Half-way across the channel

I’ve signed up for the Aspire Channel Challenge again this year and it’s been a great way to keep me ‘honest’ and persuade me to go to the pool when I haven’t always felt like it – especially those first couple of weeks when I was still struggling with my back.

Well, I’ve been ‘honest’ enough that I’m now half-way across the channel.

Today I managed 2.2kms and actually swam two fairly quick kilometres – 18:40 and 18:53 respectively – which I’m very pleased with.

Of course the reason Aspire set this up is not to help people like me get back into swimming after back injuries, but instead to raise money. Please consider sponsoring me here.

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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/

Sponsorship

Those of you that have read this blog from the start (and those that have had the misfortune to be trapped with me in a pub) will know my thoughts on fundraising. You can read all about it here. However the summary is that I’m not a big fan. I don’t believe that being sponsored will help me complete a challenge – I either will or I won’t and the poor, lickle starving orphans won’t make any difference. While many times that people ask for sponsorship it seems to be an excuse to fund a holiday (yes walking the Inca Trail will raise lots of money and it’s purely coincidence that it is also your life’s ambition!).

In summary, I’m a miserable old bugger!

So this is going to seem like a strange turn around… but can you sponsor me please? I’m going to swim the length of Windermere for the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution).

RNLI

I’m not going to swim it in one go – the challenge is to rack up the equivalent miles in the pool before November 3rd.

I’ll be honest, it’s quite a convenient challenge for me as I’ve just started my training again, so I’ll be doing the miles anyway. But it is a bit more than I had planned, so it’ll still be a bit of a challenge. However, the main reason for signing up is that it is a great charity – and one very close to the heart of my crew from Windermere last year (Margaret and Graham).

For those of you that don’t know, the RNLI describes itself quite simply – “The RNLI is the charity that saves lives at sea”. That seems like a pretty good summary to me and it does it all as a voluntary organisation – all the crews are volunteers and all the funds it uses are raised through fundraising efforts such as this one.

So, if you enjoyed reading this blog over the last few months (or even if you haven’t and have endured it anyway), please put your hand in your pocket and find a spare £5 or £10. If I know you personally I’ll collect the money from you at the start of November, if I don’t then I’ll send you my bank details and you can transfer the money in there.

I’ll update you here as to how I’m getting on.

Thanks

UPDATE

For anyone wanting to sponsor me I’m afraid I don’t have a JustGiving page (or the like) as all I’ve been given is a pdf sponsor form to fill in. So if you do want to sponsor me (and why wouldn’t you?) then for us to be able to claim Gift Aid I’ll need your address. If you leave a comment and let me know your desire to sponsor then I’ll get in touch with you – thanks.