Today I swam like .....

Eddie the eel and not like one of these fish that I captured in the park outside Harpenden swimming pool where I completed my Swimathon.

Although I took the picture in daylight, I passed this sculpture again on the way back to the car after the Swimathon and it looked so much more impressive at night so I've used a bit of post processing to create a more moody effect.

Back to the Swimathon, what a nightmare to begin with. People are put in lanes based on their estimated time to complete their swim. This is a good idea as in theory you should have people of similar abilities in each lane. Trouble is there were up to 8 people in my lane all swimming at the same time and at different paces, including (1) a backstroke swimmer and (2) a lady with a kick like a blue whale. Backstroke swimmer kept crashing into people and the blue whale would kick you in the face or splash you on every stroke.

Things improved in the last quarter as the number of swimmers thinned out and I know that my time for the last 50 lengths was way better than my time for the first 50 lengths. So, 200 lengths completed (that's 5km or 3 miles) in 3 hours. So slow that I was in fact the last person in the pool (again - happened 10 years ago as well), but ny a much closer margin (5 minutes) this time (anbout an hour last time).

Other news for the day - After a night in the new house, Rachel and Ross are running into a few issues (fridge has packed in and the shower runs cold). Normally these would be relatively trvial but when you've just moved in and your trying to unpack and gain a sense of normality, these can get you down. So, we took them for lunch to the Wyvern. Used to do pretty good lunchtime fayre. It was OK, but not as good as it used to be and cveratinly not worth the money (pub grub at restaurant prices).