Learning new lessons are always good, even if what you started out doing, didn't actually happen and was pulled short.
Today I thought I was going to do a 10 kilometer open water swim training session with my training partner. After a long day yesterday for the both of us, and strong North Easterly winds the water was a little on the rougher side. Going out (heading north) we planned to do 2.5 kilometers and then head back, but at the 1.1km mark I thought that we would reach our goal of 2.5, but at 1.75km which felt like it took for ever to swim 649m, so at 2.15km we decided as we were being pushed further out to sea and finding the water getting a little rougher that we would turn and head back. In total we did 4.416km. To put the water conditions into perspective it took us one hour to swim 2.15km and forty minutes to swim back 2.27km back, we went from averaging 2:25/100m going out and finished at 2:18/100m by the time we made it back to the beach. 
As our weather here in Perth has been a little odd, in the sense that we got a week of storms and rain, and strong winds and temperatures around the low 20 degrees Celsius to this week being in the high 20's and sunshine. So I knew the water temperature would be cooler than usual, but when I got in and started swimming I had that feeling of my arms and legs being slightly numb. I managed to warm up as we swam, but getting out we were shivering and feeling the cold more. So being in the sunshine this morning was lovely.
So learning from this is even though you have a goal in mind of what distance we were going to swim, it was more important to deal with the weather conditions and our safety than the distance. I was happy that I felt strong in the water today. I have been doing some extra strength training session this past week to help with some mental stress, and also allow my body to rest from swimming and use some different muscles so I didn't end up over training. In doing this I felt so much stronger in the water and didn't stress out about the water conditions. As hard as it was going out, I didn't have the feeling that I just wanted to get out as it got rougher the further we headed out. Coming back was amazing as usual, the fish that swim under you is stunning, and watching the plantation on the reef following the direction of the current and I was so taken by my surroundings that I forgot to sight to where I was going and end up a little off course.
Hayley xx
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