Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

September is going to be wet!  This year marks 20 years since I lost my mum to cancer so I've decided to swim in her honour and raise money for both The Polar Academy and It's Good to Give (on a separate page).  I'll never forget nor undervalue the grace, humility, kindness and bravery she showed on a daily basis in the last months of her illness - truly inspiring! 

My first and biggest swim is Windermere One Way on Sept 2nd - 11 miles of lake.  Just so you know (and dig that bit deeper into your pocket if you can :)) , a marathon swim is considered to be anything of 10 kms and above,  so 11 miles is a bit of an ultra and will be a challenging 6 ish hours for me.  It will be my furthest ever planned swim.   

The next weekend I'm swimming Loch Earn at 10.8km

(Im then canoeing the length of Loch Ness and swimming in the Highlands the following 2 weekends, but can't really count those) 

Finally, I will do another 10 km somewhere the last weekend in September - location is weather dependent and with the support of a kayak. 

The Polar Academy is based just outside Edinburgh and every year takes a group of "invisible" teenagers through a 10 month training programme to prepare them for a gruelling self-led expedition in Greenland. This opportunity is about so much more than physical fitness - it's about being mentally prepared, pushing their boundaries, relying on themselves and their team and learning that with focus, they can achieve the seemingly impossible.  When they come back to Scotland, each participant is responsible for reaching 3000 other young people by giving motivational talks on their experience.   Truly inspirational!    

For more info about this amazing charity please go to www.thepolaracademy.org 

Thank you to my kayaker Mark, for his patience!!  And thank you to all those at Balanced for their expert physio, massage and Pilates support over the years, and my current excellent local physio Neill McGregor at The Physiotherapy Place for stabbing me with needles on a regular basis and keeping me pain free!!  And to Adam Walker for his amazing swim technique (which one day I will fully master).   These guys have meant an injury that was making it impossible for me to swim long distances  is now more or less a thing of the past!! 

Thank you so much for choosing to donate.  It means a lot :) 

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