What was meant to be my big swim sweekend

This was to be my big weekend

As I sit here at home on the eve of what was meant to be my big swim for this year, I am a bit sad that I will not be in Windermere tomorrow night. Something I had been looking forward too and working towards for the last 7 months. It also has other ramifications in relation to other swims I was planning next year. Both the MIMS (round Manhattan Island Marathon swim) and the Lake Zurich swim are ballots and to put yourself in a better position to be selected, you have to have done some pretty major swims the season before. All I have managed to do is 3 piddly 10km swims and a smattering of smaller swims. The longest swim that I have done this year, in training is 15km. I can only wait and see if I make the cut for Zurich at least, for next year. If all else fails I will do a double Windermere next year.

So what have I been up to?

Not a lot really. After the issues I have experienced over the last 4 weeks, mentally I have had a lot of turmoil going on in my head. The decision to cancel my Windermere swim was a  bit draining to say the least, but it was made and there is nothing I can do about that now. I had been booked onto some other swims, a 10 Km and a 3km swim so I went and did them anyway, on not a lot of training. I surprised myself, I managed to do the 10km in a fairly respectable time. I think the attitude that I had done very little training and the fact that I was not mentally prepared for it all helped. I approached it with the attitude of, I am just going to do it for fun. It seemed to work.I enjoyed it (albeit the last 1.5km) where I just wanted to get out. All in all a good swim for someone without a wetsuit.

Since then I have been getting back into my training, nothing big, 5km is the maximum I have done in my training and to be honest, I have loved it. My last training session, 3.7km was fabulous, water temperature about 22 degrees Celsius and I felt great, my last lap was faster than all the other laps. My attitude, that I have nothing to train for is fine right now but, knowing myself well enough, I think I will be losing focus very soon. For me, training without a goal can become very tedious. I have been looking for a few more swims to do before the end of the season and have come up with a few small ones to do. Between 3km and 5km. I have not been able to find anything bigger that I can afford over the next 2 - 3 months.

I have targeted a 3km swim in the Thames on the 25th of this month, near Marlow, Marlow Swim and then a 5 km at Queenford lakes for the  Queenford half on the 15th of next month (September) and finally a 3km in Poole on the 28th of September .So my training continues and I will have to adjust my training to take in the fact that the swims that I am planning on doing are A LOT shorter than what I am used to. My training that has gone before will not be wasted, my endurance will at least be there, so I am not too worried about that side of things. I just need to try and get a bit of speed happening in my swimming. I have not focused on that very much recently and there is a big difference in swimming 3km and 35 km. I have mainly - till now been concentrating on getting ready for 35km.That dream has gone for this year so I will focus on smaller.

Although this does not really fit well with who I am, I normally make up my mind and am then very impatient to get it done. I came across a very interesting article about a mutual acquaintance's English Channel swim. Her name is Sally Goble. From starting to swim at the age of 30 it took her about 5 years to get to a point where she succeeded in swimming to France, her story is pretty inspirational and a far cry from my approach. I respect her immensely for that approach, I think my impatience would not let me go that route. Sally Goble Channel swim 

Whichever way you look at it, She got there and her account is a very good account of how a lot of marathon swimmers start out.

This week I also came across another account of marathon swimming, this time about the current English Channel world record holder Trent Grimsey. Not only did he break the world record by 2 minutes an 50 seconds,in September 2012, it was the first time that he had swum the Channel. An amazing guy who dreams bigger than I do and goes out and gets it. his approach was the more conventional way, booking three years in advance of his swim then focusing entirely on this goal.It is a  phenomenal swim. Here is a video of his efforts World Record English Channel swim

Both of the above accounts are very inspirational and by two people with totally different attitudes towards marathon swimming. They both have two things in common. 1 - They both are part of the very unique club of Channel swimmers. 2 - They are both passionate about, and have fallen in love with the sport of marathon swimming. I can vouch for the addictiveness of it as well

So that is the rest of the season laid out for me, Just need to put in some proper training so I do not look like a complete novice when I swim in these events.

If anyone can make it to watch, that will be great, I always love having the support and believe me, this year I would never have been able to get to where I am without the support of my amazing Friends and Family. Without you I would never have got this far.

On that note I will End with a quote

"Stop competing with others and

 start competing with your yourself."