UPDATED June 2015!

First swim session on 16th June, the plan was to plod along and see how far I could go, the results were very encouraging as it appears the training programme in the gym has paid off.  As a result, I may revise the start time of the event by pushing it an hour forward to 7am, this will mean that I get to the gym a little later in the evening but there should be more folk around to contribute to the funds!

I tried the same thing again on 23rd June to confirm the numbers and all looked good, the next session will be more structured and involve some 800m pulls plus a bit of 100m interval work. My improved upper body strength is very noticeable, I intend to take full advantage of this. In both sessions, I swam 100 lengths with no energy dramas, in fact, I could push harder but want to practice a bit first.

There was one slight issue, and it’s one that I thought would surface…calf cramp! After 40 minutes or so, I can feel the right calf tightening, currently trying a couple of things to resolve but mostly not pushing off for each length as hardm from the start seems to help

April 2015

I haven’t started to train for this yet; the first session is plugged in for the end of June.  I swam for a club and trained regularly as a teenager so from a technique point of view, I have a bit of a head start.

Past pool work has been to prepare from a swim/bike event, it took me several sessions to remember how to do things and I also got a lot of help from the swim4fitness website.  Once I had a programme to follow I could concentrate on the actual training. A typical session was 80+ lengths with a mixture of long/slow and interval work. This produced some reasonable results so I think I will stick with it.

I am planning on a medium sized breakfast of the usual stuff: porridge, banannas, raisins etc., this should see me through to the end of the swim.  I will take an electrolyte drink poolside and drink every 1,000m. Apart from that, it’s a simple case of getting the lengths done in around 80 minutes (hoping!).

The sports centre in Wantage are hosting the Swim leg which will begin at 6am, can’t wait for that alarm to go off!