One week since I passed the point of no return...

It's one week since I passed the point of no return... (the point of no return being the point just after I'd clicked the "send" button on the email to the Weston Park Hospital promising to run nine of the "Great" series of runs and swim one mile over open water (Lake Windermere to be precise) to complete the Great North Swim event, in order to raise some money for their cancer appeal. To clarify, here is the precise nature of what I've promised to do:

The Great Winter Run (5K/3.11 miles) to be held in Edinburgh on 10th January 2009. (Never been to Edinburgh - this is going to be fun).
The Great Edinburgh Run (10K/6.22 miles) to be held in Edinburgh again (going to be visiting there a lot it seems) on 3rd May 2009.
The Great Manchester Run (10K/6.22 miles) to be held during May 2009.
The Great Women's Run (10K/6.22 miles) - I'm not even that sure where this one is going to be held, but it's during June.
The Great Capital Run (10K/6.22 miles) - err.... London? July 2009.
The Great Wales Run (10K/6.22 miles) - It was in Cardiff last year, so I guess it'll be there again. To be held during July 2009.
The Great Yorkshire Run (10K/6.22 miles) - in my home town of glorious Sheffield, September 2009.
The Great North Run (the big one - a half-marathon at 13.1 miles) - Newcastle during October 2009.
The Great South Run (the last one - ten miles) - Portsmouth, during October 2009.

And then there's the Great North Swim - taking place during September, it's one mile over open water across Lake Windermere.

It's difficult to say exactly why I've promised to run just under 64 miles and swim one. I'm not exactly the sporty type. I'm 36 years' old and I've got two kids. If anything, I'm a bit on the flabby side (don't knock it - this could be a serious advantage during the open water event). I wasn't even that sporty before the advent of the two kids and the flab. I was always the last to be picked for the teams in PE. My husband says that I'm having a mid-life crisis (yes, thank you for that - thank you very much). Maybe I just want to do something away from the kids... Something different other than the school run, the hoovering, the wiping noses and bums. Maybe I just want to take a break from all that and do something different. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I'd seen a girl collecting for the Men's Cancer Campaign for the Weston Park Hospital in Sheffield City Centre and the sight of her made me think about how I never knew my own paternal grandfather because he died of lung cancer when my father was just 18, and how my own kids would never know their paternal grandfather because he died of prostate cancer when my husband was just 21. I don't know but the sight of her made me think that maybe just sticking a quid in her tin and walking away wasn't doing enough. That really, I wanted to do more. And then I had this idea... I'm not saying it was a good idea, but I've always wanted to run the Great North Run and I thought this would give me the ideal opportunity to do it. And then I thought, oh well, if I'm running that one, I might as well run all the other "Great" runs too. (Except when I went onto the greatrun.org website, I noticed they do a Great Australia Run, a Great Ethiopia Run and a Great Ireland Run too. I'm not doing these for three reasons:
a) I can't take that much time away from my children.
b) I can't afford the travel expenses.
c) My passport has expired).

Then, just as I was completing my online entry for the Great Edinburgh Run, I noticed a box asking if I'd be interested in completing the Great Swim event too, and before I'd known it, I'd clicked "yes" and "send". (Now, I really don't know what I was thinking of here. I can't swim very well in a pool, much less over open water. Also, I swim like an old lady - very slowly, refusing to get my face wet. I've always swum this way. I have a distinct memory of entering a Brownie Swimming Gala once as a child and knowing for the briefest instant what it was to be winning and have no-one in front of me, because all of the other brownies had finished their race and got out of the pool). But, hey, I thought, I can practice. A whole year to practice for that one. And, anyway, I'm sure they would come and fish you out if it looked like you were in trouble. It would be bad press if anyone actually drowned during the event. Anyway, whatever I was thinking, as I was saying, I have now promised to do these events and so I've got to do them.

My first training session, to be fair, didn't go great. The problem with running anywhere in Sheffield is that wherever you go, you end up running up a big hill. I ran up Abbey Lane, through Ecclesall Woods to Ecclesall Road. That's one big hill. It took me a long time and my legs were burning by the time I made it up there. I didn't even run all the way. I had to stop and walk some of the way. Even when I'd made it up to Ecclesall Road, my pride took a further blow when I was overtaken by a pensioner jogging past (albeit a very sprightly looking one). I tried to console myself that I'm training for endurance events and am thus entitled to go slowly. Plus, I did, after all, feel like I was having a heart attack at the time, which was slowing me down somewhat. I could have sworn the pensioner was laughing at me too (I mean, who has the energy to jog and laugh at the same time - there's something not natural there).

A couple of days later (legs still aching), I take my children to the park and bump into a friend I haven't seen for a while, out with her daughters and her friend. Her friend (something of an expert on swimming it seems) advises me that I'll get too hot swimming in a wet suit in Windermere. I don't know about this, I'll have to find out - but I do think that perhaps the friend swims a bit faster than me. After all, she told me she could swim a mile in just under an hour. At this present moment in time, I have every confidence I can swim a mile in just under a day. Plus, I'm no expert on open water swimming (at all), but I did go and have a paddle in Coniston Water during a hot August day once and it was so cold that I couldn't feel my toes for the rest of the day. And I do have a sneaking suspicion that Lake Windermere during September is going to be Baltic.

However, knocks to confidence aside, my second run does go better. I run just under three and a half miles and I don't feel too bad at all. (I've cunningly chosen a flat run this time). I was feeling really positive about the experience until I ran past the display window of Staybrite Windows on Abbeydale Road and noticed in that highly polished surface that there was an old woman wearing exactly the same clothes as me, also out for a run. It took me a couple of moments to realise that that bent-backed old woman hobbling along at a pace barely faster than a slow walk was me.

My first swim training session isn't exactly confidence inspiring either. I have not been swimming since before my first son was born (who, coincidentally, started primary school this week). I went to Queen's Park in Chesterfield because the water is always freezing there. Sadly, this time when I go, they've turned the heating up and it's actually quite temperate. I swim eighteen lengths of the 25m pool (Nowhere near the 64 lengths I'll need to be able to swim to have completed the equivalent of a mile). Also, I have to say, during that final length when I realise I am incapable of swimming even one more metre, I am on the point of drowning. I keep going under the water, I'm so exhausted. When I get out of the pool, I can barely make my legs work, the muscles feel so tight. Flopping about like some great ungainly seal (without the swimming ability, obviously) I somehow manage to stagger off to the shower. It's at this point that I ponder the fact that (a) I'm nowhere near making the distance; and (b) crucially, I'm nowhere near swimming the distance without stopping to grab onto the bar at the side of the pool and gasp for breath. There isn't going to be any comforting bar at the side of Windermere, and I'm going to have to be able to do it without stopping. I'm very grateful I have a whole year to train for this.

During this first week, it's my wedding anniversary. Coincidentally, we got married in a hotel next to Lake Windermere. The highlight of the wedding, according to our twelve guests (except my mother who was worried about her hair style being ruined by the breeze) was a champagne boat ride around Windermere. I wonder if this is a providential sign at all. Or maybe it's just a comment on the circularity of life. I got married there and I'm probably going to die there next year too, if my inaugural swim was anything to go by. It's our fifth wedding anniversary ("wood" - oh, and yes, the mathematically minded amongst you will now be saying, hang on, hasn't she got a son who's just started school and therefore must be around five years' of age? OK, so there were thirteen guests at the wedding). I buy my husband an apple tree for his allotment and then due to a severe shortage of places to hide an apple tree in in our house, I give him his present a day early. He buys me a book "The Complete Guide to Endurance Training". Must read it.

On the Saturday of this week, I go to work. (I work for a bookmaker taking bets over the telephone). It's not the job I thought I'd have, but it fits with the children. During my lunch hour I pop out to look for a suitable T-shirt which I can have printed up with the Weston Park Hospital Cancer Appeal Logo and have all the dates of my runs/swim printed on the back. I look in all the usual places. All the best sports shops. I even look in just general women's wear shops. Everything's too expensive and somehow not quite right anyway. Everything's got huge logos on it and brand names on it. In the end, I find just what I'm looking for in the British Heart Foundation Shop. A second hand plain red t-shirt which I intend to have printed up and a blue one for training in. They're great, they cost me three hundred and seventy five English pennies for the pair and the British Heart Foundation benefitted too. Everyone's a winner.