Inexcusably late...Sorry!

It's astonishing that even now people I see at school everyday are still not aware of my challenge, their reactions are even more amusing, "wow, that's amazing, I couldn't do that" well, actually, yes you could. But it's whether you would. Would you?

The training is non stop, the water appears to be like I have ended up in the Arctic each swim and the jogging, well, you only have to look at my earlier posts to know how I feel about jogging. I get a few words of support, and a few words such as "drown and I'll give you a fiver!" and I get lots of people doubting me, but actually I like doing it.

It makes up for all those times that I have walked past charity collectors and have spent the money I could have given, on myself. I was the person that looked at charities like Children in Need or Oxfam and just said "hasn't got anything to do with me" I am sorry.

I am sorry this is late, I am sorry I ignored charities before and I am sorry that I can't do more for charities. Because now I love doing this, and the question is, would you?

Back to Routine

Well, I'm back to school tomorrow, and that means I will have to juggle exams, Grease rehearsals and my training all at once. I'm not looking forward to having to do this balancing act, but it is something I cannot afford not to do.

Thinking about the challenge has lead to more then a few sleepless nights. Next week I will be doing the assemblies (if all goes to plan) and that is just the tip of the iceberg. My training may be doubled when I get back, maybe even tripled. I'm not sure yet as my coach is going to be giving me a time table for my training, hopefully it'll be easier to understand then the revision for maths has been; but I can't expect miracles.

It's dawning on me now, just how big this challenge is. I mean, I always knew it was a mountain, but nobody told me it was a whole mountain range. A few people have had suggestions about making it easier 'why don't you have sharks chasing you?' Well, seeing as I already have my coach doing that, and all the people who know about the challenge doing that, I think sharks would be a break, if I'm honest.

I love the support I have been getting, however, the expectations of these people are unbelievable. At the moment they strongly believe I can do this more then I believe. They believe in me, and that is really difficult sometimes, because I am terrified of letting them down. I am terrified of letting Comic Relief down. I am terrified because this is so hard! But I must soldier on with a smile on my face, because if I let myself be negative for too long, I may turn into a wailing wreck, drowning in my tears of negativity, and seeing I an drowning in a pool any way, that would certainly be counterproductive.

What do you think about?

I have decided after my whinge about assemblies on my last post, that I will be using  a power point, but it will only have a few pictures on it. However, it occurred to me yesterday, what exactly do you think about when swimming?

I mean it wouldn't usually bother me, but I am going to be swimming for a long time, will I be repeating the famous phrase from Finding Nemo 'Just keep swimming' or will I be imagining my coach/PE teacher being barbecued on a spit? I have no idea, I have not really swum for long enough for it to bother me, but now it is playing on my little mind.

I suppose I shall have to stop moaning now. I can't do a blog about moaning can I? Well, it's never stopped me in the past

March is so close! Too close!

Word of Mouth unfortunately it's mine

It's been on my mind since the first assembly I did at my school about my Comic Relief challenge, however now it must become a reality. I have to start planning my next 3 assemblies to the 900 odd pupils I have to tell. Soon I'm going to be trying to get sponsorship, but even that is feeling like an impossibility.

The first assembly I did, didn't go to plan (as I wrote on an earlier post) I got great support from it but at the end I was shaking such a lot. It was terrible! How could I have been such a coward in front of my peers? What a disgrace. However, I must do my bit and tell the masses about my challenge...oh who am I kidding?

This has to work, I really need the support and soon I'll be needing sponsors, I'm thinking of doing £1 per length so people can choose which length(s) they want to sponsor.

I mean, it's not exactly like they're limited on choice!

I'm not sure if I should use a power point or not, my feedback says that it was more personal without, but filling 15 minutes with just me at the front is terrifying. What should I do? Anyone can comment, so please, tell me, what shall I do?

Jogging...oh dear

So I woke up this morning and decided "hey, I know what I'll do today, I'll jog to keep my fitness up for the challenge!" So I went and did just that, I mean how bad could it be?

I have heard many people say that jogging is fun and refreshing, was this really what they were talking about? It was hell. Seriously, I think I nearly died! I went down to some local woods to do the jog, I don't really like woods, there are far too many trees for people to hide behind but I thought it would be far more scenic then jogging alongside a main road. So as I jogged I listened to my ipod, and after a while, the tunes that had once kept me at a certain pace were almost mocking me, the lyrics to 'The Climb' became ironic and the lovely sounds of Adele became quite unbearable as she sang songs that sounded so familiar to each other they sounded like they never ended.

I met a few dog walkers along the way, some said a quick good morning and at the start, these cheery greetings were pleasant, but after the jog I was sweating like a pig, dragging my feet, almost killing the earphones that kept falling out, and after the 80th good morning I was very wound up. In fact I was so wound up I think I growled at the last person to say good morning (I know I should be a better neighbour but they were so cheerful and I was so tired...)

So the next time anyone says "you should try jogging" I am going to reply "I would rather eat my trainers then jog in them again"

A holiday of training

Ah, hello again world, I am back from my holiday! I know it's not a Tuesday, which is when I usually update this blog, sorry for the break in routine. This holiday was not much of a break in routine for me though.

The hotel was amazing, it had three different pools, I was usually in the main one. I trained mostly in the first week of the holiday, trying to pick up my stamina; it was basically endurance swimming. But the training that stretched me the most was in the sea believe it or not. You see, there was this rusty old boat anchored out in the sea, it was about 80 or so metres away from the shore so I decided it would be a good idea to go and swim to it. Bad idea. The wind had  picked up a bit so the waves became quite tough to swim against, there was also an underlying current which kept trying to tug me back. All my friends that I had met on holiday (Daniel 14, Ellie 9, Ruth 11, Occan 13, Jonathon 16 and not-really-called-Derek 13) and my little brother swam to the boat too, most of them had a float or snorkeling fins to help them swim out, apart from me and not-really-called-Derek (he was Turkish and I couldn't say or spell his real name)

I was struggling, gasping for breath at the side of the boat that was rocking quite a bit at this point, it had no ladder as well so I had to try get onto the boat because, well, I was running out of energy and the sea was quite deep. Thankfully not-really-called-Derek swam over to me, I couldn't get into the boat so I was just clinging onto it desperately; Derek was amazing, he was 13 and just pulled himself onto the boat. Then along came Jonathon who Derek helped up because Jon was stronger then me and could help pull everyone up. So Jon reached down and picked me out of the water like I was a speck of dust, he wasn't out of breath much due to the float that had helped him get there (CHEAT)

We all ended up on the boat eventually though and lay there for quite a while in the sun. Then Derek realised he had cut himself while climbing onto the boat. It was like Casualty on sea. And because the boat was rusty, we were all worried the cut was going to get infected, so we did the only thing that seemed right, we washed the wound...with salt water. Poor Derek. The salt water made the cut hurt quite a lot, however Derek was brave, Jon however just sat there talking about tetanus which was not very helpful.

Probably the most stressful and exhausting training ever. So far anyway.

Difficult? That's an understatement

With all my exams, being part of Grease (for those that know Grease, I'm playing Eugene as a boy) and just generally revising, this swimming challenge is big to say the least. Just the other day I told another person about my challenge and they said "oh, that sounds difficult" "Difficult?!" I replied in utter disbelief "Difficult is not anything like this challenge!"
You see, as an individual I am not very sporty, the only sport I really did well in was archery. I gave that up after 3 years. I am ashamed to admit that currently in training I can do about 5 lengths before having to stop and take a breath; this statistic is disgraceful. I will never complete this challenge with such a poor statistic.
I will be going away soon, so you won't be updated for 2 weeks, however, there is a pool on holiday and you can rest assured I shall continue my training there, day in day out. It seems this challenge is going to follow me right until the final length in March 2013.
Any comments you can make would be appreciated as this challenge is a massive mountain and at the minute, it seems to be a great obstacle. Thank you again for bothering to read my blog, I shall update you in 2 weeks time