Tenerife final post

Nine and a half hours of travelling later and I find myself back in the UK. As we came into land, the lady that I was sitting next to and myself were wondering if we'd been brought back to the right country as it didn't seem to be raining and was even slightly sunny.  Today it is definitely grey, and very different to the bright sunshine and warm breezes in Tenerife.  I managed to fit in a run on the last morning before leaving and got this picture of the sun coming up.



My body is very tired from the hard week of training, but I am pretty sure that good gains have been made.  I dragged myself for a small swim this morning, and whilst it was hardgoing, with backstroke being MUCH easier than front-crawl, I could feel some improvements in my stroke.  I know from experience that the week after camp is always a hard one as you expect to swim amazingly after a week of good swimming instruction, but it takes time for the body to recover.

I think it did me good being away as well.  It was nice to have a genuine break from chores and work (ok, I admit to triaging my work emails...) and be in the sunshine and warm and not have to think about much more than swimming.  Dan Bullock is a great coach and despite being in the water for 16 hours I wasn't bored at all.  I loved the longer sea swims too - it was great being able to swim in the open sea rather than just the lagoon as we did last year.  Martin continues to be well organised meaning that there really isn't anything to worry about at all.  The rest of the camp participants (team photo below) were lovely and it was nice to see some old faces as well as meet some lovely new people.

Here's another couple of favourite pictures.  This one of me was taken by my new friend Sylvia when she was trying to get pictures of some of the Norwegian swim team.  Look at the long legs of that guy in the middle!  He was so tall!  This is my feeling positive swimming costume that reminds me that "life is fantastic".

Here is me and my swimming camp twin Vicky.  Last year we had a photo taken with matching hats; the same photo this year didn't come out so well but we were given matching t-shirts by the training centre on the last day.  I love this photo!  Vicky is an amazing athlete with some great recent successes and I am jolly proud to be able to call her a friend and to get the chance to swim with her once a year.  I'm still just about faster over a longer distance, but definitely not over the shorter distances and I think 2015 will be the year when I am drafting off her for all of the sessions :)

So, back to reality.  I spent some of this morning catching up with work as I have my first appointment with my CPN tomorrow morning so won't make it into work until a little later on.  I've done a load of baking and am now off to visit first a friend in hospital, and then my Dad, and then collapse on the sofa for the last remaining hours of my holiday.  I feel quite anxious about the next ten days or so because I have quite a lot on, but will just have to do my best to plod through with it.