Boats and Kettlebells

Can you throw up under water?  I thought I was going to find out on session 5 of hell Thursday.  It wasn't helped by the fact that I had overslept and so turned up 10 minutes late.  You have no idea how tempted I was just to stay in bed and apologise for missing the session, but I reckoned I would be made to pay -either in my training session or in the final swim session, the risk wasn't worth it so I scampered down the street towards the gym, streaming various items of clothing behind me as I tried to get dressed on the move.   Mark's response to my tardiness was "Well you should get some good swim times in if you've had extra sleep" *groan.*  I think I managed to elicit a mild expression of being impressed from Mark when I managed to do my swim sets in the same time each time, but I did knock one set off each block just so that I didn't expire in the pool.  Shall have to work on my pull in preparation for this tri and before everyone gets excited I'm talking about my arms under the water!

I actually had to go to work after the session and spent the rest of the day in an oxygen deprived haze, trying to focus on the mechanics of car accidents.  Friday's brick session had to be cancelled as I had to head to Coventry with a big bag of sailing gear for what turned out to be a mammoth day in court - despite my optimistic hopes that I would be on a train to Southampton by 1330 - I finally got a train at 1830 and had a healthy train buffet supper of bbq hula hoops, beef jerky and a caramel chunky kitkat.  I did however manage not to succumb to the temptation of a mini bottle of wine so I was still in a fit state to put up the tent when I got to Lymington and my eternal thanks to Lisa for picking me up from the station.  It was at this stage that my good intentions fell into tatters as I met everyone in the pub and I was forced, yes forced, to have a large glass of wine, which seemed to multiply and then ended up with us on the boat drinking bizarre mixtures of alcohol and mixers - bacardi and ginger beer anyone??

I managed not to get back to the tent so slept on the boat and was awoken to get a bacon buttie and a bloody mary from the haven cafe/restaurant.  The REYC were having a feeder race in the morning so that the first 3 boats could be chosen to race against the Royal Lymington Yacht Club in the afternoon.  As Ilex managed not to even start the race on time we were gobsmacked pleased to manage to catch up so that we qualified. Actually we weren't pleased at all as most of us were so hungover that we had been looking forward to an afternoon nap before we started drinking again at the post regatta dinner.   The REYC's new yacht Right Royal of Upnor performed outstandingly in the first race and did so again in the afternoon much to the pride of all (especially those who had put so much effort into getting her purchased).  My memories of the race involve headaches, confusion between port and starboard and having a mouth so dry that I was expecting sand to start billowing out.

                                                                                                           Right Royal went off like a rocket and despite the lethargy levels on the boat, we did enough not to let the other boats down.  We were all elated to be told at the Yacht Club drinks that for the first time in many many years the REYC had won the trophy!  The evening went down hill from there into a drunken haze and many hangovers on Sunday morning.