I went swimming this morning. That might be my last time indoors for the season - I’m going to cancel my monthly membership of the indoor pool and ‘brave’ the outdoor one. The weather forecast for Friday is 28 C in Abingdon so I should be able to cope! I’ve been struggling with cold-water swimming recently; I’m not really sure why, but if I start going regularly over the summer, maybe I’ll be more able to keep going when we head back towards autumn and winter. The outdoor pool in Abingdon is only open from June to 6 September, which is a pretty short season. There are some ponds nearby, and of course the river, though the latter doesn’t look so appealing; but maybe I’ll investigate those instead of the pool. This morning, I took advantage of being indoors to do some drills: breath-holding drills, catch-up, and swimming with closed fists. I quite enjoy that last one, as much for the novelty of it I think; my least favourite is definitely breath-holding drills!

I just went for a little jog along the River Ock (yes, that’s what it’s called round here, although it’s barely a stream). It’s 294 K (21 C in old-fashioned units), and it feels like 100% humidity. Not very pleasant for running in, I can tell you; bring me the clear air of the Peak District! I’m going to investigate Strava and Maymyrun and things like that, so in future I might be able to upload my running routes from my watch and do fancy high-tech things like that. Watch this space…

It’s such a beautiful day today: sunny, a cloudless blue sky, and no wind. Almost perfect for running, except even by 8.30am it was getting hot. I jogged up to the local parkrun course, at Manor Top. Like most of this area - and unlike Abingdon - flat it isn’t. The run director in his course briefing described it as ‘undulating’; I prefer my friend Matthew’s description, ‘ostentatiously hilly’. It turns out it’s a lovely course.
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It was a lovely day this morning - perhaps the summer is finally here! And I’ve measured my commute: 5 km on the nose to the site gate, and another 550 m to the bike shed outside my building. It takes me 14 min on average, for a speed of 23.8 km/hr. Not bad considering the state of the cycle path! I can shave off 90 s by going along the road, which I’ll do if I’m in a hurry, but for day-to-day commuting I think I’ll stick to the cycle path. I need to measure the distance along the river path - that isn’t cyclable really on a road bike, but would make a nice route to run in.

Done! And I made my target time - coming in quite a bit under, at 12:43. I followed someone else for most of the way, who was running just a little bit slower than my target; it was really good having my watch in pace mode - a new distance on flat terrain is exactly when it’s needed. We dropped the other two from the leading pack after about 1 km, and then it was the two of us running neck and neck. He picked up the pace with 1500 m to go, and we alternated the lead for the next km. Unfortunately I couldn’t quite stick with the faster pace, and with 500 m to go he started pulling away, leaving me to finish in 2nd place. Still happy with it though - I’ll just have to make sure I win in the autumn or winter one!

Segment Pace
1st km 3:53
2nd km 3:52
3rd km 3:19
500 m 3:40

Total time 12:43, but the course was 40 m short by my watch (going by my watch, that would be 12:54 for 3.5 km)