I’m feeling good, really good. The water in this lake is clean and soft. I’ve stopped concentrating on my breathing technique, I’m not worrying about blowing bubbles under water, about the position of my arms as I make each stroke. My wetsuit and I feel like a team at last. I can feel the warmth of the sun, there is space above and below me. Everything has come together right now: I’m relaxed and attuned to the rhythm of the stroke, at one with this place, this water and my body. And I am just speeding along……
It’s been quite a journey. In 2014, after months of feeling unusually tired, suffering chronic night sweats and irritating itchiness, I had a blood test and shortly afterwards was diagnosed with a fairly rare form of cancer called Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinaemia. It’s a cancer the doctors like to “watch and wait”. Two years later it became apparent that some action was required and I started a six month course of chemotherapy in 2016. The chemo worked temporarily but eventually I was put on a new drug which improved my life considerably. What’s any of that got to do with swimming the 10K you may ask?
Well, scroll forward to Autumn 2019 and I am feeling as fit as a fiddle. A newspaper article about swimming the Dart 10k caught my eye and seemed the sort of a challenge that I wanted at that moment. I entered the ballot, full of excitement and anticipation. THIS was something I could do. Way back in the day I was a good swimmer at school, spent glorious summer holidays swimming in the Thames at Shiplake, and I still have recurring dreams about diving off a bank at speed, flying high over the river before entering the water and zipping through the waves like an otter. The OSS emailed to say I’d got a place. Yikes!
What was I thinking? 10K? It seemed possible on paper but suddenly I’m not sure I can swim 25 metres let alone one kilometre, and a trip to our local pool proved this to be the case. Where’s that email about being petrified and regretting what you’ve just signed for?
Two weeks later I’m showing Mike Porteous what I can do. Not much, I think. You can do it, he says…… and it would help if you would breathe from side to side, and we need to work on your technique. And I think: He’s right, I think I can do it.
We set a time to talk every week, and a schedule for swimming, and I discover a great local pool and work up to swimming longer distances each week, or as Mike would have it, longer time in the water. But there’s a problem looming. Over in China.
By the middle of March the pools have shut down, my swimming comes to an end. Mike is still encouraging me to stay fit by other means, but I damage my back badly that first weekend of lockdown doing early morning yoga (too early) and trying out the NHS Couch to 5k (not a runner). I get over that, go back to walking and as the days pass and the restrictions continue I realise that the only way to swim is to get in a river or a lake, and for that a wetsuit is needed. Then the Dart 10k is cancelled. At first it feels a huge relief and then I’m desperately disappointed because I really want to do this, and I AM going to do this next year, but there is a nagging doubt that my body won’t make it to next year. That’s not really the way to think though: it’s going to have to be the Dart 10k or bust, so let’s get that wetsuit.
Trying on a wetsuit on a hot day in June was a nightmare. It’s impossible to fit a slippy sweaty body into a supertight wetsuit . “I can’t get it on and I can’t get it off”, I wail to my husband as he laughs at my efforts. I leave it for a colder day and the purchase is made. A Wetsuit Inaugural Swim is suggested by Mike and days later I find myself down on the South coast at 9 am, pretending I know exactly how to put on a wetsuit in a deserted sandy car park and that I love swimming in the sea. My goggles don’t fit well and leak, the sea has waves, my wetsuit is strangling me and I want to throw up my breakfast. After a 45 minute swim we call it a day; I am feeling as sick as a dog and I hate that wetsuit with a passion. Mike is very kind but he can see that I’m probably best left alone and eventually, very miserably, I make my way home, with my dream of swimming the Dart 10K almost in tatters.
Mike gently lifts my spirits during our next phone call and prods me out of my comfort zone: “What about lakes, Sally-Ann, what about a lido, could you swim in the river at Hampton Court??”
I find there is a lake that is open near me but I have to book a time through Instagram. What’s Instagram?? They tell me I have to prove I can swim 150m after which I can swim in the lake for a small fee. I take my courage in my hands, drive over to Shepperton, walk up to the lake and ignore all those buff triathlete bodies, put on that hated wetsuit and swim. I swim 1200 metres that first time and treat myself to hot chocolate and banana bread as a reward. I go back two days later and swim 1200 metres again. I’m more at home in my wetsuit, and I feel like I belong here. I go back again and again and again. I swim 2 laps of the lake which is 1500 metres and then Mike suggests trying a 2.5km event at the end of September.
It sounded a good idea on a hot day in August when swimming in the lake brought relief from the heat. The entry details specified that all entrants had to be able to swim the 2.5km in an hour and a half otherwise they would be “removed from the water”, and anyway I was determined to complete a 3km swim by the end of the month (which I did to a lot of fist pumping and whoops of delight), so I was confident I could do it.
However, on the day of the swim the temperature plummeted to 14 degrees, and when I arrived at the event location there was a strong wind blowing straight down the course. It was cold and rather bleak. No spectators were allowed because of the Covid crisis and to make matters worse traffic on the M25 and M4 had considerably delayed many entrants so there was an air of panic. I was much too early but I changed into my wetsuit and sat in my car hoping to keep warm.
With 10 minutes to go I registered at the welcome desk, picked up my GPS tracker which would clock my time and presumably tell the organisers where I was and, already feeling pretty chilly, made my way to the start. The GPS was put in the float which I attached round my waist. The water looked cold and unpleasant but at a signal I plunged in and swam to the starter, gave him my number and set off.
It was dreadful! The water was so choppy it seemed like a bucket of water was being thrown over my head at each stroke. With no buoy to aim for I struggled to keep a line, eventually deciding to swim close to the bank where I could see the bottom. I knew there was a large pink buoy at the 1500m mark but couldn’t see it and anyway I was clearly going to drown before then. I pressed on, stopping twice to gather my wits, throw a few choice words into the air and check where the pink buoy might be. Finally, after what seemed like hours, I saw it looming out of the waves. This was where I was to turn, cross the course and head for home. I’d heard someone saying that the outward swim was awful, but the return was much better. Hah! Now the wind was behind me and it constantly picked up the float and threw it at my head or my raised arm. And I was getting cold. I watched a much younger woman climb out of the water and start to walk home. It seemed a great idea but also strengthened my determination to complete this distance and beat this water. I would not let myself look at the club house unless I had counted one hundred strokes and, bit by bit, the finish came in sight. One hour and twenty minutes after setting out, I hauled my frozen body out of the water. I couldn’t feel my feet, my hands were numb and I could barely stand up. When I tried to take off my wetsuit I put my back out.
But, I did it. I was chuffed to bits, hugely proud of myself. A year ago I couldn’t swim 25m properly. I’d never entered a public event and I wouldn’t even have contemplated swimming 2.5km.
Mike’s Note: We have just learnt that the Dart 10k 2021 is cancelled, due to the continuing uncertainty created by the pandemic. Sally-Ann and I are already planning a series of swim challenges for the coming year - turning dreams into great stories.