The last two weeks whipped by while I finished my training and then went off to do The Great North Swim with Anne. The swim is a 1 mile race in the chilly waters of Lake Windermere and is the most popular open water swim in the UK. 10,000 people entered this year’s swim we were told.

In the lead up to the race I had been training in the Jesus Green open air pool in Cambridge. It’s one of the original lidos built in the early 1920’s and is a spectacular 100 yards long. Most of us are used to swimming in 25m pools, this one’s 91m. A mile is just 18 lengths instead of the usual 64 and even then you’ve covered an 30m too much, an extra length in a normal pool. Being open air and not heated it’s pretty chilly so perfect for training. In the race we had to wear wetsuits so I trained in the pool in mine and I’m glad I did. Swimming in a suit is a different experience, they’re designed to make you float in a better swimming position but they also restrict arm movement a little, making swimming a little harder.

When I started training I wasn’t able to swim a mile non stop, in fact trying to do 4 lengths of the outdoor pool non stop was a challenge. My first mile took me around 40 minutes, worryingly slow as I was supposed to be racing Anne. Anne swims regularly, I on the other hand hadn’t trained since university. After a few sessions I psyched myself up to swim the mile in 3 six lengths. The first six lengths took me just over 9 minutes with the next two taking 10 minutes each. I was looking at a time of maybe 30 minutes. In the last but one training session I managed to swim a second mile non stop. The last training session I managed 28 minutes and 6 seconds so there was a chance in the race I could swim sub 30 minutes.

Anne, myself and Helena travelled up to the Lakes on the Friday and checked into the nicest camp site I have stayed on in the UK. The weather was even being kind, it wasn’t raining. We BBQ’d for dinner and even had a few glasses of wine, we’re obviously not taking it too seriously.

On the morning of the race Anne and I were both amazed at how nervous we both felt. The banter between us about who was going to win had been replaced with a realisation that we had to swim in a race with 300 other people and cover a mile in cold water without stopping. We drove past the race venue and we could already see the first of the 10,000 people swimming their race. There was a start of 300 people every 30 minutes with kayakers on hand should anything go wrong.

After a drive into Langdale we parked up at one of the allotted parking spots and walked into Bowness, catching the ferry then to Ambleside for the mile walk back to the start. We were early so we got to watch some of the racing from the lake edge near the 1/2 mile point. It was clear there were a lot of different abilities taking part with some of the swimmers taking about 15 minutes to get to the first buoy while others from the previous wave were already being overtaken by this point. We chatted to some other competitors, some of whom had already swum in the morning and some who were due to swim on the Sunday. All advice was great.

Our start time loomed. 35 minutes before we went to change, then we checked in wearing our electronic tags. We had the opportunity for a dip in the lake and we took it both to see how cold it was and also to get a bit of water in our suits to lubricate them. Our wave was the White hat wave. Hundreds of other white hat wearing people were also checking in and tacking an acclimatisation dip.

With 10 mins to go our waves warmup exercises started, we a did a little stretching. Then we got the good luck from two of the elite swimmers from earlier in the day who had finished in 16 minutes for the mens race and 18 minutes for the ladies. I’m just looking to break 30 minutes which makes their swims look amazing, then again they are probably going to swim in the Olympics.

With a minute to go we put on goggles. Anne and I had decided to start near the front, well I had and Anne had agree to it. My theory was that I didn’t want to get held up by the people doing breaststroke. What I had committed us to though was a fast start. Then we were off. The start is only 5m wide so it is a bit of a scramble. I got away quite well. There was an amazing amount of bumping into each other though. Being my first race I hadn’t really thought about not being able to see where you’re going. It’s incredibly gloomy just looking down into the black waters. You can’t see much at all and even after 400m I was still crashing into other swimmers.

Then it all went a lot quieter. I started getting a bit better at spotting the next buoy and aiming for it. I seemed to be in a bit of clear water. I started wondering if Anne was ahead or behind me. Then I literally crashed into the next buoy. To my surprise the following one was half way, it didn’t seem to have taken that long but I knew I was already tired.

On the swim back towards the finish someone overtook me. I could see other swimmers between me and the bank as well. Either they were off course or I was. I could see the finish, a final push. The climb out of the lake was very steep but there were people helping you out. The finish line was just in front of me but my legs were super wobbly. I crossed it, stopping the clock with my electronic tag, and also seeing a clock with what looked like 29 minutes on it. I then spotted Helena’s face in the crowd with an astonished look on it. I soon learned why, she shouted to me that she thought I was in the top 10 people in our heat. I couldn’t be, I’d only done 8 training sessions. I did note though that Anne wasn’t standing by her. I found out from the official timing that I did the mile in 29:33, breaking the 30 minute barrier. I came in 650th of all the swimmers, an achievement I am really happy with.

Anne’s race had been an altogether different experience. While I managed to get into the water fairly cleanly, Anne had been swum over twice and taken on a lot of water. The whole start freaked her but she was able to gain her composure and let the madness of the start go by while she held onto the front of one of the rescue boats. She then swam the course breaststroke as the dark waters had scared her. She finished in a very admirable 51 minutes, a great achievement after her start line dunking.

Both of us enjoyed the experience and have already committed to going back next year. With your help we have raised a great deal of money for Cancer Research UK. The whole point of the swim had been for Anne and I to remember out great friend Simon who lost his fight with cancer almost a year before our swim. He’d have loved to have been there with us I am sure.

Hat’s off to Anne though, she’s going back to conquer her demons of the dark water much sooner than you might imagine, I’m just gutted I can’t be there this time to do it all again.

So other than swimming I’ve been trying to sell stuff to clear my Mum’s house. This has proved far harder than I ever imagined. I’ve managed to put a designer sideboard and a dining table on eBay and sell neither, not even a single bid. I’ve been messed around by people claiming a bike wasn’t modern enough after they’d seen a photo of it and got me to collect it from the other side of town. I’ve had a lady come to buy single beds with no idea how she could take them home, she thought she would just put them in the car even though they were advertised as solid pine. And as for auctions, I didn’t expect to take a whole van of stuff to be sold only to come home with 3/4 as it ‘wasn’t stuff they would be able to sell’.

Anyway it’s been another cracking two weeks. Funnily enough I’m still not missing work.