Too soon? Yeah, too soon.

When I announced at work during the week I was heading to the pool that evening, I was warned by all and sundry. 

"The pool, what for?"
"Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"It's too soon!" 

I wasn't sure it was a good idea either. I even thought that perhaps it was too soon. I wasn't sure I was ready to swim, but I was ready to find out.

I had a doctor appointment the following day and I thought it would be useful to test out my body so I could give an accurate summation of how I was shaping up.

So off I went, armed with my kick board, prepared to spend most of my time kicking, rather than stroking, up and down the lane.

I could feel it almost immediately I lay horizontal in the water. It wasn't even comfortable kicking with my arms stretched out in front of me holding my kick board. I rolled over onto my side and kicked that way for a while, with just my left arm outstretched. This felt a bit better.

As I warmed up my muscles started to feel better, but I could still feel every breath. It was all I could do to get through 15, perhaps 20, minutes.

15 minutes! The set I was scheduled to do would normally take me over an hour! Usually, when I do these sets, I see other swimmers who paddle up and down for less than half an hour, and wonder why they bother.

And now I'm one of them.

When you train for endurance events, it's easy to take for granted 3k swim sets, running for hours and riding all morning. But let's be real for a moment; that's not normal.

Swimming for half an hour, probably is normal.

I, however, have come to expect more of myself; of my body. When I'd had as much a I could handle, I got out, utterly disheartened.

I drove home, and as I made dinner I felt like I was back to square one - I was in more pain than I had been for the last couple of days.

The next day, my doctor advised me to assume I had some damaged ribs. With this new prognosis comes another couple of weeks of light duties at best. Limited cardio work and definitely no running.

I don't know where this leaves me for my Cairns Challenge plans. I guess I'll have to wait for a couple of weeks before assessing my options. Though KKB, always one to challenge the standard way of doing this, reckons I can pull off a finish even with this unplanned hiatus.

For me, well, it's a bit too soon to tell.