Swimathon Triple 5000 metres Challenge/ Littlehampton Wave

                                                               Littlehampton Wave

Coming up fast this weekend is the annual national swimming challenge, ‘The Swimathon’. Most town swimming pools and leisure centres will be inviting swimmers young and old to challenge themselves over a distance that suits them. There are a number of options available and they can be done within a group of friends or swimming and triathlon clubs. It can be an individual challenge or relay.

 Swimathon last year in Littlehampton: Anthony Towers, Michelle Chittenden, Kevin Pearson, Me 

My husband/coach Steve and I have done this event almost every year since it started. We do it just because it is a rare opportunity to do a swim of this length continuously because most swim sessions are an hour long and the fact that it is counted and the results are recorded at a national level add to the interest. You get to be told how you got on against other people in the same age band as yourself which is rather fun. The whole thing is put on for charity you can fund raise though it is not compulsory to do so since the entry profits go to the charity.

Same staff with the same friendly welcoming smiles will be seen in the new Littlehampton Wave

 

This year the Swimathon group presented a new option the ‘Triple Challenge’. The event goes on for three days though not all the pools offer all three days. So you may have to go to a different pool to find the three. In our case we have to drive to Leatherhead for the first day, tomorrow, Friday 29^th March but thankfully there is an earlier option on that day so we have booked in for the 1pm to 4pm section. There is another session after that but it would mean being quite late home.

Call me a mad old bat but I have taken the triple challenge on. It seemed like a good opportunity for some clear water ploughing up and down uninterrupted.

Steve will be doing the first 5000 with me or at least at the same time in the same pool. Then Saturday and Sunday will be very exciting in that it will be my first and second swim in our brand new ‘state of the art’ ultra modern and totally new, town pool and leisure centre. It is called Littlehampton Wave and it is meant to give our town something to be proud of. Once opened the old pool will be demolished and the whole area landscaped and glamorised. It will look out over the promenade to the sea on one side and will overlook the pretty Mewsbrook Park and mini lake to the side. Vending machines will be a thing of the past and instead there will be a trendy coffee lounge.

Steve and I took a tour around the breathtaking sport centre with is vast amount of new equipment only last week and were astonished that we will have one of the best leisure centres in the entire UK. Steve will not be there with me at the weekend because he has to go to France on a business work trip to the antiques fairs in the South. One of my friends has volunteered to count for me on Saturday night and for the last session I have called in extra help. Another friend will swim with bringing with her somebody to count for us both. The answer to the question is No I definitely cannot count 200 lengths whilst I swim. I would be well out, counting that myself. If fact whilst day dreaming normally I have a job counting 200 metres.

The funny thing is that the swim pal coming to help me through the last day will be swimming her first 5000 metres ever and has needed constant reassurance that it is within her capabilities. She is a regular swimmer and has been a triathlete for three years and so of course she can swim that far. So somewhere between my confidence that I am unsinkable and her absence of confidence in her own power to get through a distance that she swims within each week over her swim sets easily, there may be some measureable level of what we are capable of. Fingers legs and eyes crossed for us both then please.

The last club swim in the old pool for some of Trinity triathlon and masters swimmers members 

Please donate for the sake of The Chestnut Tree House that is a home for children with life threatening conditions. Or if you would rather, please donate to AgeUK West Sussex.

www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Daphne-Belt

La Bohème: Close Up Opera

                                    All photos are taken from the website of Close Up Opera 

My training has gone well over the last month and things are looking good for a fairly well filled season ahead. Going along with that, I have been tired but have slept very well. On top of that I have been busy with the rest of life too. We still manage to get out a bit to relax but usually still with sports friends. There are several little groups with whom we love to share social outings. They are all swimmers, though not all triathletes.

We go out to dinner after the club swim sometimes and that set varies, between 6-10 of us, though not dressing up and all having goggles marks around our eyes after our swim training. Then there is a smaller group who go to the small local art house cinema when something grabs our joint attention. A smaller group generally three or four, who go on more serious theatre trips that have to be booked months in advance. I book those myself. We nearly always make an evening of it, with a nice dinner somewhere before hand. Then there is the final group that are opera lovers. We do take a little more time getting dressed for those, maybe Glyndebourne or a gala evening somewhere, again meeting up with a wider group of other athletes.

So last week when one of the ‘Opera’ crowd said that La Bohème was on in Worthing and shall we go, I left the arrangements to her thinking it was one of the, ‘Live From’ filmed live performances, usually from a West End theatre or the Royal Opera House or maybe from the New York Metropolitan Opera House. Those evenings are a big favourite because they are such amazing value. These, you get to see in your local cinema for £12-15 and you get to see the very same performance that the rich folk, in their diamonds are paying £250 each for in the Opera House proper.

That was what I thought we were going to last night. Even though the tickets were twice the usual cinema price but thought no more of it other than everything goes up in price sooner or later. However, with my busy training schedule when the time came, I had forgotten that we were going out at all until the last moment as we left the house to go to our regular Saturday evening Trinity Club Swim session. We were both dressed in jeans, a scruffy sweater and trainers without even putting any socks on. I only remembered then, because my friend had sent a text to say ‘See you in the car park or the foyer’. 

I did get my swim in, whilst Steve coached the club session. This added to the ghastly state of my appearance by finding myself with no time to attend to look in a mirror. I had wet rat’s tails hanging from my head, down to the cable jumper I had worn for two days. Steve had his work anorak over his jeans and sweat shirt.

When we parked and hurried to meet the group in the foyer we discovered that it was a live performance by Close Up Opera, who had recently won an award as Best New Opera Company. Our friend, who had excused herself from swimming that evening, was a picture of elegance, face made up prettily, feminine clothes and shoes. The only male friend, who is always nicely turned out, with his smooth silver pony tail was looking decidedly dignified. The last member of our swim group was wearing a smart bronze brocade jacket and had taken some trouble to do her hair.

 None the less they were pleased that we had even made it on time and George who describes himself as central European, stepped forward to plant two kisses charmingly on my cheeks. I hurriedly apologised to the group but Steve could not have cared less as we were given tickets for our front row seats! 

Close Up Opera, are not self named lightly and after the first act the action moved into the fully illuminated auditorium with the cast moving about the theatre continuing the well known opera in English and I felt, quite loosely translated. The one line that I questioned from the original libretto was, “She changes her mind more often than she changes her knickers”.

It was an astonishing new production of Puccini’s famous work and brought a heavyweight work like this right down to earth. My husband, who usually hates it when modern dress is used, had to admit that it worked well in this brilliant take on the original work. One of our party was a virgin opera goer and remarked that she had no idea it would be funny, at which point I told her to make the most of it because that would not last into the final act, that, would bring out the hankies.

We were all happy that we had been lucky enough for at least one of us to have spotted this little small gem of a company, who are on a national tour. They will be a household name before you can say Mimi!

Thank you Close Up Opera, for a marvellous evening with the stuffiness knocked right out of Grand Opera. My name is on their mailing list now.

Me Time

It is years ago that I found this place, yet still I visit when I need to be on my own with my own thoughts for a while in an unhurried time for lengthy consideration of life direction or planning.

The way in, is through a pair of large French interior doors that are in a wide corridor off to the left side. They could do with a coat of paint as is so often the case. Opening the first door of the pair I step inside and close the door behind me. It locks automatically. The interior is unlit but not totally dark; there is a window at the end of the small kitchen on the right hand side and as I step further inside to the main room there is a larger window in front of the desk and beyond that on the same side there are French doors that open on to a narrow stone terrace. 

The left side of the room is entirely bookshelves and there is a dado height solid panelled wooden barrier that separates the dining area from the entrance passageway bookcase. The table is old with canted corners but far from grand, the stain is wearing off and it is unpolished and has four sturdy but simple chairs around it. There is no pretence, the group is functional and that it all. There is a serving hatch to the kitchen. 

At the far end of the room there is a fireplace with a long mantle shelf over it and a painting hanging over the mantle with an unpretentious wall light on either side. Two armchairs face into the warmth with small tables at the side of them. There are no mirrors, no television and no phone.

The bedroom door is beyond the fireplace, where the wall continues a little, at a right angle to the French doors. The bedroom is uncluttered and is furnished only with basic essentials, a large double bed with tall night stands on each side, fitted cupboards are on the far side leading to the bath room.

My small apartment in carpeted throughout in a speckled rusty pink. There are floor length curtains at the windows and terrace doors in a similar soft shade.

Stepping out onto the terrace I can feast my eyes on beauty.  Directly in front of the ancient paved space, the hillside sweeps away in the luscious curve of a field of lavender, stretching out as far as the eye can see until the very top of the hill. To the right, a valley meadow gradually slopes down toward a small cove with a sandy beach meeting the sea. There is a narrow path wiggling this way and that, all the way to the waters edge.

Thus far, I have never stepped beyond the terrace in any direction as inviting as the warm air, the colour, light and perfume is. There is no need to because the reason I go there is purely to look at what is on offer but to sink gently back into the warmth, comfort and soft support that I hope will last for my forever. I have absolutely no recollection of ever leaving this place on any of the many visits to my minds-eye hidey-hole. 

 These are not my own photos I simply googled French Lavender fields.

Art and Sport: Shut up and swim.

        The photo above is my husband/triathlon coach's poolside shirt for club swim sessions.

During the early morning swim set today, my friend Bekka and I got dark looks every now and again because in between swims, during the timed rest period, we over-ran the designated time allowance on a number of occasions. Bekka is the only one of my swim friends that shares my love of movies, plays and such and so when we get together, though both keen to do the swim work, we do talk at great speed in between swims. This morning, I will admit we were guiltier of this than is usual because we were at odds about the award winning film The Favourite. She had seen it weeks ago and like most movie goers thought it the best film this year.

The Favourite had returned to our little local cinema several times before there was a showing, when everything worked for my husband and I to go to see it. First time it was a late showing, 8.45pm way too late for us to go out. We get up at 5 am in the mornings to do our training for heavens sake. Then my husband was away working in France for the next set of film times and so this, was the first time it was possible for us to fit a visit in. 3.30 pm Tuesday and with a weeks notice from the weekly email. We could and did make that a date. Bekka and her friend were already in the cinema when we got there and that is how she knew that we had seen it. Her second visit to see the movie mark you.

         Me on a spring day during one of my many visits to Hampton Court Palace. 

Steve and I don’t always agree about films but on this occasion we thought that the Kings New Clothes had been waved publicly and vigorously. We both thought it was a load of tosh, absolute twaddle as far as we were concerned. OK, Olivia Colman cannot be faulted in anything she does, so we go along there, Academy Award rightly placed. 

This seemed to be a most unpleasant film, make it up as you go along stuff as far as British history was concerned. Then the costumes looked like nothing I had ever seen in all the royal portraits in all the galleries I have wandered around in my quite long lifetime. More like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland. I hated it. I don’t like Emma Stone anyway and liked her less in this, than I did in La-La Land and I didn’t like that either.

The sound in some of the scenes was horrendous and I didn’t like it at all and in fact as we sat there I was wondering how bad it must be for the people who did not have a bit of a hearing problem like myself. Horrid, weird repetitive groans and creaking noises like an old water pump. Then there was the jaw dropping use of a fish eye lens distorting the beauty of the magnificent interiors of Hatfield House and one of my favourite places to visit at lease once a year, Hampton Court Palace. Offense after shocking offense for me.

And so, that is why our timing on the morning swim schedule went sadly awry. There was a hurried exchange each time the schedule called for a brief rest. In the end it was not until my friend left after her normal 30 minutes exercise as opposed to my 60 minutes focused training work out that peace was restored. I think it cost about 200 metres of my set. I was glad to get home for a sweaty wheel spinning session on the turbo trainer with my husband afterwards. At least that went according to plan and helped worked out all the frustration involved in suffering that thoroughly nasty piece of art work by Director Yorgus Lanthimos who must already know that cannot please everybody in this world. 

Any Publicity is Good Publicity

                                         Photo: www.jacqueline-rackham-photgraphy.com

In the light of my coming of (very old) age, I did think it was a point where I could try to do some charity fundraising again. It is five years since I last tried to help the remarkable Chestnut Tree House, when the challenge that I dreamt up was to do a mini triathlon every day for the 75 days approaching my three quarter of a century mark my 75^th birthday. That was a lot of fun apart from the few days when it rained.

So my 80^th will be four fifths of the century. Now even I can’t believe that. How did that happen? Well anyway, this year I will devote my entire triathlon season to trying to raise as much as last times effort when we hit a sum well over £6,000.00. I hope to double that at least this year. 

My great age and the fact that I am still fit enough to get round a triathlon course has caused a bit of a stir and there have been a few articles in the newspapers. The ETC Magazine named me in the top 100 most inspirational people known to West Sussex, along with my hero, spaceman Tim Peake, and Olympian gold medallist Sally Gunnell, and a host of well known folk. That was very nice indeed and I loved that honour.

Recently The Argus was given information about me by the office of the fun Brighton event Run2Music on May 11^th when I will be doing the 10 km; it also has a 5km and a half marathon, all very noisy, dancing, singing, music blaring everywhere. It was a motivational piece and worked well as such. 

I usually submit my own stories to local newspapers and that makes sure all the facts are correct. Most people will not even notice a few little mistakes, it is the heart of the story that matters I suppose. I am a bit of a worrier if things are not totally correct. I was interviewed but still…..

I was promised that a link to the charity would be included and that credit would be given for the photo, taken by my professional photographer daughter. These were not included.

 That story was taken on by my home town weekly, naturally enough, that is how news works, and they popped me the front page. That was nice, very nice indeed and the newspaper added an extra honour by changing their Facebook profile photo to include the front page this week with me and my bike there large as life in the photo taken by Jacqueline Rackham. They used the story as it stood and nobody rang to check, in fact, the first I knew about it was when my hairdresser Helen come to cut and colour my hair when she burst in saying “You are on the front page of the Littlehampton Gazette”. Of course there was no credit for the photo or a link to the charity because they had no knowledge of that one condition.

Even so my darling daughter has said that she will do an action shoot when she gets back from her photographic holiday in Scotland. She thought we should do that to keep the photos fresh and up to date.  How kind and thoughtful of her.

This thought now to conclude this bit of blathering. I was contacted in December by Einar Tho who is editor of the Haugesunds Avis Newspaper in Norway. This is because I had entered The Ironman 70.3 Haugesund and would more than likely be the oldest woman in the event. That will be my main race this summer on June 30^th. I look forward to that tremendously. Einar sent an email with an introduction of himself and followed with nine sensible questions then followed that up with more questions and some clarification.

In the fullness of time he sent me the article to see and who knows what it says because it is of course in Norwegian. I posted it on Instagram and one of my Scandinavian friends told me it said really nice things and not to worry. There was a ripple of new Norwegian follower friends and that is really good I am tickled pink about that. I hope they will come to the race and shout loudly at me, the more the merrier because that is the only down side of races abroad, nobody knows you.

Any publicity is good publicity eh?

To Donate: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Daphne-Belt

If you prefer there is also a link to AgeUK if you google Justgiving.com/DaphneBeltAgeUK

A Weekend with Daf and Steve

            another amazing photo by www.jacqueline-rackham-photography.com

I do try to make pages of my blog interesting for most people when I can, but today I thought I should give an idea of what a few days of my triathlon training is like for somebody with a fairly full life anyway and in the light of the approach of my 80^th birthday which even I find hard to believe. So, non-sporty people should maybe just look at the pictures on this day’s blog, or maybe look away altogether if they tire easily.

Friday morning started much the same as every other Friday with the alarm going off at 5.20 am

This allows us both to be ready to go to our swim session for 6.30 am start. My husband Steve coaches the faster swimmers in what I call the Animals Lane! These are all people I see under the water as much as above the surface.  For these early morning swim sets, three times a week, he swims in that lane too but loses some of his own training but making sure that the rest of his babies are working hard. There is not much rest at the end of each swim before he is shouting GOOOO again. These days I swim just outside of that lane, it is actually in the open area of the pool but most people do not want to swim right next to the fast swimmers because its too splashy. So a friend or two of mine and I swim in a very narrow stretch right next to the lane rope for the most part. We do a deep push of at the ends after turning, passing under the oncoming swimmer behind us and so we are still not taking more that one set of shoulders width of water even though there may be three of us women training in that narrow stretch.

The guys, and a couple of women in Lane 1, are doing a distance or Ironman training swim set and mine is aimed at Half Ironman distance, so the set itself, is around 1900 metres, plus there is a warm up, and for a swim down, I do about 300 metres back stroke because I like to hold on to my backstroke since years ago I did have a county record for 200 back at one time. Who know what life may throw out, one day I may just be a swimmer and not a triathlete any more.

So after the swim on Friday I did a turbo session on my own at home. Then some office work, phone calls and emails and stuff like that.

Saturday morning with another strong wind blowing, there was a turbo again but harder than Friday and Steve was there to crack the whip. He was on his turbo trainer bike next to me but just spinning since he had had a hard week at work. I was sweating buckets and being told what gear to change to and how long to go in that gear. The session was 90 minutes.

Saturday evening we have our club session with some of the same but also some other swimmers. In my lane, there were four swimmers working to this schedule and being told when to go by Steve rather than follow a printed schedule on poolside. The one hour set went like this:

400 mtr warm up

1 x 400 metres

4 x 100

1 x 300

3 x 100

1 x 200

2 x 100

1 x 200

Swim down

  Sunday morning Steve and I went to Arundel Park intending to do two laps of a regular run there.

There was another storm blowing just a strong as last Sunday was during Storm Freya, but the wind coming roughly from the north instead of the south east as is more usual. The run in Arundel Park is off road for the first half and mainly up hill, some is steeply up hill and muddy and slippery. Once out of the park near the cathedral we are back on solid footing again and almost level as far as the top gate of the Castle, then downhill on the High Street as far as the post office. Then the last section is a flat footpath by the moat beneath the towers of the castle all the way back to Swanbourne Lake. Then comes the start of lap two. At the end of that, we were both pleased since we were faster on the second lap by about twenty seconds and that is an improvement for us both. It was a PB for that course for the first couple of months of this year.

Although it was a breathtakingly windy day it was mostly bright and did not start raining until we had go in the car and started or drive home for a nice hot bath and change into clean clothes. I had to tidy up a bit and chase the hoover around because this was the day for the once a month Poetry group that I host. We call ourselves Scribblers. My friends would be arriving at 2pm when we just about had time to bring every chair in our little cottage downstairs for the group reading. We are a mixed group and there are only ably twenty people on the email list for newsletters to be sent to, so this means that on any one occasion there will be between seven to eleven of us, just a nice cosy comfortable amount of people in one room of a small house. 

                       Credit again to Jacqueline Rackham Photography

We bring anything we have written on the last month and read it to the group. We also read anything else that we want to and that is widely varied, e.g. This time I read a couple of my own and then read the first poem that ever fired my imagination and made me a slave to poetry. At my senior school there were two most marvellous teachers who influenced me enormously between them. One was Mrs Thomas the poetry teacher who also mentored a speech choir that met weekly and we entered festivals and such. The second and no less of a dedicated wonder was Miss Feltham the music teacher who taught music (obviously), there was an actual music class, but also gave her time to choir practice and on a rainy day lunch time would pass our a pile of music books and play the piano for a sort of requests time for those interested.

Mrs Thomas read ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus’ in the way that it would have been read at the time Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote it in about 1842. That was a bolt out of the sky moment for me, a ton of bricks jaw dropper. In looking it up recently, it stated that he was paid $25 for it, quite a lot of money at the time I suppose. I had read it to Steve in the week, when I had him captive on a work day, driving on a motorway. He advised me not to do ‘The silly voice’, I compromised and read it seriously but not as dramatically as Mrs Thomas. I am after all only me and not her.

So at school I was easily able to attend practice (because my parents were not home from work until after 5p) with the Speech Choir, the school choir practice and due to the fact that I attended both a ballet as well as a tap and acrobatic dance school I was also in the folk dance group. Oh yes and the Little Theatre school in the holidays. Best not to mention Maths and Science!

So there we are, a weekend with Daf and of course Steve who cares for me in a thousand ways, one of which is to cook me the very best food to keep me healthy, give me energy and to delight the palate and the eyes. 

 

Daf’s Big 80th Year Challenge Hand out leaflet 2

 Another of the stunning photos taken by my daughter:

www.jacqueline-rackham-photography.com

Just updated this leaflet that I am handing out.

I have been a triathlete for almost thirty years and I have set myself a challenge this year because I will be 80 years old in August. I will try to raise money for two charities close to my home. The first is Chestnut Tree Children’s home near Arundel, West Sussex for children with life shortening conditions.

The other charity is Age UK West Sussex.  Events for me this year start with:

The Frosty, swim-run at Freedom Leisure, Littlehampton on completed on March 3^rd

Then at the end of March: Swimathon 5000 metres pool swim.                                                        

I will swim on all three days of this competition making almost 10 miles in total.

In May: Brighton Run | 2 | Music (10km)

Eton Sprints at Dorney Lake, (same distance event on two days).

June: Windsor Triathlon 1500 metres swim in the River Thames

/ 40km bike/10km run

June 30^th: Ironman 70.3 Haugesund Norway-

1900 metre swim/ 90km bike/ 20km run

August: ITU World Triathlon Championship Lausanne, Switzerland

This is a Standard distance race

Follow this link to donate:

www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Daphne-Belt

Contact me: dafbelt@outlook.com

Daf's Big 80th Year Challenge

                                      Photo by: www.jacqueline-rackham-photography.com

Yesterday I competed in my first event of this year. It was The Frostbite organized by Tuff Fitty Triathlon Club in Littlehampton. It was the sprint distance that is half the distance of the main event, the Frosty. The challenge that it presented was not too scary and it is a great event for beginners and more serious triathletes alike.

For myself, being longer in the tooth than most of the others (rising 80) I chose to do the short race. The first reason for that decision was that for a start, it is only the first weekend in March and so having completed the 400 metre swim, one is expected to leave the pool in your wet tri-suit (you can put a coat or something on if you are sensible) and go out on Littlehampton promenade and complete a 5km run or 10km for the longer race. The decision proved to be a sound one, since after a week of spring weather it had turned back to the ugly face of late winter and named storm Freya came along with the timing of a maestro and hit the coast with torrential rain and wind gusts of 40-50 mph providing Banshee like background music.

When my husband/coach checked the day out at 5 am, he turned to me a said I don’t think you should do the race in this b-awful weather. In a rare moment of defiance, I usually do pretty much as my coach suggests, I told him that I was doing it no matter what the weather. It is not often that I object to his sporting decisions and so he agreed, provided that after my swim I put on a hat coat and gloves to do the run in the rain and howling gale.

The frosty is a really nice sociable event that certainly most local people like to do as part of their pre-season training, there were lots of smiling faces even with the storm and as we all passed by bus and other sea front shelters, we were reminded that some poor souls were trying to get some sleep at that un-Godly hour as we passed homeless people wrapped in cardboard and plastic, hunkered down as best they could.

Running to the east, on the first stretch of the run route, after a quick once around Mewsbrook Park, I was thankful that the storm was blowing on my back making it easier to get into my stride. At the turn point at the far end of the seafront road came a different story altogether and it was hard to even breathe for the entire length of Littlehampton prom and so we were all looking forward to the return leg, back to the Freedom Leisure Swimming and Sports Centre and the wind behind us again. It was strange that in conditions like these, that the rain, lashing as it was, seemed acceptable with the help of nature pushing us to the finish. I presume that I was not the only one sensible enough to have taken warm clothes to wrap up in afterwards having clawed off the soaking wet sports clothes and dried ourselves.

Personally I was very happy to have the first event done and dusted, since I am doing all the events in my 80^th year programme, and there are quite a few, to raise money for two local charities. This was the easiest one tucked away. Next up is the national Swimathon when I will swim the longer challenge this time of a 5000metres swim, that is 200 lengths of my nearby pool in Littlehampton where I live. The Swimathon is on for three days running and I will do that 5000 metre swim on all three days. Almost ten miles.

2019 Main event of the season will be Ironman 70.3 Haugesund, Norway. This race involves:

Swimming 1900 metres in a lake, then a 90 km bike ride around the Norwegian Fjords in that area, ending with a half marathon, (21 km) run around Haugesund town and harbour.

Then later in August I am already qualified for the GBR age group team to compete in the ITU World Triathlon Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland. The National Aquathlon Championships follows in September; a swim in the River Arun and a hilly run in Arundel, West Sussex.

The charities I am doing all this to help are:

The Chestnut Tree Children’s Home, for children with life shortening conditions.

And also for Age UK West Sussex

The link to donate is: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Daphne-Belt