My two way lake Windermere swim has been a long time coming, it was originally supposed to happen in September 2020 but thanks to Covid I felt I was unable to train enough to complete the swim without causing injury and severe pain so managed to postpone it a year. In November I managed to get a new slot for my Windermere swim on Wednesday 1st September 2021 in the hope the pandemic would be over by the start of 2021, clearly, this wasn’t the case. It has given me many mixed thoughts and feelings about it and the main thing I have been asking myself is how on earth can I train for a 22 mile swim when I cant go swimming…it seems utterly bonkers but, that simply is the situation I am in and I can’t change it. So, I am training for the longest and biggest swim of my life but I am not actually swimming…
Whilst I have been unable to swim I have been able to continue running/pushing and have also managed to continue with my Personal Training sessions with Gavin from Life Plus Fitness (following covid guidelines). I have been working on building strength and improving my overall fitness which, during lockdown has been a godsend for me, both physically and mentally. Despite knowing I am improving in my fitness and strength the wait to find out when pools will reopen has been nerve-racking and I have had a couple of questions hanging over me: “What happens if pools don’t open?” and “how will I train?”. I have come to the conclusion that I would just have to keep on with my strength and conditioning and get in open water as soon as I can! Of course, the announcement yesterday that outdoor pools will be opening on the 29th March and indoor pools can open from the 12th April was a HUGE relief. I finally have a date that I will be able to get back in the pool so now I can start planning my training and can figure out what I need to focus on and when!
The first thing for me to work out is how long I have until the day of my swim the answer – just over 20 weeks, that’s just 142 days! Time to get planning…