Well, not 7 days from our tremendous efforts on the Mega Big one, we hit the beach. I was even contemplating Rottingdean and back. We arrived in the carpark at the new later meet time, finally conceeding to the dark mornings and the onset of GMT once again. Its just too dark now at 6:45. Weird people hanging round the beach in rubber is bad enough, but in the dark? well, thats just too weird. With public interest first, I set the swim time 7:30.
Joan, Paul C, Hildi (with a wonky ear) Ollie, Alex and Jude gathered on the beach and all agreed it was just silly degress centigrade. Not 7 days passed since those lovely confditions? what had happened. suddenly it was dark, overcast, cold and breezy. The clouds were a dark gun metal grey and the little sun had no chance of getting through it.... oh dear.
Still hoping that the tan I had earned in Lanzarote would still be generating heat below the epidermis, I stripped off. Hat on, goggles on, ear plugs in...by jove it was chilly, thanks for nothing tan, see you next year. I saw Jude and Alex squeezing into neoprene but at least my madness was contained/shared smewhat as Joan,Paul and Hildi all bared flesh before the temperature reading. Joan danced back up the beach, hot-footing over the pebbles, to get a verified reading of 13 degs.....eek...we headed in.
Lovely clear conditions, albeit seeming very cold at first, sign of things to come. we agreed on a T20 time trial of widths between the groynes. I managed 6 in 19:31 with a light current east to west. I'm not sure how many people did, but as we all emerged with the realisation that a later start is a quicker exit (as work don't respect SSF winter/summer hours) we all shivered our way into clothes. Joan actually brandshing the first warm shower of the year...oh how the mighty have fallen ;-)
My fingers were freezing after 20 mins of that, thank goodness I'm not doing anything crazy like a cold water champs or anything. I mean, come on, can you imagine that? I made a swift exit to get to my new place of work and my toes hurt all the way there. booties and gloves will be on the shopping list very soon!
Thanks everyone for the laughs and for the conditions, a rather good workout. see you soon!
In: 7:28
Out: 7:54
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