Rebekah and I celebrated our 15 wedding anniversary last night by watching David Walliams swimming 140 miles in the Thames - romantic hey! Don't worry we are going away for the weekend.
Swimming is simply really hard work. This year I will do my first Olympic distance Triathlon which involves a 1500m swim in one of the docks on the River Thames. And whilst I can now swim that distance in a lunch break at the local swimming pool, I have not swum in the Thames in a wetsuit nor had hundreds of other bashing into me ever before.
The real problem I have always had with swimming is the breathing thing. When I was young I swam backstroke to avoid having mouthfuls of chlorinated water choking me. I could sprint a length and at the end be totally breathless. In fact my best swimming moment came in the school gala which was in the days when my secondary school had an outdoor pool. It was solar heated! I was sports captain and I managed to lead the Saxon House to victory in all the sports events. It required powers of persuasion, which was easier to do when it meant I could get children out of their lessons but lots of persuasion I did. The final event of the swimming gala was the sixth form relay race and I had the last leg. Now I can't remember what position I was when I started the length I had to swim but I came home first and as a result my house was victorious!
Well the breathing thing (or rather lack of breathing which is easily mistaken as drowning!) was still a problem until about 5 years ago. I did my first sprint Triathlon (400m swim) doing back stroke. No I've never seen anyone else ever do backstroke at a Triathlon either!. So I had to learn how to breath and do front crawl at the same time. I asked anyone who could swim well, how it was done. I watched and learnt, then practiced. I can now do front crawl and breath comfortably nearly all the time. It is one of my great personal victories. I need to credit Carl for helping me to swim well and in a straight line, thanks. Carl and his wife Kate are my swimming heros, they swim outdoors all year round without a wetsuit. Ice does not stop them!
And then last week something new happened to me. I swam and instead of concentrating intently on remembering to stay afloat, I found myself daydreaming as I swam. It had become a learnt behaviour. It was a new milestone in my swimming history.
So later this year I will swim almost a mile in the Thames and whilst it is 139 miles less than David Walliams I will be breaking new water in my swimming history!
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