Here at Swimming Matters, we are constantly inspired by the swimming challenges that people set themselves, whether that be from our swimmers or from other challenges we read about. As we find them a source of inspiration, we like to share them with you and we hope that you will be inspired too!
Our inspirational swim this week comes from two of our swimmers. Today Joan and her husband, Brenden, as they take on their swimming challenge!
Last year for Joan’s Birthday and in memory of Joan’s Mum, Lily, they took part in the Memory Walk in Heaton Park for the Alzheimer’s Society with family. Inspired by the event, in 2015 Joan knew that she wanted to do something different yet still support the Alzheimer’s Society. She came up with the cracking idea of doing the memory mile, but in the pool…
When she set her self the challenge she said that,
‘I thought front crawl might be a good stroke to choose, as I didn’t like it, couldn’t do it and decided that needed to change. So in January I decided to post this year’s challenge on Facebook to swim a mile, front crawl, in under an hour, then once posted, there was no going back.’
Joan started lessons with us following buying a birthday gift voucher of swimming lessons for a friend. I’ll leave it to Joan to explain just how much of a challenge it was, as she describes it so beautifully:
‘When I started swimming lessons I could only do breast stroke, not very well, not very fast, and I had only just learned how to put my head underwater after nearly 50 years on this water filled planet. Front crawl quickly became my nemesis stroke, the evil front crawl was not my favourite thing. Each time I went swimming at home I avoided doing front crawl as I did not like it, could not do it and much preferred breast stroke. If I did 40 breast stroke lengths to 1 front crawl, then that was a good day for front crawl! This went on for months, whilst I knew I had to push myself to do front crawl, I rarely did, as I loved breast stroke too much and was poor at front crawl and took the easy option far too often and avoided front crawl. I knew I needed some extra motivation, so when I saw the Memory Mile swim online it just clicked, a bit of a light bulb moment. When I set myself the challenge in January I doubt that I had done more than 10 lengths in a session, by May I had swum a mile, a week or two later I did my first mile in an hour and carried on to swim a mile breast stroke in the second hour that day (Note from Lucy – as you do)!
Without the lessons and your encouragement, and without the challenge, I know I would not have got as far as I have as soon as I have. I am not going to set any local or world records, I am simply setting and beating my own personal challenges, I may not be the fastest person in the pool, but I am faster than the person sat at home. In May a lady at the pool commented on the level my determination (that was when I was trying to do my first mile in under an hour), more recently, the comment was about how beautifully I swim…who me? I read an article about a woman who set her own swimming challenge, in it she said she never had a swim she regretted, but she always regretted not going swimming, I try and have that as my mantra, even if I only get a 30 minute swim in, it is better than nothing at all.
If you would like to support their swim and the Alzheimer’s Society, you can find their justgiving page is here: