WEEKEND WARRIOR

Brunty’s been given the green light for indoor swim training – leaving him redlining and aching from head to toe…

Please forgive any typing errors in this month’s column but, as I write this, I’m struggling to lift my arms up to my keyboard. There’s a pool of drool between the letters F, C and G, and my jaw has sagged so hard that it’s broken the space bar.

The reason? My swimming club have restarted squad training and I’ve just completed my third early morning swim in four days after a four-month break.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m overjoyed to be back in the pool again, but Christ I’ve lost fitness. I’d gone 17 weeks without a swim because being a land-locked Midlander meant my watery options were limited. While many of you can strike out into lakes or the sea, apart from the pool my only other local option is the canal, which frankly has enough bodies in it already.

UNEXPECTED FORM

Anyway, I’m back and, to be fair, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting… It was worse. I’m normally no Michael

Phelps but still, I’ve lost an unbelievable amount of pace and my arms feel like they have all the power of a dentist’s drill. The realisation that there’s only one way to fix this – more swimming – has just made me sigh so hard I won’t have to dust the house for an entire month.

As ever I’m my own worst enemy because I went straight from four months of swim inactivity to doing 5,000m, 5,000m and 6,000m in four mornings, an about-turn so flawless that even a Russian skating judge would give me a 10.

On top of this, having slept like a bollard until 8am every day since mid-March, I’m now back to getting up at 4am three mornings a week that, when combined with all the running and cycling I’ve been doing to make up for the absence of swimming, means I’m out of the house more than an oil-rig worker.

Of course, there are several Covid-shaped hoops to jump through before you can actually get in the water, which include being masked up, sprayed with gel, made to follow a one-way maze to poolside, changing in your designated lane ‘bubble’ and having your temperature taken, although I still can’t understand why it’s just me who has been singled out for the rectal temperature check.

“WATER-BASED CONGA”

Like all good misanthropes my chief concern was, of course, whether I’d be in a lane bubble full of tw*ts. There were so many people at the first swim it looked like a water based-conga, but happily I was placed in a lane with my friends Sue, Julia and Rebecca – who proceeded to put me through the pain-wringer after sensing that I was struggling. Fair enough, it’s what I’d do to them.

Now that I’m back in the water I’ve realised there were several things I’d forgotten about swim training. Firstly, the pain. I was expecting my arms to ache – and by Christ they did – but I was expecting it to wear off after a couple of thousand metres, which by Christ it didn’t. When the pain did eventually go, it merely travelled up to my shoulders where it still resides.

Secondly, I’d forgotten how itchy my back gets – and, of course, with my arms as stiff as a paving slab I can’t reach it, so I’ve resorted to rubbing my back against trees like Baloo. Thirdly, I’d forgotten the allpervading smell of chlorine that, when I sweat, gives me a body odour which could be used as a crowdcontrol measure. Fourthly, I’m sneezing all the time, which at least sends me to the front of the queue in the supermarket.

Lastly, I’d forgotten how grumpy I am first thing in the morning. At my first swim, I greeted my old friend Joe, with whom I’ve been friends for 20 years and who I hadn’t seen for four months, but who was standing in the wrong changing area looking bewildered, with the words, “F*** off out of our bubble.”

Anyway, I wish to record my enormous thanks to all the staff and volunteers at City of Coventry Swimming Club for working so hard to get us back into the pool, and with that I’m off now because I keep nodding so far I’ve just nutted the screen. I’d go back to bed but I just can’t lift the duvet.

“After sleeping till 8am since March, I’m back to rising at 4am three times a week”