Day 246 & 247 - 9th & 10th May 2011

I have been a bad boy! No swimming or exercising yesterday or today. I had intended both days to swim to West Pier, but circumstances of the mind were pitted against me.

Without going into great detail, I had a lot of decisions to make at work, some rather tough, and these were at the forefront on my mind. With any business one sometimes has to make tough decisions to ensure that a business not only survives but continues to grow; my business is no different. Having been trading now for 20 years I need to make sure that all it’s components are working as they should be so we can see in the next period of growth. All that sounds very serious and very sensible, but the anomaly is that people are always involved and when one is considering people one has to juggle head and heart; not an easy thing to do. As such waking up Monday and today my heart was really not in swimming, exercising or anything other than 6.00am - 6.00pm at the office.

Now that is behind me I can look to the rest of the week and get back on track. Tomorrow I will be swimming to the West Pier & back , then at the Sealife Centre straight afterwards. Tomorrow, being my 42nd birthday, also heralds the Swim with Sharks event, which seas me getting into the big tank at Brighton Sealife Centre in front of about 50 local businesses, the Argus Paper the BBC and ITV – no pressure there then!! After the swim we are holding a networking event to introduce the Swim4Smiles Campaign and the Starr Trust generally to everyone there. The key is to ensure people there understand what we are trying to achieve with the fundraising and really get behind us to support our 21 childrens charities.

One thing I have learned about myself through this whole Channel Swim experience is that I really am not one for the limelight. Of course, it is really important to get our message out there and that naturally involves me being in the spotlight at certain times, however, whilst I have no problem speaking in public at all, I am just not happy being the centre of attention. Some people love it, some people need it, but I for one am much more of a private person and am much more comfortable directing from the dark corner. So once the channel swim is finished I shall not only look forward to much less training, but also to much less exposure.