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