Four days to go. With thanks to my physio at St Mary’s University, I’m back to hitting longer distances (did a mile last night). Although I may not achieve the sub 60 minutes I was aiming for, I think my shoulder has healed enough to allow me to finish the 2 mile swim. Now just keeping an eye on the water temperatures. I'll need to swim in my arm-less wetsuit to accommodate my shoulder.... but as my Mom would say: "Andrew, you're Canadian. Get over the cold" :-)

Frustrating (but not insurmountable) set-back: a week ago Saturday I injured my left shoulder in a rugby game for my local club. To make a long story short I have torn a muscle in my rotator cuff. With 1 week of inactivity, and with a physio's help, the shoulder is starting to feel well enough to get back into the pool. Last night was my first swim since the injury and I was able to swim with discomfort but not pain... physio plan is for shoulder to be ready to take on the 2 mile swim in 1.5 weeks.... fingers crossed.

Training still plowing away, now changing the balance of my workouts to swimming only and beefing up the distances. Had a lovely 3km at lake Shepperton over the weekend in some chop - helpfully reduced the numbers of other swimmers. Looking forward to a short taper in mid-September!