Just thought i'd say thanks to the support a few of you guys have given over the past few months to my moaning about swimming (in particular Geochuck-you're a legend man)

I've been cracking out 45-50 lengths in the pool of late in sets of 12 or so at a time with relative ease. I'm not fast, however, i'm calm, collected, smooth(ish!) and very very slowly getting confident in myself. That's a huge turn around on my previous state-8 weeks ago i could do little more than 2 lengths at a time. I kept at it, then one day i did 4. Then i did 4 sets of 4. Then i said "sure feck it, i'll do 6", but i got past 6 and if felt okay, i kept going, 8 flew by without me even noticing, 10 and then i stopped at 12 lengths after setting out with 6 in mind on that particular set. In comparison to you guys that's pretty poor, however i can see myself accelerating in my progress. I'll be up to 30 soon enough. That may seem like a huge leap on paper, but i actually feel i could do it relatively soon. It just feels so much easier.

This has been such a bummer because i can do 40+ lengths with speed at breaststroke with little effort, but my front crawl has always gotten me down. I'd say i won't be in pefect shape for my tri at the end of august but i now ENJOY swimming, which is the major change. The funny part is that i now think about things like i do when i run and cycle. before it was always "arrrrghhhh! i can't breathe! my legs are sinking! arrrrgghhhhh! that guy's going faster than me! arrrghhhh panic!!!" now it's more like "god, that guy on the phone in work today was a pain" or "hmmm, i wonder what's for dinner....."

Anyways, thanks a lot guys. I'm off on holidays on saturday for a week with my girlfriend. She'll be rather put out that i'll want to spend my time in the pool doing lengths, not messing about doing cannon bombs etc...!!! Wait till i tell her i'll be out running too!