I did it! 200 lengths of Witham’s Brampton Centre swimming pool, or 5000 meters.

We got there about 45 minutes before the start to find a few people milling around uncertainly and after joining them for about 10 minutes I noticed that the pool was being emptied of the regular swimmers and that a table was being set up next to the pool. Down we went.

The organiser at first told me that I was the only mad one doing the 5000m personal swim, but she was wrong! There were three of us – one guy was aiming for 75 minutes and does regular Triathlons, a lady was aiming for 100 minutes, the same as me.

The start was very informal, just a “you can start whenever you’re ready” we were told. It certainly had changed from 6 years ago, there was no timing this time (my last Swimathon resulted in a certificate with the time and distance, not this time). Alison improvised using the stopwatch application on her phone.

We got off to a reasonable pace, and the 100 minute lady and I were swimming at almost exactly the same pace. I found it quite difficult leading, and let her past – she must have found it similarly hard because 10-20 lengths later she would let me past – and so on for the first 100 lengths. At this point I was on schedule for my 100 minute target.

Triathlon guy was indeed considerably faster, and we did our best to let him past each time he came around, but I suspect that we slowed him down a little. Around 100 lengths I started to flag a little and the other lady pulled away, eventually to lap me at around 130 lengths at which point she started to slow too. I went past at 150 lengths and was intending to do a sprint length or two to open up a small gap since I was again finding too much pressure having someone right on my heels.

As I turned after the first sprint length my calf spasmed in agony and I sunk like a stone. I forced myself to the edge and pushed myself up onto the side, rolling my traitorous leg out of the water and stretching like crazy. The Triathlon guy had finished quite some time before, and he came over and advised me on the correct stretches and a couple of minutes later I returned to the water to carry on.

Of course, now I had not only lost a few minutes, but had a very tender leg that was hovering on the verge of cramp – which meant that I couldn’t push off from the side each length and had to be very careful not to kick too hard. So, the last 50 lengths were quite slow – surprisingly I made up a couple of lengths on the other lady but she still came in a couple of lengths before me.

But, I not only succeeded in my 5000 metre swim – but I smashed my previous personal best by over 10 minutes with a final time of 1h48m27s.