Friday 8th September

 15:08:

Last night I did the close with Shannon and despite it being very dead and boring I still reached over 10k steps for the day. Unfortunately because I work past 12 it's difficult for me to see what steps were on which day, but I'm not really concerned about this. After we finished we came back home and watched an episode of Merlin so I didn't sleep until late. I slept from 02:39-10:27, but what's interesting is that even though I slept for 7hrs 48 minutes I only had 2hrs 20 minutes of deep sleep, which means that even though I slept for longer than I did the past two nights, I didn't sleep as well. I think this is because it was very hot and both Joe and Shannon interacted with me/tried to wake me up this morning. Apparently I was also awake at certain points in the night for a total of 16 minutes, but I don't remember this so I don't know if my watch was wrong or if I woke up and just can't remember.

For breakfast I had an apple again and a slice of ham because I couldn't decide on what to eat. Then I attempted to make porridge with added protein powder, but it turned into a weird mush so I didn't eat it in the end. Fortunately there was still some egg mayo left over from the other day so I had some in a sandwich before smoking a spliff and heading to the swimming pool.

This time I was punctual because I didn't forget anything (although I was almost late from not looking at the time). This meant that for the first time I spent my entire swimming slot in the pool! I recorded my swim on my watch as aerobic exercise again, but I ran into some problems that I've noticed each time I've been swimming. Firstly, my watch (a cheap £30 Nerunsa smartwatch from Amazon), doesn't have swimming as an option for exercise. It would be best if I had something that could be more swim-specific, allowing me to record the number of lengths along with other things I've not yet considered. The second problem is that when I put the watch into exercise mode, it senses when I stop moving. I see why it's done this way but I've found that it sometimes pauses when I'm in the middle of a length, which has led to me constantly checking my watch instead of focussing on my swimming. This time it also strangely stopped recording after about 4 minutes so irritatingly the swim I did today has been split into two workouts instead of just one. If I combine them I swam for a total of 37 minutes and 12 seconds. My maximum heart rate was 175bpm, minimum 87bpm, and average 136bpm (I took this from the longer recorded session because it's too long to figure out the average of both). Looking at the data on my phone has made me realise it would be good to make a swimming chart. I think I'll do this on numbers on my phone/iPad and put it on here too so I don't need my laptop to access/edit them properly.

In terms of the exercise itself, I was very impressed with my progress already. I was in the pool for longer, swam longer and found it much easier to do so. The first two times I went I couldn't even do a full length without giving up half way, but this time I did multiple (I wish I knew how many, hence my wish for a feature that measures lengths). I wasn't as out of breath and I didn't feel so tired that I needed to leave the pool early. Overall I'm elated with how my fitness journey is going so far. I'm also going to hit the gym with Joe later for Day 3 of lifting, but I don't think I'll do the same exercises as him for long. Once I'm confident with my form and using the machines I want to try a different split that would be better for the type of body I have/want. I may document our gym session here later but if not I will tomorrow. That's all for now!