Aspire Channel Challenge

I very rarely ask for your money. But I’m going to mention this right up front – this time I am: https://www.justgiving.com/patrickJPRaspire/.

I’m going to be taking part in the Aspire Channel Challenge – it’s a great idea for a swimming challenge as it asks people to swim the equivalent distance of the English Channel in their local pool. By making it a channel crossing people have a clear target to aim for and it is both a real stretch target, yet an achievable goal.

The challenge officially starts on Sept 14th and lasts for 12 weeks (finishing on Dec 7th).

For me, the swimming shouldn’t be too difficult, so I’ve decided to spice it up a bit:

I’m aiming to do the 22 miles in 22 days in 22 different pools.

I’ll be honest, this extended challenge was inspired by two main sources:

• The first was Sally Goble’s epic 50 miles in 50 days in London. I was lucky enough to join her for one of those swims and the idea of exploring new pools and therefore having new swimming experiences every day was very inspirational.
• The second is the fact that my company is doing some work to help promote this challenge, so I wanted to do something a bit more exciting.

What this means though, is that the logistics of the challenge will become the hardest thing for me. I live in a rural location and am lucky enough to have one great pool nearby, but no others for miles. I will spend a lot of time driving into (and through the other side) of central Nottingham early in the morning to find a lane swimming slot to be able to do a mile in.

To do this, I’m going to have to set myself some rules. Obviously I want to complete the 22 in 22 in 22 and make them all local pools, but I also have a life to live and a business to run – for example I know I have to be in London for a couple of days during the challenge.

Rules

• I will start on September 14th
• I will allow myself up to 3 days off swimming – so it could take up to 25 days. However these days off will only be allowed because of logistics, not laziness or tiredness on my account
• I will swim on my London days and so not all the pools will be local
• I am allowed to use my local pool up to 3 times – so I may only swim in 20 different pools (trying to get a close to 22 days is more important to me that 22 different pools) – looking at it, weekends will be tough, but I know my local pool has sessions on both Saturdays and Sundays
• I will pay for all entry fees personally and if any pool offers me free entry I will add it to the fundraising total

So please, do support me here – https://www.justgiving.com/patrickJPRaspire/

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