Hayley's Channel Relay Swim page
Hayley Hobley is raising money for Aspire
Team: Team Rhino
Story
Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.
***UPDATE***
English Channel Relay Swim 2022 SMASHED!!!
Me and my Rhino teammates conquered the Channel on Wednesday 24th August in 17 hours 26 minutes - we left Dover, England at 06.41am and touched down in Wissant, France at 00.07am.
I took on this swim as a challenge to celebrate my 40th birthday but also to help raise awareness and funds for @aspirecharity who are an amazing charity that supports people with spinal injuries. With your donations I'm almost at £5000 which is absolutely mindblowing. THANK YOU to everyone who has donated - it has all added up to this phenomenal amount and it will go towards some really important projects to help those who need it most.
There are some more thank yous that I need to personally thank...
My awesome Rhino teammates Sara, Jamie, Andrew, Sally and Anne and our boat leaders Vicki and Philip - there's no-one else I'd want to complete this challenge with. Thanks for your support through the training and swim, you were there for me when I needed to cry and laugh and all emotions in-between. Who'd have thought a bunch of nutters from completely different backgrounds would gel so well! #TeamRhino for life!
Tracy's Swim School - Thanks for helping me improve my stroke, technique, speed and stamina. Without you this swim wouldn't have been possible for me. Even though I hated the speed drills you made me do, they definitely helped and during my swim I kept reminding myself to keep my entry at 11 and 1 o'clock!
Berkhamsted Bowls Club - My family have been involved with the bowls club for many years and it felt right to use their facilities for my fundraising events. I was overwhelmed when they offered me these free of charge and their members got stuck into helping me with fundraising by attending these events and/or making donations.
Anne managed to hussle us some fab kit from Rhino (kit bag, hoodie and tops) and Magic5 goggles which came in very handy for training and the big swim.
Simon and Maz from High Hopes (our support boat) that got us across the Channel with great expertise and wonderful, kind support.
And finally the biggest thanks have to go to my family for all their support with my planning, organising and running my fundraising events; for telling all your friends, work colleagues and random strangers(!) about my swim; and for believing in me always and supporting me with this crazy idea. Thank you Paul, Mum, Dad, Clare, Kris, Hannah, Kirsty, Richard, Lynda, Mark and Polly.
Lastly, I'm so proud I have done this and my boys can't wait to go to school and tell their classes that they watched their mum swim the English Channel. I hope it inspires them to follow their dreams, believe in themselves and go and smash their goals.
Much love to all. Thanks for your support. xxx
***UPDATE*** I now know that I am going to be swimming as a team of 5 (maybe 6 if Aspire can recruit 1 more) called Team Rhino 🦏 and the exciting (and scary!) news is that we are are booked on a tide commencing on the 27th August to do our Channel swim! 😬 ***UPDATE***
You’re probably thinking WHAT??!! Swimming the channel!!! Well it has always been something I have thought about in the back of my mind since I was young because I love swimming and that’s got to be the biggest challenge there is! So with my 40th birthday creeping up in 2022 I thought what better way to mark this milestone than by taking on this challenge in a relay team of 6. I wanted to do something positive with my swimming so I have signed up to swim with Aspire the spinal injury charity.
It’s 2 December 2021 today when I write this and I got the call a few hours ago that I made the team following an assessment day with Aspire where I had to complete a timed swim and got the opportunity to find out about the inspirational work my fundraising would achieve. I was completely sold on the idea of swimming the channel for them until they mentioned…the Channel is the world’s busiest shipping lanes, it’s cold and polluted, most people get stung by jellyfish and they’ve seen sharks before (ok they were small harmless ones but they were still SHARKS! *cue the Jaws theme tune!*).
Despite all that though I am really looking forward to the gruelling training sessions to improve my strength, technique and stamina, which will include swimming in Dover in the cold of May and also swimming in the sea at 2am to get used to night swimming!
Jokes of the negatives aside…I can’t wait for the challenge of swimming the channel and raising funds for a worthwhile cause who are supporting me to fulfil a lifelong dream. So please, if you can sponsor and support me for this swim challenge I would really appreciate any donation you can make and any words of encouragement you can give.
I’ll see you on the other side…of the Channel! Au revoir!
Keep an eye out for my fundraising events in 2022.
To find out more about the amazing work that Aspire do please check out their website here: https://www.aspire.org.uk
Whilst we very much hope to complete the distance, there is always the chance that the swim may be postponed, cancelled or that we don't make it across the channel. Please donate knowing that this could happen.
Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.