A lovely arrival and the big swim.
Today my great niece Isabelle Rose Harrison was born to my lovely niece Lynda and her partner Ashley. Isabelle Rose came into the world at 12.55pm weighing in at 7lb 6oz and if she's as gorgeous, cute and beautiful as her big sister Eloise Rebecca, we are a very lucky family.
I can't wait to meet her.
I'll post a picture of her and Eloise on my next blog if Lynda and Ash don't mind.
The big swim
Below picture is just before we started, Maggie, Emma, me and Brogan.
To say this challenge was hard is an understatement, it was the hardest thing I've done so far and as with the skydive, I will not be doing it ever again.
Swimming 2 miles in the swimming pool is a doddle compared to swimming in a lake.
The first thing to overcome is actually prising yourself into a wetsuit and then getting used to the feeling of being squashed. Does make you look a bit slimmer though - every cloud has a silver lining I suppose.
Next comes the quick dip in the lake to acclimatise yourself to the water, that took my breath away and made me panic a bit.
Then, after getting as far to the back as possible I got in the water and started swimming with all the other competitors whizzing passed me, bumping and jostling, bringing on the 2nd panic of the day.
Once the masses had swum away with ease, my journey began.
Firstly the wetsuit was so buoyant I felt like I was floating, the water felt colder than it did 10 minutes earlier in the warm up and even though I was moving my arms and legs, I didn't seem to be going anywhere. Brogan and Emma were away in the distance with the others, but fortunately Maggie was still with me and that's the way we stayed.
The pool didn't prepare me for the waves which were probably made by the safety people in canoes or boats going passed further out in the lake, I made the most of these though and let them carry me along a bit. There were currents as well which dragged you a little bit and were worse on one side than the other.
The first mile was hard but the start of the 2nd one was even worse, me and Maggie at this point were miles behind and although I am quite competitive, I couldn't have cared less, all I wanted to do was finish. At this point I was really starting to doubt myself.
As I was approaching the 1.5 mile stage I really was struggling and I had to dig deep for the strength to carry on. The one thing I did, was think about Rebecca and all that she had to overcome and the strength she showed over her life, it was that, that spurred me on and got me to the end: the memory of her grit and determination. Maggie told me afterwards she did exactly the same, so Rebecca Marley you helped two middle aged women through a big crisis and got us through. The last half mile was easier than I expected and me and Maggie finished together 2hrs 7 minutes after we set off. We were last but got an enormous cheer as we got out of the water at which point my legs decided to wobble and I had to be helped by a young man. Some may say I did that on purpose but I can assure you I didn't I was absolutely knackered.
If anyone from Sunday has an after picture of any of us, please let me have a copy so I can put it on here.
On the plus side, so far on our just giving site we have raised £872 and we've got more to collect in on sponsor forms. But if anyone still wants to sponsor us, feel free by visiting http://www.justgiving.com/Sue-Marley-MBE1
So there it is, this years challenge done and dusted and I'm now looking round for next year, possibilities so far could be:-
Zip slide in Wales longest in Europe travelling at up to 100 mile per hour face down, or,
Great north trail, 11k or 22k running up and down hills or, if you have any ideas let me know.
If your still with me, don't forget the cricket match at Ackworth Cricket club on Sunday 29th June where Becci's CF X1 are taking on Educating Yorkshire. Family fun day in Becci's memory to raise awareness and much needed dosh to fund research into a cure for the dreaded Cystic Fibrosis.
Again, thanks for reading.
Tatty bye for now
