I’ve been undergoing torture at the gym, personal training it’s called but surely should be renamed personal torture! Having been involved in triathlon for a few years and suffered through a few Ironmans so I thought I was fairly fit but I take that all back. I know I haven’t competed for the last year because Swimovate has taken all my energy, but I still try to run, bike or swim 6 days a week. After an hour in the gym with my trainer, fellow triathlete Mark, I can barely walk for about 3 days and ache in places I didn’t know existed. I can’t believe how weak I actually am.
I’m learning the delights of the viper, T-REX, bosu ball, supersets and lots more strange gymspeak- why is it all so alien? It’s my fault really, I entered husband and son into Ironman Lanzarote (they did want to, honestly) but now I have got persuaded to do some of the training with them and share Jim’s PT sessions as my penance.

Having spent years doing the long slow stuff, one minute reps on the rower or bike sound easy but believe me they hurt more than an hour round the park. I’m hoping they will pay dividends in the end but I seem to be permanently hobbling up and down the stairs with quads that hurt as much as after running a marathon (not that I fancy running 26.2 miles either at the moment).

Someone no stranger to hard exercise is our sponsored swimmer Ellie Faulkner. Ellie got 2 bronze medals and 1 silver in the British Championships this month and importantly secured Olympic spots in the 4 x 200m free and the 800m free alongside Rebecca Adlington.
We know how hard Ellie trains and were cheering her on all the way. The standard of swimmers in the UK is so high now, we can’t wait for the Olympics themselves.

March has also seen us launch new PoolMate Pro software and welcome swimmers, retailers and distributors far and wide in countries such as Uruguay, Costa Rica, Mongolia and Brunei and there is even a University in Chile setting up a computer course based on the watch!

Here’s hoping the quads man up soon!