The Build-Up

It is now 8 weeks since I completed the 24 hour swim and it has taken me this long to write about it because I still find it difficult to reflect on it and think about it in any great detail. 

My only thought in the two or three days afterwards was: "It's done." All I felt (apart from pain) was relief. I thought perhaps this would pass and some sense of satisfaction and achievement would kick in at some point. But it hasn't by now so I guess it never will. And so I write about it.

When I told people what I was planning to do this year, they’d look at me quizzically and just ask, "Why?" And whilst I knew it was a training swim for the future, it needed to be a bit more in order to get my own brain engaged with it. I still never had a good answer to the question, though, and it proved a difficult swim to ever be excited by.

Week after week and month after month, I trained in chlorinated pools, giving up my regular salt water fix. The comfort I took from this was that I knew I was always going to get in a warm pool (helpful when getting up on those cold winter mornings) and I was never going to have to battle surf and bluebottles when training.

But all year, the swim loomed before me, providing none of the usual sense of excitement but filling me with fear instead and a terrible sense of claustrophobia. Maybe it was the fear of just swimming up and down for 24 hours with nowhere to go and no real purpose? On so many occasions I was ready to quit, as training swims left me in a panic. If I couldn’t swim for 15 minutes, how could I possibly swim for 24 hours? This was insane. And why was I putting myself through this? Doubly insane.

This is one of my favourite photos: 

Somewhere in between those two kayaks is a dot: 'me'. This photo was taken by James Goins during one of my training swims for the Channel. James had swum from Shelly Beach to Dee Why with me, with Millie & Margie on kayaks for support. James hopped out at Dee Why and took this picture from the cliff top of my return trip to Manly. I still look at this picture with a sense of wonder and disbelief. But most of all, this picture sums up everything I love about ocean swimming: the openness, the freedom, the escape from our ordinary, contained lives.

Swimming in a pool for 24 hours was the opposite of all the freedom this picture represents. 

The main reason for doing this swim at Homebush, though (apart from the chance to raise some money for a great cause) is that there is another long swim in the planning – back there, out in the wide ocean. So this provided me a safe environment in which to learn what it would be like to swim for 24 hours. I could get out when I wanted to, eat food on dry land, have a chat to friends along the way. The lights would be on all night, ensuring my body never felt like it was bedtime, and which would hopefully make swimming through the night easier. There were lots of things to learn on this swim and I had to focus on that whenever I questioned why I was doing it. 

So, I had put myself through all the training, and I was about to put myself through swimming for a whole day and night. What would it be like?

Fundraising for Multiple Sclerosis

The 24 hour swim raises money for those suffering from MS. My target is to raise $1,000 through this swim. Thanks to my friends' generosity I'm nearly there already, but let's keep going.

Did you know: 

• The average diagnosis of MS is 30 years old.
• MS affects three times as many women as men.

Funds raised by 24 Hour Mega Swims support people with MS through:

• Go for Gold scholarships. These are awarded annually to people living with multiple sclerosis to help them reach their goals. A diagnosis of MS often causes people to re-evaluate their lives and a consequent change in their goals or career. These scholarships help people with the transition, to assist people to achieve their dreams or to help with an area of great potential. They are awarded in the categories of education, employment, travel, the arts, sport and music.
• Financial Assistance Programs. These are determined periodically to provide immediate support for people living with MS that have a significant need.

If you would like to help support the programs, please click on the '24 Hour Megaswim' button to the right and then the 'Donate Now' button on the right. 

Thanks very much for your support.

Salt Water

Last Saturday I had my first swim in salt water in weeks. Clear water, lots to look at, plenty of fish. I miss it. 

But goodness, I was cold. The water was probably about 18 degrees and I couldn't stop shivering. Those hard core training swims feel a long time ago.

Still, it will be time to start putting weight on again soon...

Test Week Done

The big 'test' weekend came and went successfully. 

I headed out to Homebush to swim at the Olympic pool on Saturday afternoon, planning to start at midday to 'practice' the start. Fortunately this was a practice run as I realised that Parramatta Road has to be one of the worst roads in Sydney - it's like a car park. Note to self: leave PLENTY of time to get there on the 23rd.

12.15pm and I was in the water. There was a big carnival on in the competition pool so I swam in the training pool - not quite the same but it's indoors, which I'm not used to swimming in, and VERY warm water, so all good practice. 

I don't think I've ever swum in a pool where swimmers pay such little notice to the lane signs. I spent much of the 5 hours overtaking breaststrokers in the fast lane. I remained perfectly calm the entire time (no, honestly, I did.) One of the lifeguards saw all my drink bottles and asked how long I was swimming for and, when I told her, she asked what I was training for and, when I told her that, she signified that she thought I was perfectly crazy. Quite.

I managed 15.6km in the 5 hours, just taking it nice and steady. The plan had been to complete 55kms in training between Monday & Saturday, before tackling the 9 hours on Sunday. This made it 55.4kms.

I made it down to Victoria Park pool for an 8am start the following morning, with even more drink bottles lined up on the pool deck to see me through the day (along with 3 bananas, some jelly sweets & mini mint slices for a treat.)

My plan is to try and stick to 3km / hour, which has to include time for feeds, toilet stops, chatting (might fall down on this last one....) So I hoped to cover 27km through the day.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Martine & Katya arrive to keep me company at 9.30am (OK, that may be a slight understatement, given the squeals of delight and little dance I gave.) I hadn't wanted to rely on anyone for company, so it was all a big bonus. There were plenty of smiles, chatter and laughter. Thank you, ladies. A little coffee stop picked me up before we started to crank through the kilometres. Millie then joined us for the middle of the day and relieved Martine & Katya. 

Anna arrived at 1pm and I hit a big grumpy patch (related?) Goodness, those things are awful. You know you've been in them before and all the logical bits of your head know you've got through them before but when you're right in the middle of them you think it's never going to end. It lasted an hour and it was pretty miserable. Thankfully, Millie made an emergency trip to Toby's across the road to bring me back a fabulous coffee and it was just what I needed. Thank you so much, Mil. 

By the time Chad arrived, the world was alright again. He swam alongside me and, with Anna on the other side, I felt like I could keep swimming all day. I broke the last three hours down into sets - 10 x 300m on 5:30; 15 x 200m on 3.30; and 30 x 100m on 1.50 (with a drink at the half hours), so plenty of rest but I held 1.37-ish pace, so I was really pleased with that. There were several moments of delirium involved but, overall, I had 13 out of 14 hours of enjoyable swimming for the weekend, which is very promising.

I managed the 27km but just went over the 9 hours to get there, by about 2 minutes (I blame Martine & Katya for too much chatting early on!) A total of 82.4km for the week. 

Thank you to my fabulous friends for the company and keeping me going.

What do you eat after a 9 hour swim?

YUM! Roast chook & veggies. How good is my husband??

Dinner was practically inhaled following 9 hours up and down the black line of Victoria Park Pool.

Time to come out of swimming hibernation

I have been slowly coming out of hibernation all this year but it has taken until now to start feeling confident about the task I've taken on for 2012. From midday on Saturday 23 June to midday Sunday 24 June I will be swimming at SOPAC at Homebush.

The swim is part of a bigger event to raise funds for Multiple Sclerosis; see the official website at www.megaswim.com. For the past three years, Sea's the Limit swimmers have taken part in this fabulous event. The first year we entered one team of 15 swimmers. Each swimmer is in the water for 15 minutes of each hour, rotating in blocks of 3-4 hours. The whole event attracted about 20 teams.

The following year, Sea's the Limit entered two teams, amongst over 30 teams for the main event, and in 2011, we fielded four teams, with the event fully subscribed at about 40 teams.

In 2012 we hope to enter four teams again, plus me. Because what started as a bit of a joke last year - that I would swim the whole thing - started to feel like a good challenge at the beginning of this year. I have since spent the last few months battling the urge to pull out because the whole thing now feels way too big for me. And while it still feels like a very big deal, I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that I'll just give it a go and see what happens.

Most of my training this year has been in the pool, which is a lot less interesting than all the ocean training I did in 2010. However, it does mean I don't have to keep bugging my friends to paddle for me, and at least the water temperature is fairly constant. 

It's now only 7 weeks to go - the kilometres each week are increasing as my weight is decreasing (finally, those excess English Channel kilos are coming off.) Yesterday, I had a 7 hour test swim and it went well. I managed 23.5kms, which included pit stops (a definite downside to swimming in a pool) and feeding time. 

I held a comfortable 1.37 / 100m pace for the first 6 hours. The last hour wasn't as edifying but perhaps my head knew that the end was approaching. See, it can still freak my little head out when I think I've just swum for 6 hours and that's only a quarter of what I'll be doing. OK, I'll stop now before I have another little meltdown. 

Next test swim in 3 weeks time. Until then....