SWIMMING CHALLANGE: CHALLANGE ONE-GETTING IN THE POOL

Swimming 16 lengths of a 25m pool in a one hour time frame doesn’t sound impressive at all does it? But for someone that can’t swim properly and frankly cheated to get their 25m swimming badge when they were younger, it’s actually an achievement to be proud of.

I’ve watched the commonwealth games recently and looked at the swimming events thinking it’s easy – why then when myself, Emily, Jon and Nathan, who went swimming after work last night, got to the end after one length was out of breath wondering how on earth we’d manage collectively to hit 106.9 lengths in an hour!

What started as a laugh during a show has escalated into this challenge to raise money for the station and in particular the broadcast and achieve scheme. The money raised is vital to the survival of the scheme which at the minute is on a cliff edge in terms of its future, yesterday as I swam the first length; I had that at the forefront of my mind which acts like a massive weight pulling you under the water.

My problem, apart from the inability to say a firm no, is I struggle to swim. As I mentioned, I somehow fluked a 25m swimming badge despite stopping at least four times to grab hold of the side, yet I really can’t swim – there were a group of eight year olds putting me to shame. I’m ok when I can put my foot on the floor to have a rest, but the further you swim the deeper it gets and the more panic sets in!

I need to find a way of conquering my fears and lasting the distance, the others seem to have taken to swimming like ducks to water, Jon especially bossed our practise session watching on about six lengths ahead with a look of confusion over how difficult we we’re finding it.

In the end, we swam 16 each which is enough to hit the target between us, but I know I can improve and won’t rest until I do - We have two weeks before the main event on Sunday 31st August, 3-4pm at the Lammas Lesuire Centre, if last night’s post work swim was anything to go by, I’ve got a feeling staff at Lammas will be seeing a LOT more of me!

Please support the event by donating here https://www.justgiving.com/cpswim/ or by texting ‘CPTR69 £5’ to 70070 to donate a fiver. Thanks all, stay tuned for more updates not forgetting our ‘Swim Diary’s’ at 4pm everyday on 106.9FM starting Monday.