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.
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.
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 29th 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.
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.
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