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I am going to swim from Asia to Europe on July 23

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For the first time I have ...

S. Thelwall
S. Thelwall schrieb am 03.06.2017

This is a phrase I find myself uttering on a fairly regular basis at the moment. 

After surprising myself by swimming about 2km crawl in a wetsuit in Ham lake last Sunday I took the opportunity of a trip to a pool to knock out a lazy 20 laps of crawl ... I have never done that before. In fact the idea of doing 10 lengths felt like reaching up to a high shelf on tiptoes. But the confidenceof  knowing that I can do it completely changed my perspective on it and the whole 6km of the Bosphorus feels, for the first time, like something I might actually be capable of. 

I have also been checking the details of the big B swim and have discovered that I will have a two hour time limit before they hoick me out of the water!! 

So rather than do three or four hour swims the thing now is to get quicker. Today's two hour swim was the first with these new goals. I started with 40 lengths of crawl (now that I know I can!) and whilst it was feeling good I couldn't quite work out why each length was taking so long and why I wasn't hitting my 80 lengths/hr norm ... until I remembered that Hampton is a 33m pool not 25m (I should know that, been swimming there for 20 years ... water on the brain!). So with my maths corrected I am pleased to say I did about 4km in two hours. The goal is to get to 5km plus and I have about 50 days to go. Good thing I have a lesson on Monday. Still, it earned me a hearty second breakfast and I am working on my one-sided tan.