Day 262 - Wednesday 1st June 2011

A beautiful start to the day, although a little warmer would not go amiss. The sky is very blue and the air into double figures; the sea as usual is slow to catch up, but did creep up a bit from yesterday to almost 13 degrees. Apparently we have a heat wave about to start which will last through June & July; if that is true then it could raise the sea temperature to as high as 18-20 by July – if it does then I will be a happy boy.

The sea was very calm today, although a strong undercurrent towards the Marina (east). I hadn’t planned a long swim particularly as last night at 8pm Sharon and I used the gym and I really did work hard, arms, legs, core and my vasa swim trainer; the vasa has to be the hardest machine I’ve ever used. Afterwards we used the steam room at home (second time we managed to use it) and I stayed in for 20 minutes and sweated out the days issues – jolly nice it was too. Last night we only had two visits, both from Jesse, so I got a decent 4 hours sleep in, which really does make a huge difference to energy levels. So whilst I had not planned a long swim I ended up going to the Marina and back; circa 3 miles. The whole swim only took 1hr 20 mins, which was the fastest I’ve ever done it. The current was so strong going that I literally was like a bullet, however, coming back was a lot of work, but somehow it seemed not as strong when I was coming back which was handy (maybe the tide had started to turn at that point?). Anyhow a decent unexpected swim.

Afterwards, about 9am, I saw Fiona in the Arch and we had a good catch up; been tooooo long. She drummed into me once again that for the next 6 weeks I MUST do 3-6 hour swims every week; preferably twice a week. As she said, I don’t want to end up taking on the channel and wishing I had trained more. With 6 weeks to go I need to up the game once more. We are going to get together next week and plan my feeds and also put in a structured final training plan; which will pretty much be 90% swimming and just 10% everything else. Whilst I remain nervous and scared, I still remain optimistic that on the day the weather and tides will be with me (courtesy of my Dad) and that I will rise to the challenge.

Fundraising now hit over £40,000, so almost half way there. Again I remain optimistic that with everyone’s generosity we will make the £100,000.