In the most horrendous conditions!!
My swim start was 8.15am! So working backwards (arrive an hour before, travel time to Cheltenham Lido, enough time to get ready without stressing, etc) I worked out that I needed to set my alarm for 5.15am, which allowed me 15 mins to get over the shock of getting up at that time! At least it was light.
The weather was absolutely awful. All that was missing was a blizzard! It was tipping down from the time I got up to the time I finished the whole thing. Standing on the poolside for the 10 minute briefing, in the rain, was very uncomfortable but the pool was lovely and warm so I forgot about the rain - until I got back out again! I shot off as fast as possible on the 5k run in a desperate effort to get warm. At least it made me get a move on.
I had already decided that I wasn't going to put myself under pressure by trying to swim front crawl so I would maybe I would try to alternative between between breast stroke and front crawl for the 1000km swim. I chickened out in the end and only did one 50m length of crawl and then changed to breaststroke. That made me 'almost' the slowest swimmer (only one slower and one who did not finish) made worse by being 'lapped' by the fastest wave who started quite a while after us! Well, at least I finished, made up a bit of time on the run, and I wasn't last!
Have started a proper training plan for the marathon. My next event will be the sprint tri at Berkeley in July.
Please consider donating to my Just Giving Page in support of the Samaritans and in memory of my brother Kev at https://www.justgiving.com/page/sue-bateman-1714740221042
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