Swimming

Garmin Forerunner 310XT – The Review

July 7, 2010
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Having abandoned treadmill running in favour of the great outdoors it wasn’t long before I began to bemoan the loss of my preferred running watch the Garmin Forerunner 305. I long for pretty maps to illustrate my outdoor running routes and spur me on to explore my surroundings and for that you need GPS. Fortunately [...]

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Sporting Provenance

March 24, 2010
Sporting Provenance

I was sent a goody bag of sporting delights to try out a few weeks ago by a guy who is in the process of setting up a UK distribution for items with a valid sporting provenance. I have to say that I was impressed by quite a few of the items. Hoo Haa Ride [...]

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Swimovate Watch

December 16, 2009
Swimovate Watch

Entries for next years Great Swim series are open already. Christmas is not a great time to start contemplating squeezing into an overly snug wetsuit, the annual quality street box is already half empty and the strawberry creams are not improving my silhouette. Christmas is a time for trying out new gadgets though so it’s [...]

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Great North Swim 2009

September 15, 2009
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So the big day arrived, not quite the day that every girl dreams of, but as days go it was big enough to require the same sort of dietary preparations. 6 weeks of off and on Stella abstinence brought me to a point where I was prepared to at least attempt a public shoe-horning of [...]

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Bald Penguin Preservation Society

August 19, 2009
Bald Penguin Preservation Society

The Great North Swim is now only a matter of weeks away. I’ve been swimming regularly but to be honest, the distance is the least of my worries. I pulled the wetsuit out of the cupboard last month, dusted out the moth balls and then attempted the big squeeze…… Not good. I forced the zip [...]

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Lane Rage

July 21, 2009
Lane Rage

I’ve been promising myself since March that I will start swimming again very soon. The Great North Swim was approaching at a fair ole rate and given that it threatened to kill me last year with previously unknown asthma issues I didn’t think I should take my training commitment too lightly. Good intentions were fine [...]

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Brompton World Championships – 2008

September 30, 2008
Brompton World Championships - 2008

I am such a social cretin before an event and watching the city boys arrive at the coach station in their pin striped suits and titanium s-bar bikes didn’t go anyway towards making me feel at home. I cheered up a bit on arrival at Blenheim when friendly faces appeared out of the crowd and [...]

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Great North Swim

September 16, 2008
Great North Swim

How cold?! I eased myself gently into the lake until I slipped on a hunk of plankton and ended up bobbing some where near my ears with a foul expression on my face. The lake was freezing and I had the pleasure of sitting in it for the bizarrely named “warm up”. There’s only one [...]

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Here I Am

September 11, 2008
Here I Am

I’ve been quiet for a while but I’m still out here, running and swimming a bit. Swimming is still my biggest concern, I made it to the pool on Sunday thinking I’d sneak in a mile but I got bored and bruised after 1 km and called it quits. I was trapped in an anticlockwise [...]

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North Sea Swimming Lessons

August 24, 2008
North Sea Swimming Lessons

Lesson No 1: Scrap any plans for cross channel swimming attempts. Swimming in the sea is tough. It started well, the wetsuit protected me from the staggering chill but the moment I put my face in the water I ingested enough salt to raise my blood pressure to alarming levels. I quickly raised my head [...]

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