The Splat Cooking Blog

I took the plunge, literally, on Sunday and turned up for an Open Water Swim seminar. After the fiasco at the swim section of the Hampton Triathlon I really needed to do this, even if it was only to get my head straight.

Dorney Lake at Eton was the venue, triathlons were going on at the same time and we all rather nervously took at seat for the seminar bit first. Bill Black, coach to triathlete stars, spent the first 45 mins going through technique and giving out valuable bits of advice for the various big events coming up – Blenheim which I’m doing in 3 weeks was especially good. Didn’t realise until Sunday that once you finished the swim there is a 400m uphill run to transition, Bill said to take your wetsuit off straight after the swim and run with it to T1 otherwise the suit will have dried off so much it would be difficult to take off once you’re up at T1. Bill also let slip that one of the coaches had been replaced by Andrea Whitcombe – a tri goddess, wow, the whole lake swim thing seems more exciting!

Wetsuits on, walk to the lake, cloud comes over, wind gets up, sun vanishes, it’s probably around 13 degrees – hmmmm, not fun. BUT, I managed to get myself into Andrea’s team, it’s a difficult choice as Nicola Millichip, swim goddess, has the other team. I could have kicked the lady next to me when she asked Andrea what her name was – obviously no idea that she’s talking to a god (!!!!!)

Into the water, it’s cold, not as cold as the North Sea in August, but cold, wetsuit is fantastic but the bits sticking out are freezing – hands, legs and the worst bit is putting my face into the water, boy it’s cold.

I actually quite enjoyed the first 20 minutes, then the feeling went in my hands and feet and breathing was really hard when the water is so cold it takes your breath away. A lot of people had problems with not seeing the bottom of the lake, pond weed, not knowing what was around your legs (the odd shark), after diving and surfing this bit wasn’t the problem, breathing out underwater was so my stroke went totally to pot.

I’m more than a little worried about swimming 750m but I’m hoping that when I’m moving it won’t be as bad and hopefully it will be warm and sunny, plus I’ve been coached by the famous Andrea Whitcombe so I’ve got to get it right. Thanks Andrea.

Graham, a lovely bloke who’s the duty manager at Waitrose’s Thame branch, has just agreed to donate the eggs for the free children’s pasta making workshops at A Taste of Summer Food Festival at Blenheim Palace this weekend. So I’d like to say a really, really big THANK YOU. Waitrose are fantastic, they sponsored us for ingredients when we first started up running cooking parties back in 2001, they’re brilliant.

I was really looking forward to this tri, first one of the season, been putting loads of swim practice in so I was feeling much more comfortable with the swim element this time than in the past year.

Well, it all went horribly wrong. Not sure if I just got too cold waiting on the side. It’s an open air pool and although the water is heated it was around 5 degrees on the poolside and got really, really cold so when I eventually got into the pool it felt like bathwater. Started off thinking I was going at my normal pace and only managed half a length and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t feel my arms and legs and felt terrible. Reverted to breast stroke for a while and had to wait at one end to let about 5 people past before I could carry on. In the end my swim time was really horrible especially when I can do 400m in the pool in 8.5 mins.

Was worried at one point that I wouldn’t be up to doing the rest of the race but once I got out and on the bike it was fine. Knocked 5 mins off my bike time and my run time was acceptable seeing as I’ve still got a grade 1 tear in my ankle and haven’t been doing much running recently because of it.

Overall knocked 2 mins off my time, but wanted to knock off 6 mins! Some people are never happy!!!!!

I felt so bad about my swim that I was really nervous getting back in the pool 2 days later. But last night finally got it together and I’m back feeling much happier, fortunately, as I’ve got open water swim training this weekend to prep for the big Blenheim Triathlon in 4 weeks.

Just waiting for my wetsuit to be delivered and threatening the children with being an embarassing parent and swimming in the mill pond to try it out.

Thames Turbo who run the tris at Hampton Pool were brilliant, they always are, but I emailed Heather the race director about the swim problems and she was wonderfully supportive so i’ll be back in August and hopefully bringing a load of mates with me too.

We’ve just had a really exciting morning (sad, I know but we have our kicks somehow) opening a delivery of our new range of cake cases.

Muffin cups in leopard, zebra, giraffe prints plus beautiful orchids, violets, roses and poppies.  Alison has just asked if we can get the customers who are booked onto the Posh Icing workshop tomorrow to change to doing Fantasy Cupcakes so we can try these out but I don’t they’ll  like that so we’ll have to wait until next week instead.  

They are beautiful quality and really posh, can’t wait to use them.