Tenerife #8

As I write my final camp blog 37,000 feet above the earth in the plane (to upload when home, oh for some free wifi on planes!), it’s a good time to reflect on the last week and to mention some of the highlights for the week.  I know I sort of wrote a wrap up post yesterday, but I was tired and I don’t think I did the week justice.

We also had a fantastic final afternoon which was worth writing about.  Last year, we had some very informal girls v boy relays on camp which proved highly competitive with not a little cheating (I admit from myself).  Since the girls lost last year, Vicky and myself had been looking forward to some sort of rematch for most of the year…

Friday afternoon was our opportunity, and Dan organised the first (hopefully annual) boys v girls Tridynamic Swim for Tri Swimming Gala.  This consisted of 12 events plus 2 relays with everyone, and we all had to take part in 2.  They included 50m backstroke, 50m front crawl, 25m butterfly, push and glide (to see who could go the furthest), dive and glide (ditto), 50m front crawl with 6 forward rolls, extension drill for speed, advanced single arm drill for style, armchair sculling, and backwards sculling and individual medley in 2 lengths.  As there were 6 boys, and only 5 teams, Martin(a) kindly joined the girls, which was good because he could swim butterfly as well as being a competitive breaststroke swimmer.  It was neck and neck until the last relay event where bonus points were on offer: this involved the teams splitting into two.  Swimmer A had to swim to the other end of the pool where Swimmer B was waiting, Swimmer B grabbed Swimmer A’s ankles and they front crawled back to the Swimmer C, who joined in as well.  It was neck and neck but the two girls teams came in first managing to bag the overall victory.  And here we are with our celebratory bottle of water.  Very entertaining after a long week.

Before getting the transfer back to the airport this morning, I got up for another early morning run, same route as the other day.  I felt really proud of myself as I got back; running 5k seems like very little after the half marathon, yet I know I didn’t even do any 5k runs this time last year as I was anaemic and not supposed to be running.  I calculated that I’d done 18.5 hours of training since arriving (nothing compared to Simon’s projected 35 if he gets in a long run tomorrow), but twice as much as I do on a normal week and nearly twice as much as on a good week (15.5 hours swimming, 1.5 hours strength, 0.5 hours on the track, 2 x 0.5 hour runs)

I was really sad to be going home.  It hadn’t been the easiest week for me, but it had actually flown past, and reports of 0C weather in the UK did nothing to make me want to leave the beautiful blue skies and warm sunny day.  It had been great to see people who I already knew, as well as meet some new people.  It had been lovely to swim outside in February at such a fantastic centre (amid eminent athletes!), even if getting changed and showering endlessly got a bit groundhog day.  Nice to have a week away from making packed lunches and doing chores; the all you can eat buffet will be much missed.  Doing different drills has really helped my stroke and given me more things to practise and think about when at home, and there were a couple of moments when I really felt things click – in the last outdoor swim particularly.  I am looking forward to the season ahead, and looking forward to getting back in my wetsuit in April (although maybe not the cold water until the lido warms up!).  As I said yesterday, I would certainly recommend a Tridynamic Camp (although I’ve no idea how I could keep up with a camp doing all 3 sports!), and coaching by Dan Bullock is well worth having.

I managed somehow to escape the excess baggage charge this time around, and even managed to find room for a 1kg Ritta Sport selection pack (10 different flavours!) to take home to share with Mr Tuna (admittedly that was airside).  In a couple of hours I’ll be back with Mr Tuna hopefully, and then a fairly easy day tomorrow catching up with some chores/work and getting ready to hit the pool and take my hopefully improved stroke for an outing.