Time is drawing near!!

 

May is VERY fast coming to and end and it seems like Summer has come and gone. In the life of a marathon swimmer, this is of no consolation as there is still about three months of the "British Summer" left. No matter what the weather is out there. in the words of  Dori from Finding nemo, I have to "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming  swimming swimming. What do we do? Just swim swim swim." That has been a bit hard over the last week or so as I had a Wedding in Scotland to attend over this past weekend.

It was an awesome weekend spent with amazing people, both old and new. Spending a bit of time in old stomping grounds. We were at Fort Augustus, on the south Western tip of Loch ness. An area I know pretty well as I have spent time Kayaking that stretch of water , the Caledonian Canal, and I have also cycled most of that same stretch on my Lands End to John O'Groats journey. I would also love to swim that whole stretch at some point, but may have to settle on swimming Loch ness.The area brought back lots of happy memories.

 

Whilst there was a Lot of eating, drinking a revelling with a different group of people, most of which I had never met. It was great.Yes it goes without saying, like most, if not all of my friends, they think I am completely nuts and also a bit awestruck at the same time, by my meagre dalliances into the world of endurance sports. May have even recruited a few takers for a Caledonian canal Kayak. Suffice to say, there was very little training done. Apart from a 4 - 5Km run with My friends Roberta and Robin. Thank you guys, YOU KNOW I DO NOT DO RUNNING!! Good ploy to get me down from my roomat 7am in the morning on the premise we going for a nice walk. I think the lack of training might have been just the thing I need as my shoulder was giving me a bit of trouble so the rest, I hope, has done it the world of good.

Crash bang into this, a 4 day week for us, after arriving back home after midnight on Tuesday morning. Um------ Can someone tell me where the first 5 months of this year has gone? Six days until my first substantial swim of the season. Last night I managed to book a place on it. Cutting it a bit fine, with entries closing today, but hey, I am the king of procrastination now. My start time seems to be 10.30 am. it is a point to point swim from Maidenhead/ Taplow to Eton. It seems that the Race HQ will be at the end rather than the beginning. This is where I will park and catch a bus up to the start. If there are people who want to park at the start that will be fine, Ican ferry you back to your cars after the race.

Please go to the following link for Maps and spectator details Jubilee swim

This is 9.83 km and you will be able to follow the whole event bar a couple of hundred metres along the river throwing things at me. Should you arrrive late and want to walk up the course to meet me coming down, that will be fine. I am sure that I, and my entourage, will be pretty visible. I seriously doubt there will be any swimmers in the water with bright ORANGE budgy smugglers. Weather forcast for the area can be found at Met Office It is looking like it will be a lovely day for a stroll along the river and if some of you want to bring your bikes, that is also an option.

How will I do?

 

Your guess is as good as mine. I suspect, with the meagre amount of training that I have done, (please bear with me on this comment, I know others that are doing way more training than I am, for much shorter swims). I will be swimming for between 2 hours 30 min and 2 hours 45 minutes. I hope it might be faster but we will have to see on the day. Depends how many wetsuits I have to drown and swim through along the way. Looking at the starting list there will be about 60 individual swimmers and then a whole lot of relays. Sadly, this will not be a fast swim for me as it is my first first substantial swim of the season, so will not be pushing myself to breaking point. I would rather travel slow and keep my shoulders for 2 weeks later in the sea. They will take more of a hammering in there. 

 

I anticipate finishing at about 1pm. After which we can head out and look for a pub to have some food. I think I might need some after that.

 

I am looking forward to seeing as many of you along the way as possible. My friends and supporters are what keeps me going and I love having you all there.

 

 

Fund Raising.

 

My Fund Raising page remains open and after the initial flurry I got off to, a great start, and I would like to again thank all that have donated money already. I am still a long way from my target and I am hoping that time will prove my friend on this front. My Fund Raising page is  

                              ZIMHIPPO FUND RAISING

I look forward to all the support you can give me and I welcome even more the funds that are being Raised. It goes without saying that the Old age pensioners that we support will be eternally grateful

to all the funds that we, as a team are putting together. 

 

 

My quote for the week is very pertinant ot me at the moment. I would like to share it with you all

It is not so much our friends' 

help that helps us, 

as the confidence 

of their help 

Epicurus

 

 

 

A few more milestones

Been a while since I last posted but I have not really achieved anything of any significance, apart from the usual training and trying to keep fit. 

Well this weekend I achieved a few minor milestones with my training and also my weight loss. 

On Saturday it was a chance for me to get to the lakes. I left the house at 6.30am with the outside temperature at 9 degrees Celsius. Was not looking forward to going swimming. It was a tad chilly out there and parts of my body made it more noticeable than normal. I had arranged to meet a friend of mine at the lakes, he is relatively new to this open water madness. Fortunately he has a bit more sanity than me and received his new wetsuit earlier in the week and wanted to give it a test drive.

I arrived at the lake and the temp outside had crept up to a tropical 10 degrees Celsius, gosh, I might have to unpack on the suncream!!  I went up to the admin table and they knew me so did not even bother asking if I wanted to hire a wetsuit. I paid for the swim, as did my friend and we ventured into the tropical waters of Ferris meadows, hovering at 12 degrees Celsius.

My aim for this swim was to just swim as far as I could before I felt things were going wrong. the reason for this madness, in less than two weeks I will be swimming the Jubilee-river-swim 

The Jubilee River is a flood relief river, opened in 2002, and is a superb recreational venue too. Along its length you’ll find much flourishing wildlife as it has two nature conservation areas, and the well surfaced ‘towpath’ is part of a national cycle network. This makes the swim a dream for spectators as they can walk, run or cycle the whole course just yards away from the action!

I wanted to see where I was with my cold water  swimming. The plan, jump in and swim. I told this to my friend who was joining me and also said that once I start I will not be waiting around as I need to generate body heat. We waded into the waters with a whole bunch of Triathletes watching in disbelief as this pasty white apparition dressed only in bright orange budgie smugglers and swimcap disappeared below the water surface, only to appear about 50m out and steaming off into the distance. The laps are 750m and my aim was to get up near the 8km mark which should be 12 circuits of the lake. the first thing that struck me was not the cold but how clean the lake is. I have swum there for about three years now and it has always got better and better, but this year it is phenominal. A big High five to the owners. They have cleared the bottom of weed and the water is clear, there is a LOT less duck and goose crap to chew on as well - if I had known this I probably would have eaten before I left home! I think my friend did about 3 laps and got out due to technical problems with his goggles and the cold. Poor Paul, waited around for a while to see if I was going to come out but I think got bored and went off home. Congrats for doing what you did, it was a chilly swim.

I carried on and managed to do 9 laps (6.75km). At this point, I started to lose feeling in my feet so I decided to do one lap of the smaller circuit (400m), taking my total to just over 7.1km.This took me just over 1 hour 50min. At this point I figured, not a bad effort considering I have not been in water that cold for Ages, especially for that distance. Not what Iwas hoping for but not bad, I could deal with that.

Whilst I was swimming I had the privilege of seeing some of the underwater wildlife. I was trundling along and out of the corner of my eye I saw this shape - last year that would have been impossible. I stopped and looked down and there was this massive fish swimming along with me. it was a great time to be there with nature.

I came out and was greeted by the owners of the lake and the usual, "you are crazy" comments from most people.

All in all not a bad way to start off the weekend. I can't remember the last time I swam that distance, in that temperature, in fact I do not think I ever have, and I still had all my appendages, albeit a bit more wrinkled, smaller and a LOT less sensitive. One thing that I was pretty proud of, was the fact that my circuit times did not really differ a great deal all the way through. On the down side, they didn't really differ much from the same times I had last year. I really wish I could swim at a decent pace. The endurance is there but, alas, the speed seems to be VERY elusive, and has been for a while.

Zimhippo becomes Slimhippo

Another little milestone is, for the first time since I swam the Channel, nearly 5 years ago, I have crept below 100kg (15.6 stone) Apparently it shows, I have had loads of compliments about my weight recently, but I still hate the mirror,I have even tried a new mirror with the same results. I still look like a hippo in it. Hopefully when I get my head in the right place that will change. 

This weight loss thing is a bit of an enigma to me, I never set a goal to lose weight, it just started happening and when  I realised it I started monitoring it, since the begining of the year I  have lost 17 kg (2.7 Stone). It seems that the few things I have done, cut out sugar, increase my excercise 5 fold and also my appetite is very surpressed all leads to losing weight. I cannot offer advice on how to do it but that is what I have done and it seems to have worked so far. I just need to keep myself here now. I can maybe afford to lose a few Kgs but not really too much more. I like, and need my blubber. BUT, I also like the compliments about the way I look at the moment. Thank you all those that have noticed and commented.

Fundraising

WOW!! is all I can say. Thank you to all the people who have already sponsored me, My current total is £290 and I am still a long way to my final challenge. All my friends are amazing and their generosity is overwhelming. All I can ask is that people keep circulating this blog and my fund raising page. The Old Fogeys In Zimbabwe REALLY need our support. Remember, Even if you are not from the United Kingdom YOU can still donate. All you need is a credit card and if you want to send money directly to the charity, or me, PLEASE get in touch. any little counts.

                      As per usual, i will end with a quote that a friend has just posted to me

"Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! 

Without a humble but reasonable confidence

 in your own powers you cannot 

be successful or happy. 

Norman vincent Peale

Happy reading and please keep circulating. 

This is a photo of me at the end of my swim

 

  

  

Time to make some plans!!

This year is marching on and I seriously need to start making some plans for the summer of swimming. Thank you to my sponsors, Colins IT, it is now possible for me to start making them and see where we get to.

This last weekend I had a very fun morning travelling up to Milton Keynes to a very nice lake, box end park, to meet up with Colin and do a bit of training. The day started for me at 5am when I jumped into my car on a lovely crisp bright morning for the 80 mile journey up to Box end Park. The lovely morning made me forget that I was in Britain. By the time I got up to Box End, the weather had turned and it was a grey, overcast morning. I met up with Colin and headed for the water, him and abut 50 Triathletes all decked out in black condoms -----and me ----donning my signature bright orange budgie smugglers.

Water temp was about 12 degrees, there were many looks of astonishment at this lardy, pale apparition jumping into the frigid waters. We manged to do about 45 minutes of swimming with me racing off into the distance to generate body heat and then waiting at the end for Colin to catch up. It was a great morning. It was also wonderful to meet up with Colin after many years. He is currently training for an Iron man distance race on the 1st of June and I think his training is going very well.

Sunday = a complete waste of a day spent in the house. AAGGHH. This was however remedied on Monday morning when I went to the pool and hammered out my 4.5km before getting bored.

Tonight was a decent night. I have been suffering a head cold - probably picked up from my nephews --and maybe swimming in 12 degree water. I figured, go swimming and either kill myself or cure the cold. Well, I am still here -------and so is the head cold. I only managed a meagre 3km in the pool but one big plus is I managed to shave 7 seconds off my time for 500m time, now doing it in 6 min 53 seconds. Not too shabby -- but still not good enough.

Worryingly, my transition from Zimhippo to Slimhippo still continues unabated. Now having lost 15kg since the beginning of the year. I really need to sort this out, otherwise I will have very little lard left. Another slightly perturbing fact of my life is my sleeping habits are pretty dire. Existing on 4-5 hours sleep a day cannot be good for you in the long run. Especially as my training continues to increase. Last night was particularly bad. I was pretty tired so I hit the sack at 10.30pm only to be wide awake at 1.30am.

So to move on, today I created my charity fund raising page and I am about to book onto the Champion of Champions swim in Dover on the 15th June. It would be so wonderful to see as many of you down there as possible to support me. Details will follow.  I notice that another swim that I am thinking about doing is the Jubilee 10km swim. this is on the 2nd June so still a bit undecided about that one, but I will probably do it, funds permitting.

My charity page is Journey to 21 Fund raising. I urge you all to help me raise the desperately needed funds needed to support a FORGOTTEN GENERATION of aged pensioners that have had their entire pensions and savings obliterated by the ever worsening situation in Zimbabwe.

So dates to keep in your diaries.

 

2nd June                        Jubilee Swim. A lovely 10 km swim along the Jubilee river where spectators  

                                       can follow all the action along the river

15th June                       Champion of Champions. In total 14 km, split into 3 races, in Dover harbour

                                       again an ideal place for spectators. if you get bored of watching a hippo in

                                       the harbour, there is always the cliffs to go for a nice walk along.

I will end this post with my usual inspirational quote.

 

"If you do not change direction, you may just 

end up where you are heading."

Lao Tzu

Post Holiday Blues --But at least the sun is shining

Post Holiday Blues

Another Month is upon us and this year just seems to be vanishing before my eyes.

There has not been a hell of a lot of activity on this site for the last 3 weeks but, there is a good reason for that. I have been in Africa for the last 3 weeks. It was great to get some sunshine and also to catch up with the families and In-laws. The plus side was the fact that it was mostly sunny nearly every day. Even when it was not sunny it was still warm and, when the rain did come it was generally over in about an hour and then the weather returning to nice blue skies.

As you can probably gather, there was not a whole lot of serious excercise done. I did however get to go back and do some swimming at St Georges College in Harare. This was where I have, in the past, spent many an hour ploughing up and down the pool. I only managed to get to go three times and the first time was utter hell. I just could not understand how, just a week of no training, could have such a mammoth impact on my fitness, or lack of. I first started off with a length underwater, my usual way to start a set. Okay this pool was a 33m pool as opposed to a 25m one that I normally train in. My lungs were nearly bursting by the time I got to the end. This is a pool that I could comfortably do 2, sometimes 3 lengths underwater without bursting my lungs. I didn't think much of it. I then proceeded to time myself over 100m and my times were a fair bit slower than usual. Alarm bells were getting a bit louder.

Anyway on my first outing I managed a poultry 2.5km and I was ABSOLUTELY shattered. I thought "man I am unfit!" I was not very pleased with myself. The nice thing about training in Africa, outdoors, where the sun shines, is that if you forget your towel, all you need to do is sit in the glorious sun for a few minutes and you are dry pretty quickly.

Whilst I was not in the pool, I took advantage of the glorious weather to do my Pilates, either on the lawn, verandah. or im my bedroom with the sun beating through the window. I would wake at about 5 in the morning, listen to the amazing dawn chorus and then head into the sunshine to do my sessions. I was either joined by the dog or the family to do my pilates. I was quite good and managed to do this most mornings.

The second time I went to the pool, it was the same, I ploughed onto 3km and thought, "this is absolutely ridiculous!" how is it, I can be so buggered after such short distances?

Whilst out there I also did some walking but nothing serious. I ventured out to the pool a third time to experience the same problems.

After my trip, the realisation dawned on me as to what the problem was. After an 18 hour flight back from Africa, I went down to my regular gym to do some training and jumped into the water and hammered out 3km and was feeling absolutely fine. It was after a fair amount of thought that it dawned upon me what the issue was. Harare is a landlocked city that is 1483m above sealevel, as compared to 9m for London. it then became acutely apparent as to what my problem was - ALTITUDE!! Thank God for Altitude. here I was thinking that I was just becoming fat --well, I am still fat, in fact hovering in the obese category. and lazy!

I did not realise exactly how much affect it can have but, for me, it made a huge difference. At least I felt a bit better about the fact that I thought I had become SO unfit. 

I did try to get some triathlete friends to come and train with me but they were all uttlerly gobsmacked that I was going to plunge myself into cold water at the start of winter wearing only my very fetching budgy smugglers. They all thought I was utterly silly. Bear in mind that the average temperature in Zimbabwe at this time of year is about 24 Degrees celcius (75 Degrees Fahrenheit) with the water Temp about 16 degrees celcius (60 F) With the sun beating down on you that temp is lovely.

On that note, I am a bit disappointed to arrive back in the UK and see that the lakes, specifically the one I use, is still closed and they will not open it until the water gets to 11 degrees celcius (51 F). We so love Health and safety in this silly place!

Moving forward

Well, I have been back two days and already had a good session in the pool and a wonderful pilates session so far. I will be heading somewhere, if I can find a lake that is open I will go there otherwise a pool tonight to get into my 4 -5 km sets again. I am now just over a month away from my first proposed 9 mile swim so I have to really start pushing hard again and getting my distances up again.

On the weight side, I never lost, or gained, any over my holiday, even with my Mums cooking and trying to beef me up, which I am a bit upset about. I was hoping to put on a bit to keep me "warm whilst wallowing." Next problem is to try not to lose anymore weight. I am looking forward to the lakes opening and I might even venture down to Dover to get some cold water swimming in. I need to be ready for the cold, I do not think I will have a problem with it. I took part in the South London Cold water swimming Championships - anything abouve that 3 degrees celcius is postively tropical.

I cannot say that I am glad to be back, but that is always the case when I come back from visiting my family. It will take me a week or two to get used to reality. With all my training that I need to do, it will make the transition back to reality all that much easier. At least I have my sport to throw myself at to keep me focused. 

A very good friend of mine is talking me into doing a bit of running as well so I might sign up for a few short runs - even though I despise running. That is for people who can't swim. I will give it a go, I am sure I can waddle/walk this weight around 5km colour run later next month. 

On that note, I will end this post with a quote. I hope you enjoy reading my blogs and please feel free to leave comments.

Sports do not build character. They reveal it. 

Heywood Broun