No big deal...

The training continues... It's the swimming which is the really hard work. Let's face it, you want to practice running, you can just step out of the door (as long as baby sitters are in place, etc) and go for a run. Swimming is an altogether different proposition. After last week's let down (the pool being too warm when it is normally freezing at Queen's Park), I decided to go to Pond's Forge in Sheffield city centre. Two reasons for this: (a) It's nearer; and (b) it's an Olympic sized swimming pool and so the lengths are fifty metres long instead of just twenty-five metres. (I know, I know, you end up swimming the same distance, but it doesn't feel quite so long somehow when you only have to do half the lengths...)

I have to say, apart from getting over Park Square roundabout (otherwise known as Kamikaze Roundabout... Well, to me, anyway) and finding somewhere to park in the city centre, the session went much better. I managed to swim sixteen 50m lengths and I did fifteen without stopping, which I was pretty proud of. It was actually quite hard, because there were several people lounging at either end of the pool, so to turn around without splashing them/sinking to the bottom of the pool was quite hard. I kind of floundered about a bit at each end until I'd managed to turn myself around. Also, even though I was swimming in what was clearly marked "Slow Lane" people were still overtaking me. Surely they should have been in the fast or medium lane? There's no need to swim in the slow lane just to make the real slow coaches (like me) look bad. Also, and this is the final negative point, I've realised that there's something a bit funny about the way I swim. I swim breast-stroke, and yes, it's slow, but it's all I can manage. Sadly, I don't even seem to be managing this properly. One leg seems to be doing the right thing, but my other (my left leg) does something a bit odd and twitches about a bit as I go. Sometimes I even completely misjudge the kick with my leg and splash it out of the water with a great crash of water (Usually going into the person behind me's face). I'm not going to be popular, plus I'm not going to be swimming very efficiently if I don't correct this. I may try and see if I can get a swimming lesson to try and correct my technique (possibly a private one, if I can manage it - I don't want to revisit my Brownie-gala-swimming-days-unfortunate-youth and get laughed out of the pool by a bunch of eight year olds again.) My husband says I need to correct this peculiar trait my left leg is showing in that it mutinies against what it is supposed to be doing. He says that if I don't, they'll all start calling me names at Pond's Forge now that I've started going regularly. He said they'd all be saying "Oh look, here comes Flipper again." Yes, thank you for that, thank you very much. Still, all in all, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself when I (with some difficulty in walking again) managed to get out of the pool, UNTIL I went into the changing rooms. Once there, I was cut down to size by three girls who were talking about their own planned endurance swim. Not one mile around Windermere. No; they intended to swim to Ireland. My one mile swim around Windermere, well, it's just nothing really... barely worth getting wet for.

And I have to say that I have found this a lot over the past week. That is, that what I'm intending to do over 2009 (i.e. run 64 miles and swim one) really isn't that big a deal to some people. Over the past week, I've been trying to drum up sponsorship for the events I'm going to take part in and over this time alone, I have encountered the following statements when I've told people about what I'm going to do:

"Run the Greats? Oh yes, I did Iron Man at the weekend..."

"Swim a mile? Oh OK I'll sponsor you, but my friend is training to swim the Channel..."

Well, what can you say to that? Apart from politely pointing out that there's a perfectly good ferry service, of course...

Anyway, I suppose it's true. To some people, running 64 miles and swimming one over open water (freezing open water) isn't that big a deal. However, I'm not some people. I'm me. Middle-aged, going grey, got two kids and the flab to prove it, never got picked for the teams in PE, (in fact, to be fair, spent quite a lot of time unaccountably absent from PE; absences which, I have to say, my PE teacher never reported me for, because I suspect she was as relieved as I was at my absence from these lessons), me. Everything about this is a total challenge to me. Finding the time for the training, staying motivated enough to do the training when the children wear me out sometimes. It's only going to get harder over the winter months and then later on it will be a wrench taking the time away from the children to travel all over the UK to take part in these events. Plus I've got to persuade my husband to do all that childcare for me, because I won't be there like I normally am. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm really enjoying it, in fact. But it is a challenge and a hard one for me.

One of the other challenges I've found is the time it takes to concentrate upon the fundraising. I'm making a real go of this. I'm really focussing on raising as much money as I can for the Weston Park Hospital Cancer Campaign. When I first came to Sheffield, my very first (student) house was on Whitham Road, right opposite this hospital. For the entire year of my stay in this house my view consisted of the hospital and one of those thermometer things which they often have outside of churches/hospital to show how the fundraising is going. I can't remember the red bar indicating an increase in funds going up that much or even changing at all. I owe it to the students who are now living in this house to raise enough money to alter their view a little and add a little interest in their lives. (Of course, it could have just been that nobody ever altered the sign thingy - I know that the Weston Park does a lot to raise funds) but, of course, as with all hospitals, if they want to carry on providing the best possible care for their patients AND carry on with their local research which is used to help everyone globally in the fight against cancer, they need more, and as part of this, I've been contacting EVERYONE I can think of to sponsor me. It's been an amazing journey really. I've started by contacting everyone I was at school with. Now I went to a lot of schools when I was growing up, so there's a lot of people (my parents moved around a bit...) So far I've only got to the last secondary school I went to. (Sending begging emails takes quite a bit of time). I've used Facebook to find friends and Friends Reunited. It's been brilliant. I've spoken (virtually, over the email that is...) with a boy who now tells me (twenty years too late, mind) that he had a major crush on me at school. (I didn't think anyone had a major crush on me at school, I was a surly child). It did my self-esteem no end of good to hear that. Two people from school have sponsored me twenty pounds each. Incredible generosity from people I haven't seen in twenty years. I'm amazed at them, I really am.

As for Facebook, lots of people seem to have added me on as their "Friend" just because we went to school together, but actually I can't ever remember them speaking to me whilst I was at school with them. To them I have sent the following email: "Thanks for adding me on as your friend on Facebook. To be honest, I don't remember you ever speaking to me while we were at school together. Well, better late than never, I suppose..." and then I've gone on to ask them to sponsor me. I've not heard anything back yet from any of them, and I wonder if they perhaps didn't take it as the joke it was intended to be... Oh well. Let's hope some of them come through and sponsor me. Perhaps I need to refine my technique for asking. I am asking for money off them after all.

As for other friends, well, people have been amazing in expressing their support, although some people are still inclined to think I've gone slightly mad. The "it's all a mid-life crisis" theory seems to abound. Still, if some of these friends haven't got round to sponsoring me yet, lots have said that they will do some of the events with me. One friend (Lindsey) has taken up running (and she really doesn't like running), but she's going to do the Great North Run with me. She tells me that she went out for a training session the other day and whilst she was running along (painfully slowly) she was overtaken by a couple out walking their dog. A few moments later the dog passed her too, poking her up the bum with a large stick it was carrying in its mouth at the same time. It must have just caught her as it went past, but she took the hint anyway and tried to run a bit faster. Still, it's not put her off. Despite the fact that she's got two kids too and she's just started an incredibly complicated sounding science course at college, she's still taking time out to train. She's going to do the swim with me too, ostensibly, she says, to stop me from drowning, but I think she's a bit worried I might get lost too. My sense of direction is legendary... Well, rather, I should say, the lack of it... Also, she says with the left leg twitching thing going on, I might start swimming round in circles and I'll need her to keep me on course...

Another friend has also offered to join me for the swim. In fact, this friend and I have taken part in an endurance event together before. We both spent a rather unfortunate week in the Lake District with our kids on holiday last summer. All the kids did was whine. All the weather did was rain. You get the picture...

Also, another Lyndsay (the fundraiser from the Weston Park Hospital) has said that she will also take part in some of the runs. (Sorry about the number of Lyndsays in this story, by the way). It's an unfortunate fact that nearly all of the principal characters so far are called Lyndsay/Lindsey. Nothing wrong with that, it's a lovely name; but I suppose it might be a bit confusing for you following the story... Anyway, more characters will emerge soon (my sister for instance, who has incredibly generously sponsored me fifty pounds to complete these events AND definitely isn't called Lindsey).

Anyway, back to my legendary lack of sense of direction. This morning was my best run yet and would have been even better IF I hadn't got lost. I ran up through Ecclesall Woods, up through Whirlow, the Limb Valley to Ringinglow and then back down Long Line/Ecclesall Road/Abbey Lane to home again. It's a total of 5.5 miles according to Mapmyrun.com, but it was probably made even longer by the fact that the signage for the public footpath in the very boggy fields leading up to Ringinglow was very poor. I ended up wandering aimlessly around a field (complete with cows) for at least ten minutes looking for the stile to exit the field. I reckon that added at least another half a mile on. It probably also provided some amusement for the farmer (I could imagine him in his farmhouse - which was at the top of the field - saying: "there be another one of them runners lost in our field again. Give it ten minutes and I'll send the dog to get her out...") In the end, I failed to find the stile (possibly I was in the wrong field) and was forced to climb out of it over a stone wall and through some barbed wire. Just as I was dragging my mud spattered carcass over the wall, a man was cycling past on a bike. It earned me a very strange look, but I was very glad to be out of the field, I must say... Not least because it was so muddy and running on muddy/rough ground is, I found this morning, quite hard. Road running is much easier on the feet. Still, what running through all of these puddles/streams/boggy fields has thrown up is the fact that I definitely need new running shoes. Everytime I go out now, I get muddy toes and it's clear the old ones are leaking. I'm very attached to my running shoes, but it's definitely time to get some more.

Anyway, I've gone on and on again, so I'd better get back to the real business of the day... Pestering for sponsorship. Back to the Friends Reunited page I think... Then onto University alumni... Don't forget, you can sponsor me NOW to complete these events at http://www.justgiving.com/valderbyshire There is a very good chance I will drown in open water on Windermere and you won't have to pay up anyway, so what have you got to lose?