Thursday, October 16, 2008

Please sponsor me. I'm halfway through the challenge.

Its week 5 of the Aspire Channel swim, and I’ve just got back from swimming a mile, which I did in 1hour 5minutes (a personal best). I’m now half way through, as I’ve swum 11 and a half miles in all of the 22miles I need to do. I’m well ahead of schedule so I’m really chuffed. I’ve been swimming a lot at my local pool and have been lucky in mostly finding quiet times. I was a little worried a couple of weeks ago, that I may not be able to complete the challenge. I had helped out at a friends wedding, and I think I must have moved suddenly the wrong way and my shoulder started really hurting. A friend gave it a bit of a massage and said it was really swollen. As I don’t actually remember doing anything specific that may have caused it, I wondered whether it might have been swimming a lot more that had caused it. I swam half a mile the Monday after and it was ok, but after swimming a mile on the Tuesday it really hurt and was swollen again. I didn’t swim again till the Friday and then I took it really easy and swam half a mile really slowly. Luckily the next week it was more or less back to normal and I was able to pick up the swimming again. So it was probably was something I did at the wedding, and not the swimming that had caused it. I’ve also been very lucky (touch wood) in not getting any of the array of bugs and colds that have been going around, as that also would put me out of action.

I would also really recommend swimming for stress relief. Firstly I find getting in to the water melts away stresses and tensions. Secondly with the crappy year I’ve had, I am finding swimming, gives me a good amount of thinking time, when I can really reflect and deal with things that have happened, and formulate plans of action. Its almost like going to counselling except nothing is said out loud, and I’m the counsellor and the one being counselled.

Anyway as you can see I’m doing well, and I’m confident I will complete the challenge. All I need now is for people to sponsor me, and you can do this by clicking on the link (on the right) which says ‘Sponsor me here’.

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