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As some of you may know I swam a continous 5km last night to raise money for my Tanzania trip in the summer. Prior to signing up to this, I had never swam more than 2.7km at one time so this was definitely a challenge. The main struggle was staying motivated for the whole 5km because as much as I love swimming, swimming freestyle non-stop can be tedious and it is not like I could do a session.
We had to meet at the pool at 5:40pm ready to start at 6pm. This was slightly annoying as I was pretty tired and wished it had been in the morning but nevermind, I was excited. When I arrived, there was no sign of anyone else doing it, I asked reception and they were not too sure either, I started to wonder if it was actually on. I waited in the café for a bit and eventually someone came over to tell me to collect my swim hat and sign in. I waited at poolside for 15mins and talked to some of the other people who were doing it; one man has done the 5km every year and yesterday his daughter happened to be in labour at the same time as his swim (the stories you hear haha), the other people were doing the 2.5km or 1.5km. We were then called over to the pool and assigned a lane and a counter, timers at the ready and we were off. After the first few lengths I realised a number of things: 1. How much I hate swim hats 2. I had no idea how I should count this. I always halve the number of lengths (151) and then count down each time I touch the shallow end (75times). After 30 lengths I knew I would lose count so I broke it up into 3x40 lengths of what I had left to swim; counting down from 20 each time. This actually worked super well and it went much faster than I expected. An added benefit was that I had the whole lane to myself, which is a luxury. As anyone who swims will know, when the lane is quite full it can really disrupt your rhythm and crashes can occur :¦ Coming into the swim I had no idea how it was going to go; I had no plan, I wasn’t taking it as a race or trying to beat a time (although I did want to do it in under 1h45). I thought that I would need to stop for water or a quick breather half way through but when the counter told me I had already done 100lengths I didn’t feel I needed to stop. At this point I realised they had been playing music the whole time but because I was wearing a swim cap which covered my ears I couldn’t hear it in the pool (I really hate swim caps). I continued feeling pretty good until I had 25 lengths left to go, my arms started to feel quite tired and I was getting pretty thirsty I wasn’t going to stop because I was so nearly done. I was then told I hate 2 lengths left; the counter sounded pretty excited as was I…..Done!!! I was told I had done it in 1hour 30mins exactly (give or take a few seconds), I then went on and did 130m cool down of breastroke; of which my counter was very surprised about haha. Coming into the swim I thought I would be absolutely exhausted once I was done and wouldn’t be able to swim anymore however I actually felt pretty energised, I mean I wouldn’t have been able to continue much longer but definitely another 20 lengths or so. I usually swim on Monday afternoons but I have decided to give my arms a break; they don’t particularly hurt today but I think if I swim they will definitely hurt more tomorrow. I hope you enjoyed reading my ramble about my swim.
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August 2023
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