Swim Trek Slovenia

I didn't blog about my annual trip to Tenerife this year but I did have a lot of fun with my two friends H and F whilst I was there.  So much so, that by the Monday after we had got back, H and I had booked a swimming trip to Slovenia.  We went last weekend and had a great time.

The trip was with SwimTrek and you can see the itinerary here which I'm not going to rehash in this blog post, just share a few thoughts.

Slovenia was an incredibly beautiful and unspoilt country.  Fabulous mountains and astounding lakes.   I got to see a good amount of the country and I definitely want to go back there with Mr JKS for a more relaxing break.  I found that the trip itself was quite full on - not so much in terms of the swimming, which was around 4k a day - there was a lot packed in, and as an introvert I struggled with the large amount of time spent in a group.  I don't think that totally puts me off going on another SwimTrek as the advantage is that you are able to do things which would be difficult to organise on your own.  The Slovenian Guides in particular were fantastic, both in the kayaks and driving the vans and telling us about the things that we were passing.  It was fab spending time with Super H and we had a good laugh!

Here are some photos of the places that we went to.

On a very hot day, spent mostly travelling around in a mini bus, we did a 20 minute walk to this amazing waterfall.  The water was so cold but it was really refreshing!  That's me to the bottom left of the picture, to give you an idea of scale.

Malcolm the bear by Lake Bohinj

Lake Bohinj.  We stayed adjacent to this lake and swam the length of it on the last day - 4k.

This is Lago Del Predil, a lake just over the border in Italy.  It was incredible swimming in such a beautiful place.

This is Lake Bled where we swam on the first day.  Lovely and warm.

Anda view over Lake Bled.

Lock to Lock Swims

The other swim events that I have done this year have been the Swim Oxford Lock to Lock Swims.  They are a new company who launched with a 4k swim last year which Super H did and really enjoyed.  This year they are running a 4k, 6k and 10k event.  As the events start less than 10 minutes drive from JKS HQ, it seems silly not to enter!

The first event was the 4k in mid June.  This involved swimming from Eynsham Lock down to Kings Lock. I felt a bit frustrated as I couldn't keep up with the front pack and was quite some way from the second pack so it was quite a lonely swim.  I was also still suffering from a chest infection and had to stop to cough my lungs up a couple of times.  On the plus side, armed with my prescription swimming goggles, I was able to sight around the bends of the river very easily.  There had been an enormous amount of rain in the week prior to the event and the river was flowing incredibly fast.  So much so that I was actually surprised to be being ushered out at the finish!  I doubt very much I'll ever swim 4k in under 52 minutes again...  I was pleased to discover later that I was the 3rd woman to finish (although there was only a prize for first).

In mid July it was back for the 6k event.  This time we started in the same place at Eynsham Lock and began with the same 4k stretch of the river.  I felt incredibly lethargic on this swim and found it hard to feel like I was going at the pace I wanted to.  There were more faster swimmers than on the previous 4k and it was hard not to feel disheartened.  As the river wasn't flowing quite so fast, it took a little longer to reach Kings Lock, but only a couple of minutes.  Then it was out of the river for about 200m walk past the lock to get back in and finish off.  On the walk, I was able to catch up with the group of swimmers that I'd been trying to catch up with all swim, and then had some company for the last leg, which really helped.  The final leg was *very* short, there was absolutely no way that that was another 2k.  The swimmer who got out ahead of me had 5.25k on her watch which sounded more realistic.  (Super H did manage to achieve 6k on her watch, but she's not always the best at sighting!).  This time I was 6th back.

All in all very well organised and friendly.  The organiser recognised me (presumably from facebook) before the 6k and said hello and then remembered my name when I got out at the 4k mark.  I don't really eat cake (Mr JKS ate mine) but there is a huge array of amazing looking cake at the finish and very cheerful ladies serving it who give everyone a cheer as they finish.  There was also peppermint tea and bananas and I got a jelly baby at the get out point of the 6k.

I really need to get some longer swims in ahead of the 10k.  Obviously I'm totally capable of 10k but I have not really been swimming further than 4k recently and I'd like to have the stamina so that I can properly enjoy it!

Seahorse Swim Dorset

You wait for ages for a blog post and then three come along at once.  At least, that's the plan as I have three that need to be written!  I have a shiny new laptop on loan so there is no excuse.

First up is a swim that I did at the start of July, the 3.8k Seahorse Swim from Studland beach in Dorset.  Mr JKS and I decided to make a mini break out of it and had a lovely afternoon in Dorchester (where we visited the Teddy Bear Museum, the Dinosaur Museum and bought some Dorset Knobs), and a night in Weymouth before getting to Studland on the Sunday morning.

I'd had a slightly mixed run up to the event.  I was swimming incredibly well on the Wednesday before.  Then on Wednesday afternoon I went KneeBoarding for the first time.  This was great fun but after only 3 goes, my arms felt like they were about to fall out of their sockets, so I sat and watched for the rest of the session.  Unfortunately, the day after, my arms were totally shot to pieces.  I'd been looking forward to a tuning up massage but instead, Jo had to try to make my arms move even a little bit.  I got grumpier and grumpier as Sunday approached and even the morning of the race saw Mr JKS trying to ease my triceps.

I got into the water not having particularly high hopes for success.  I'm never especially fast in the sea and with arms that didn't quite pull properly I felt especially underwhelmed.  However, I wanted to give it my best shot and I did.  There were 2 diamond shaped laps, with pretty equal legs for each side of the diamond, although there was obviously a bit of current/wind in one direction.  I swam as hard as I could and really put my head down for the final leg in.  I exited the water in around 1h5 feeling pretty pleased with myself as I had given it my best shot.

There were lots of very fast and experienced sea swimmers there, mostly swimming without wetsuits, so it was difficult to know where I had finished.  We were in a hurry to get off as Mr JKS needed to do a long run in the afternoon.

The next day I was looking online to see if the finish times were available to confirm the time that I thought that I had done.  As I scanned through the race report here to get to the bit with the results on, I suddenly to my surprise spotted my name!  Although I had been slow by some standards, it turned out that I was actually the fastest westsuit female!  (I would like to note that my time was TWELVE minutes slower than the fastest non wetsuit female).  I emailed and apologised profusely to the organisers and it turned out that I had won a crystal trophy.  Luckily I have an amazing friend who is a courier and he happened to be in Dorset the following week and very kindly picked it up for me.

A catch up on swimming

Well, this is supposed to be a swimming blog...so as promised a post to catch up a bit on my swimming.  Swimming was rather neglected earlier in the year - there were weeks when I wasn't even hitting 20km in the water - and I definitely felt a bit off my game.  Not surprising when my body was so tired from the marathon training!

Masters swimming
After the marathon, I joined the local masters club.  I'd wanted to join them before but they only had one session a week, which was 8-9pm on a weeknight, which just didn't work for me.  There is no way I would sleep after swimming that late at night!  However, this year they introduced a second session on a Sunday 6-7pm.  It happens 3-4 times a month (the other session in the month, the pool is used for lifeguard training) and in general I'm making it along 2-3 times a month.  It is a very quiet session, so plenty of coach attention.  We generally do a mixed strokes warm up of about 1k which is fun and different for me, and then we either do some stroke development (I totally loved the 2 weeks that we spent practising backstroke) or some front crawl fitness work.  I love having a bit of sociable swimming and even though I never feel like going out at 6pm on a Sunday night, I always come back having enjoyed it.  I think just a little bit of fitness work reminds me to swim faster and I feel like I'm noticing some improvements.

Start of the openwater swimming season
I haven't really done so much openwater swimming this season because there hasn't been a huge imperative for me to get in and get on with it.  I've been very busy and tired and so lie ins on Sunday mornings have been more important! I started my season by attempting a 3.8k swim at Box End at the end of April.  It was very cold and I decided to get out after 1.2k as it was just not sensible to continue and this year I have no need to absolutely push myself.  I was a bit grumpy because I am pretty sure that I could have completed a 1500m and I was overly cocky choosing the 3.8k!

Lake District swimming
In the lakes twice in the space of just over a fortnight and I was lucky enough to get in 3 amazing swims.  I had a lovely swim in Rydal Water in May. I'd never swum there before and it was simply incredible to be swimming in this lake all by myself surrounded by wonderful scenery (Mr JKS watched from the bank with the binoculars).  In June, Mr JKS and I did a nice swim in Coniston, crossing the lake and swimming to "Wild Cat Island" and back (probably about a mile in total).  The next day, I abandoned paddleboarding half way through the session to have a swim in Derwentwater which was also pretty good.  I'd like to swim the length of that at some point.

Lock to Lock 4k
Finally, I took part in this very local swim ten days ago.  It was pretty well organised and the fastest 4k I've ever swum, thanks to the gallons and gallons of water rushing down the river after all of the rain in the preceding week!  I came in at under 52 minutes and was very surprised to get to the end so fast, it didn't seem like nearly enough swimming.  I was 3rd woman back which was nice although a shame that there were only prizes for 1st!  I'm signed up to do the 6k in a couple of weeks and the 10k in September.
 

Windermere Marathon

This is a somewhat overdue post since Windermere Marathon happened at the end of May and it is now the end of June, but better late than never.  We had a mixed day out for a variety of reasons but it was lovely weather and a nice accomplishment to have under the belt.  I came down with what seemed to be a cold on the Wednesday before and then turned into a chest infection which I am still recovering from a month later and had a horrific cough. Fortunately, it seemed that exercise suppressed the cough to some extent and I only coughed at the points where we totally stopped and didn't need the cough mixture I was carrying in my bag.  You'll notice in the pictures that I look quite wrapped up - this was more to deal with the photosensitivity that I have as a result of my medication - I had arm protectors on as well.

We did well on the first half of the race, hitting halfway in just a little over 2h and only walking up one very big hill (where there were bagpipers playing!).  I took a few selfies while we were running and a picture of the amazing scenery.

The second half was a lot harder.  Mr JKS began to struggle and was having problems keeping his heartrate at the right level, so we ended up doing a lot of walking with a bit of running.  Unfortunately, by the time he was feeling ok again, with about 6 miles to go, my legs had seized up totally from the hard first half and then walking, so we were only able to continue this to the finish.  However, there was an ice cream van at about 21 miles which we'd heard about in advance, so had some cash ready, and had a "cider refresher" between us which was just lovely as it was very hot.  There was also an unofficial feedstation with a chap giving out flapjack and sweets from the boot of his car in a layby and that was also very much appreciated!

We were pleased to finish and get our medals!  We crept in just under 5 hours which is really quite respectable in my opinion for a hilly course.  Overall I enjoyed it although I didn't feel that I got a full experience of running around the lake that I have swum up and down several times now.  The first half was the most picturesque through lovely rolling countryside, but no views of the lakes.  The second half was mostly along pavements next to the road that goes along the lake, so there were glimpses of the lake, but not very close and more views of the traffic.  But it's pretty cool to have run/walked around the lake as well as swum it :-D  Oh and the goody bag was excellent - local beer, nice neckbuff, kendal mint cake, teabags, a pen...and we enjoyed doing a "smaller" more friendly race to our Brighton/Milton Keynes marathons earlier in the year.

Unfortunately my post marathon recovery didn't go quite to plan and I ended up with a knee injury by running before all of my niggles had been ironed out.  4 weeks later I'm still not running, and we were incredibly disappointed to miss out on doing Coniston marathon (although we still had a fab 24 hours in the lakes with swims in Coniston and Derwentwater and some paddleboarding and lunch at our favourite cafe in Glenridding). I'm really missing running though and not totally sure on the prognosis :( On the plus side, the extra time for my swimming has been good.  And I still owe the blog a post on swimming!  Maybe later this week...

This is what my life is like

This was always supposed to be as much a blog with mental health aspects as well as a swimming (or sports) focus, with "Just Keep Swimming" referring the need to keep on going in life as well as in the pool, or the lake, or the river.  I do have a post to write about swimming but I have a post to write about my mental health first.  I was talking yesterday in the staff disability forum about "definitions" and at what point someone might no longer be considered disabled by mental health.  The conclusion was that for legal/employment purposes one remains "disabled" (assuming an episode that has lasted at least a year) because of the potential stigma/discrimination when seeking employment.  However, listing some of the ways in which my depression disabled me 2013-2015 as part of the discussion, I realised how different my life was now to how it was then.  This might be oversharing but I think it is important to be honest.

What is my life like now?
* I work 4 days a week
* I trained for and and ran my first marathon and am looking forward to doing more.
* I swim, but not obsessively, and am a member of a swimming club and am learning to swim backstroke with backstroke turns.
* I fundraise for Mind and am looking forward to my annual series of cake stalls, another Christmas crafternoon, and some interesting plans for 2017.
* I am a tutor with the Recovery College and developed and teach a course on Understanding Depression
* I mentor CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) Chartership candidates
* I take my turn on the rota for holding the Free Cakes for Kids phone, speaking to families who are requesting cakes and arranging for bakers to bake them.
* I am undertaking a research project into the experiences of qualified librarians no longer working in the sector.
* My husband and I go on weekends away; these involve meals out.  We have been to Plymouth and Brighton this year and will be going to the Lake District twice, Torquay and Cornwall before the year is out as well as on our first proper summer holiday for several years.
* My husband is a member of a running club and goes running with them one evening a week and to a social once a month.  On these evenings, I prepare myself dinner, eat it, and watch tv.  He also helps out a brass band which involves rehearsals several times a month.  He continues to do his audax rides and I rarely even ask what time he will back.
* I do on average one social-meet up activity a week and sometimes two.
* I am going on my first holiday with a friend to a country that I have never been to before in July.
* Tears are few and far between.
* I eat breakfast, lunch and one or two snacks every day as well as dinner.
* I nearly do my fair share of household jobs, but I do rely on my husband to serve up dinner quite a lot
* Sometimes I cycle to work, sometimes I drive and pay to park my car at work, sometimes I run in and take the bus home, sometimes I get a lift.
* I sometimes chat to my husband at lunchtime and sometimes I don't.
* I am looking forward to returning to studying in the Autumn and have a place for a distance learning PG Cert in Systematic Reviews.  I have secret ambitions to do another masters.

I cannot believe what my life is like now.


But, I suppose there are limitations on me still
* I work 4 days a week because 5 days is too much/exhausting even in a fairly flexible job
* I take 2 regular medications and a third "as needed".
* I have to prioritise sleep.  Sleep itself is not something that comes easily to me.
* I cannot be out after 8.15 on a work night because I have to take my sedating medication, and this can start to have effects between 30 mins and 2 hours after taking.
* In fact, going out later than 9 is quite difficult on a normal night as I would probably have to skip this medication and compensate with some of the "as needed" medication
* Doing something sociable after work one day (e.g. going for an early pizza) wipes me out for the rest of the week; I find that I can't always see my friends as much as they want me to as I have to pace myself and it takes a while to get around the loop of friends before I can start again.
* Although I am in a running club, I cannot go to any of the running sessions as exercising until 7.30pm at night would impact on my sleep.
* Because of the medication/sleep issue I can't join my husband in brass banding. 

* there are wibbly wobbly bits 
* I'm on a 3 month follow up with the GP.


BUT, compared with much of 2015 (and 2014, and some of 2013....), where life was like the below., honestly, it is just unimaginable.  Three cheers for my amazing former GP and the rest of my surgery, plus G the care-coordinator, who got me through some very dark times.


*Trigger warning for content below: mentions of suicidal thoughts, self harm, eating disorders*

* I maintained a "face" which the majority of people would have seen if they met me..but...
* I trailed between appointments (averaging one-two a week, but sometimes there were more and very occasionally I would get a week off) with GP, G the care-coordinator, a string of psychiatrists, a psychologist, a series of mindfulness classes, occupational health, and trailed back and forth to the pharmacy collecting a procession of prescriptions.  And waiting rooms! I spent so much time sitting in waiting rooms.

* I would constantly insist that I was a terrible person. Almost anything that happened tracked back to this belief. No amount of psychology was able to defeat this.
* I was too unwell to work my full-time job, so had a temporary arrangement to reduce my hours, but spent the whole time worrying about a) not being there full-time b) not being well enough to go back full time at the end of the arrangement
* My husband was frequently called on to give up an hour of his day to come and collect me from work because I didn't have any mental energy to get myself home
* My husband would cook himself and myself dinner on a daily basis.  This meant that it was impossible for him to go out as on the days when he was out, I would just eat a box of mince pies or something that didn't involve cooking.  Sometimes on the rare occasions he was due to go out, it would have to be cancelled at the last minute as I was too unwell to be left home alone.  This would make him miserable and me feel guilty and miserable.
* My husband did manage to keep doing his long bike rides, but he would have to deal with a stream of miserable text messages and then come home to me having struggled through a day on my own.
* My husband would get me on the phone in tears almost every day that I was out of the house at work
* My husband would do most of the washing, cleaning and sort out any domestic crises.

* My husband was basically my carer at times and received support from a local charity that help carers of people with MH problems. Thank goodness for them, this made a big difference.
* I would go for periods of up to 3 months without any face to face social outings
* There were days when I couldn't even face making myself a cup of coffee
* I would feel too stresssed to eat during the day, never ate breakfast, rarely ate lunch, ate dinner, binge ate junk food, and then would get up in the middle of the night to eat again.  I was too embarassed to talk about this and get any help.
* I repeatedly burnt my left arm with my hair straighteners at the point when things began to deteriorate into intense awfulness in August 2015.
* I hit a suicidal crisis point on 3 separate occasions between January 2014 and August 2015.

I appreciate that there is a high statistical probability of another episode.

But I give endless thanks to the compassion and direction of my former GP that I was diverted from these plans.

Brighton Marathon

Pink Marathon Hair ^^

So when I last wrote, I had 10 days to go until the start of my taper for the marathon.  This saw me complete a second 20 mile run and then a 23 mile run.  My pace was a fair bit slower than at Milton Keynes but I was carrying a rucksack and running on pavements around pedestrians.  It did however look like if I had a good day that I would be able to complete the marathon in under 4 hours.

I have to say that having this target time in my head started to make me feel quite pressured and I found the taper period really stressful.  It didn't help that it felt like my body was breaking down with all sorts of aches and pains seeing me trailing back and forth to the osteopath.  I could barely think about running, let alone doing the visualisations I normally do, without crying.  I amassed a stack of running magazines from my subscriptions that I simply felt too sick to read.  I was so anxious that I couldn't even talk about it as I didn't really want people making "helpful" comments.  I did manage to talk to a couple of people and I had some kind reassurance from a former colleague, Simon, who has done two marathons, and managed to find the right things to say.

The taper apart from all that went off alright; I did the White Horse Half Marathon on 3rd April, my birthday, and the plan was to run that at 1h55 as that would be just right for getting me in under 4 hours a fortnight later.  Of course, I ended up going a bit faster than expected, met a nice chap called Ben who was training for his first in London, and because I was chatting to him, I carried on at this pace until he left me for dust at 18k.  I thought I was on track for a new PB, but I'd forgotten how fast I got around in Bournemouth last year and so was 15 seconds off it!  I came in at 1:47:58.  I also managed a fairly fast 13.5k run the weekend before.

Did my best to rest etc and ate so much that I put on weight in the run up and soon it was time to go down to Brighton the day before.  Mr Just Keep Swimming went to the expo whilst I was able to rest in the Premier Inn, and then we went out to Zizzis for some pasta.  It's definitely a good idea to book a table well in advance (I booked this in January).  Bella Italia weren't taking bookings on the night and Zizzis were totally booked out - the last thing you want to do is to trail around and queue for food.  Zizzis were pretty slow with their food which was a bit of a pain.  We got a reasonable sleep (although I did deploy half a lorazepam to assist) and woke up at 7am. 

We were in walking distance from the start which was really handy as no need to stress about taxis.  Although we arrived in plenty of time and I did not need to use the bag drop as Mr JKS was carrying my few items, the queue for the loos was awful and poorly directed so I was in the queue until 8 minutes before the start which was not ideal.  I'd put myself in the 3h30-4h corral in the hope that I would get swept along and achieve my sub 4h goal; I was hoping to find the pacer but it was totally impossible to.  I did see some other Mind runners and was able to wish them all the best.  The corral was very muddy so most of us started the race with mud stuck to our trainers - not ideal, but at least it wasn't wet!

Start of the race was fairly unremarkable.  The first mile is uphill, but that's pretty much the only hill.  I felt really thirsty and felt a bit frustrated that the water was only being handed out in cups (which is pretty much only 1 mouthful) but I took a couple of cups at the early aid stations which seemed to help.  After 5 miles I got to the Mind cheering point which was the first time that I would see Mr JKS.  I was super happy to see my lovely contact from the Mind events team and stopped to give her a quick hug.

After that we had a fairly long run out to Roedean, and we saw the elite runners come the other way.  As we came back from Roedean, there was a chap handing out orange slices. Goodness me that was unexpected and incredibly delicious. Exclaiming over the deliciousness I got talking to the only person I had a real conversation with - John. He was running for the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust because his wife had an ectopic pregnancy last year. Happily she is now 4 months pregnant now even though they had been told they wouldn't have another pregnancy. We also talked about mental health.  I emailed the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust when I got back home and they were able to point me towards his fundraising page and I received a lovely email from him afterwards.

Back from Roedean and into town again.  The atmosphere at this point was absolutely amazing.  I felt absolutely fantastic and was totally enjoying the experience - bands, crowds - just brilliant. At 12.5 miles I ran past the second Mind cheerpoint, and then at 13 miles I saw Mr JKS again.  From there it was on into a residential area until about mile 18, and there were huge numbers of people handing out sweets which was fantastic, I hadn't really expected that.  There was also a steel band, a brass quintet and more orange slices.  I met a few more Mind runners but didn't really chat to anyone.  At this point I would have been finding it hard to speak as I was maintaining an amazing pace that was far faster than I had anticipated.  Secretly, I was starting to wonder if, far from sneaking in under 4h, I might sneak in under 3h45 and achieve a good for age time of 3h45.

At about 18 miles, I saw the lovely Fiona!  This was a total surprise as although I knew that she would be there, I assumed that she would be following her much faster husband around.  However, there was an excellent app that provided updates as to where people were and I assume that this helped!  As you can see, I was very happy to see her.



Soon after this as I got towards 20 miles I was starting to find it all quite hard going.  I saw Mr JKS at 20 miles and rejected the coca cola that I'd been planning to have, I just didn't fancy it.  There was then a couple of fairly soul destroying miles through an industrial estate and I was starting to hurt and my pace was starting to drop.  Saw Mr JKS again at 23 miles and he ran a little way with me but I was worried that that was cheating so told him not to!  At this point, my watch died...  I don't particularly rely on it for pace, but what I *do* find helpful to know is how many metres are left to go.  I found that very helpful on my 20 and 23 mile training runs...  Looking at the statistics just now, I had maintained a pace of 5:16 minute kms until that point, and with 4.2k to go, I had nearly 25 minutes to cover it to come in at under good for age time.  I was hurting very very much, but I think that had I been able to see how far was left to go, I would have managed to motivate myself a bit better.  I ended up walking a bit, and then walking again at 25 miles as I started retching which is always a sure sign that my body is at its total limit.  I started feeling really disappointed with myself, which was a bit silly as I had totally smashed the time I was hoping for.  The crowds were shouting out my name, and whilst that had been super early on in the race when I could wave/thumbs up in acknowledgement, I just found it really frustrating.

Somehow I managed to keep it together a little more and I was surprised to see the finish as I had missed the 26 mile sign. I could not even muster a sprint finish and lay down on the floor as soon as I got over the line and started crying. The St Johns Ambulance people got a bit overexcited and wanted to put me in their ambulance but I managed to get up at the sight of the wheelchair. I cried all over the lady giving out space blankets and all the way out of the finish section (500m) and then lay down in the middle of the Mind tent and cried some more. Then I had a cup of tea and sat up and had a banana and a lovely lady who had volunteered her afternoon gave me a calf massage.

So, that was that really.  Less than 3 minutes off good for age and I finished in the top 4% of women.  Not bad for a swimmer.  Not bad if you knew me at school.  Not bad considering that at most I ran 3-4 times a fortnight.

There was minor blisterage, very sore legs for a couple of days, and now I just need the osteopath to put my glutes and right hamstring back into the right places and I should be good to run again.  I've found the last week very fatigued and I guess I am just impatient about getting back to it.  I'm super envious of everyone who is running London tomorrow and hatching my own plans for the future.  Of course, it's not long before my next one as in 3 weeks time Mr JKS and I will be doing the Windermere marathon.  That's not going to be a flat out race, I am expecting us to average 10-11 minute miles, walking up the hills and just trying to have a nice day out seeing the lake from the land rather than face down in the water...