My Swim Mascot

Continuing my photographic theme, I took my camera with me to the pool yesterday - and then promptly forgot about it in my locker. I did, however, manage to take a picture of one of my favourite art pieces around Narbonne en route to the pool. This little lady sits in a park a few blocks away, and I pass her on my walk to and fro:


There is no inscription on the statue and I haven't quite figured out who she is, but I have nevertheless adopted her as my mental and emotional mascot for swim training. I'm hoping to look and feel just like her when I emerge from the water in Barcelona. Speaking of which, my swim training is going well: I'm swimming around five times per week and my long swim is up to 4km. Today is Wednesday, and Wednesday nights are an optional open water training session for the club. We head down to the beach at sunset and do a 2-3km swim in one of the more sheltered bays (the waves still turn my stomach a little, but I'm getting used to it). Swim training is followed by dinner at a beachfront restaurant, and dinner includes obligatory wine. I've started to write off Thursday mornings for serious training and have adjusted my schedule to make them active recovery days, in more than one sense.

I continue to have no idea what we are doing in swim training, so I just swim when everyone else swims and stop when everyone else stops. I'm not sure how it happened, but I seem to be one of the faster swimmers in the club. I've never trained with a group before, so in effect, this is the first time I've been able to benchmark my swimming abilities in relation to others. I swim in the lead pack during open water training, which means that yes, I have to swim with the boys. I just keep my swim mascot in mind when I'm jostling for position with them.