the pullbuoy I was wondering what the plan was going to be for the sea at the weekend. In one way I really wanted to get in because I hadn't been in since Stephen's Day, which was over 2 weeks ago. But at the same time I don't want to be causing myself any injury, one sea swim is not worth that. So I decided to leave it up to Eilís and do whatever she suggested....which was to head to the sea and use the pullbuoy and band. The thoughts of it alone made me cold-the sea, in January, at 8degrees C, with no kicking. But off I went this afternoon for a 3pm swim...the wind was gusting and of course I was hoping to myself that it would be too rough to get in at all!!

As I got close to the island I saw the waves breaking at the second corner, and knew that it was not a day to be going around-of course I wasn't planning to go around anyway, not with my legs tied together!! I got down to the slip and it was definitely swimmable. There was quite a gang down too for a January swim-about 8 in all I think. Myself and Jen decided to swim straight out towards the beach on the island and then decide whether we would head back or do a triangle-I had no clue how cold I would be without kicking so I didn't want to decide until I got in there! So I got all ready and then faced the task of tying my feet together with the band and managing to get into the water without losing the pullbuoy...all very complicated! I eventually managed to shuffle down from step to step (accompanied by girlie screams as I got deeper into the water!) and then dive in-it was so, so cold. Normally when it's rough it's warmer-not the case today. It took me absolutely ages to get my breath and I never really lost the ice-cream headache for the whole swim-normally it's gone within 3 or 4 minutes.

So out to the island we headed, accompanied by another girl who had never before swam in January, and who was sensibly wearing a wetsuit! We stopped to check what we were going to do next-at this stage we had only been in about 3 and a half minutes so I didn't want to head straight back to the slip yet! So we decided to swim down the island for a bit. It was nice swimming down because the wind and tide were both with us-of course it wasn't so nice when we had to turn back and face into both of them! By the time we got back to the slip we had been in the water just over 13 minutes-long enough for me when one half of my body was not creating any heat at all!

The next problem then was how to get out of the water-just about as hard as getting in. I struggled to take the band off with numb hands and then Jen's husband, Mick, was around to help drag us out! When I took away the pullbuoy I had big white patches on my otherwise red legs from where the cold hadn't had a chance to get to...it looked very funny!

After we got dressed we headed into Kinsale for nice warm soup to heat us up...a perfect end to a winter's swim :)