I feel fantastic – I finished the Swimathon in 1h 50 mins, 25 minutes faster than last time in 1992. Tooting’s also a 33m pool, whereas Brixton, where I did it in 1992, is 25m: it’s a big difference, because you have to do a lot more actual swimming. In a 25m pool, you can cheat so that it becomes just a bit of swimming between two push-offs.
A big hurrah and thank you to Dan who came along and cheered me on, and kept me motivated, and of course, enormous thanks to all of you who sponsored me, and gave generously to Marie Curie Cancer Care. I should also congratulate and thank Bruce of www.ballet.co.uk for being my biggest sponsor. He actually donated 50p more than the current leader, Chris Hampson, but his munificence went unrecorded on the roll of honour down the side of my sponsorship page owing to a technological problem.
Just a bit more dosh (£58) to collect before I hit my target of £500, so if you want to help fill the bucket, please don’t hesitate to donate online at my Swimathon page, or let me come and relieve you of folding stuff personally, if you prefer.
The maths:
5km =
55 lengths of Tooting Bec Lido (100yds/91.4m)
100 lengths of an Olympic-sized pool (50m) like Crystal Palace
151 lengths of Tooting leisure centre pool (33m) – my pool
200 lengths of Brixton (25m) and most other pools
384 lengths of a 13m pool like the ones you get in hotels & health clubs
A very big ‘WELL DONE!’ Maybe you could market a new anti-perspirant deoderant – ‘Mr Chlorine- for men.’