Paul McDonald

Doing the gym once a week to start with. Mostly weights. I’ve had 5 sessions so far and I’m already noticing some benefit.

I generally start with arms and chest, doing latteral and incline bench’s and the peck deck. Then I do some shoulders (front and back), some legs (weight machine and squats), some upper back and some abs. I need to learn some exercised for the lower back.

It always takes two days before I’m in pain. After the first session I was aching for almost a week but it’s not as bad now – maybe I should be pushing myself more. Is it supposed to hurt after EVERY session?

I got a copy of an audio course and although it’s kinda cheesy it’s actually very good. I stuck it on my mp3 player and listen to it in the car on the way to work.

I can now confidently arive in Paris, tell someone who I am and where I’m from, ask if they’re hungry and want something to eat, and suggest we go to the hotel. If I was single that could be a very useful conversation.

I’ve done five 45 minute lessons and I can now do the crawl, breathing and everything. I started off going to a “beginners” class because I couldn’t swim but I was told that in fact I could, I just wasn’t very good so I moved up to the “improvers” class.

After week 2 I was kicking with a float.

After week 3 I was kicking and breathing with a float.

After week 4 I was swimming.

And on week 5 I’m now perfecting my stroke, kicking and breathing. I’ve even been in the deep-end which wasn’t as frightening as I though it would be.

I’ve found that at times it was easier to swim without the float but by using a float and concentrating on getting the kicking and breathing right it makes the whole process easier in the end, and much more comfortable.

There’s quite a few people in the class who’re clearly there just to get out the house for a while and have a quiet swim, but if you put the effort in and stick with it, especially when you’re getting frustrated, it all just comes together in the end.

Next on the list is treading water.