Some of you may have noticed on Twitter that i completed the Swimathon. 100 lengths in 1 hour 32 minutes. I am quite shocked how quick i done it. I was halfway at exactly 45 minutes and was sure the person counting had got it wrong. Couldn’t believe it when it was finally 10 lengths to go.
Without any training i thought i would really struggle and need 5 minute breaks here and there to catch my breath. The longest break i had was about 30 seconds and that was to let the fast people get by me in my lane so i could do my speed. I done about 2-3 laps to their 4/5 so got over took a few times if they had caught up to me half way through the length. I done it all on my back. Found it easier and thought if i need to do this i need to do what is easiet. This has always been my strongest stroke. I can remember doing swimming for the school one time for the yearly sports days and i done back. There were 5 of us and i came 2nd lost by half a second! Devastating.
The problem with back stroke is i couldn’t tell if i was on the right side of the lane if you were too much in the middle the people coming back the other way wouldn’t fit through, so i kept having to make sure i was at the edge of the lanes by looking to the right and taking in some water at the same time. Also another problem was i hit a few people in the other lanes with my arms when i got too close to the floating lane dividers oops! I also hit my head once, i didn’t realise i was at the end of the length, pretended nothing happened and carried on, but i’m sure some people would’ve noticed who were watching. Only i could do something so stupid like that. Never made that mistake again though, learnt my lesson.
I found the time went quicker than i imagined, there was a beam in the ceiling when i was half way so i kept focus on getting passed that each length, it didn’t feel like i had swam for an hour and half. I also bizarrely found that after half way it kind of got easier. My arms and legs went without thinking, although sometimes i did nearly drown myself as my body decided to just stop everything when i went too deep into thought, but it woke me up brought me back to earth.
I am looking forward to next year to try again and hopefully beat my time! This was my first time at it and first time i had heard of it. It was great to be apart of a brilliant activity for a great cause. Hopefully i will see others taking part next year too. If i can do it, so can you 🙂
There is still time to donate, so if you would like to donate (now that you all know i did do it and didn’t fail miserably) then please follow the link thank you 🙂
Please excuse my goggle stained eyes, picture was about 2 minutes after completing.