I did it!!! Many , many thanks to everyone who sponsored me. My official time was 43mins and 16secs!!!!!! Photos are here http://tinyurl.com/ajayswimphotos

It was fairly scary to start with and nothing prepares you for how murky the water is. All the other swimmers look much fitter when you start off which makes it even scarier. You have to concentrate hard on not going off course, but fortunately the buoys were fairly big! I'm very pleased with my time! Thank you again for all your support!

This page will be available for a while for those who might still want to sponsor me!!!!

Ajay

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Now that I've lost over 4 stone and am generally fitter, I am going for a more ambitious event than the Race for Life which I missed this year due to general ineptitude! I'm going to do the Great East Swim on 26th September, which is a 1 mile open water swim in Alton Water, Suffolk. The positive impact that losing weight and getting fitter has had on my health is significant, especially for my arthritic knees, and I now need to make sure I keep it off and lose another stone. I will have to do lots of training for this event which will keep me in the gym and pool and help me keep the weight off. Keeping fit and maintaining a healthy weight is important for reducing the risk of diseases like cancer and heart disease too. Although I have done long open water swims when I was a teenager I am a LOT older and have dodgy knees now - so this will be a real challenge, but one I know I can do. So please sponsor me - even if it's just for the opportunity of seeing the very fetching photo of me looking daft in a wetsuit! - all proceeds to Cancer Research. I will post regular updates on how training is going below this message - just click on 'read more'. Many thanks! - Ajay

 

August Update: I am now doing regular 1 mile swims at Jesus Green Pool in Cambridge and going to gym 3 times a week and am feeling fairly confident. I did a few open water swims while on holiday in the Hebrides and choppy sea was quite a challenge. I have overcome most of the obstacles that have cropped up like water in the ears (I now wear ear plugs and a hat), feeling shaky at the end (I now make sure I eat more on swim days) and water in the sinuses (I now use a nose clip). Main obstacles to overcome at the moment are keeping in a straight line without a lane marker on the bottom of the pool to follow, and avoiding dizziness which seems to set in after about half a mile - it seems to be motion sickness from constantly turning my head to breath so will be talking to GP about remedies! So in summary - all is on track for September!!

September Update: Training going very well. GP has diagnosed BPPV (or rocks in the ear canals) as cause of dizziness on long swims so have learnt to modify my stroke a bit to avoid turning my head so much, add in a bit of breastroke + take anti-vertigo pills before swimming. So have solved that problem! Today's training swim (5th Sept) was in nice cold water, though not quite as cold as predicted for Alton Water which will be approx 17c. I managed 1.25 miles in 57 minutes with no problems. So am now feeling reasonably confident about the day itself. There may be an oppportunity for entrants to do a practice swim at Alton Water the weekend before which will be great! Many thanks for all your sponsorship so far!! 

25th September:

Well it's race day tomorrow! My last training swim was on Wednesday where I managed 1.25 miles in 57 minutes so I am feeling fairly confident about managing a time on the day of just under an hour. I also managed to get a bit more efficient with the modified crawl stroke that I need in order to keep an eye on the buoys and not go off course. The BPPV is still a bit of a worry, but the drugs that the GP gave me are definitely helping and I am mostly managing to keep the vertigo under control when I swim. Yesterday and today I have been staying out of the gym and have increased my calorie intake a bit so am hoping to be well rested and full of energy for tomorrow.

Many, many thanks to everyone who has sponsored me. I havn't got the latest figure from Toft Shop yet where people have been filling in a sponorship form as well so I may have already reached the £1,000 target.

I will update this page after tomorrow with photos from the swim, all the gory details and with my time!

Many thanks for your support! Ajay.