Profiles

Diary 1

The Great North Swim is going to be a really big challenge for me. Although I was a competitive swimmer for several years, I only ever swam in closed pools so an open water event is going to be a completely new experience. We’ve been warned that the water temperature in Lake Windermere will be only about 17 degrees. However, the recent heavy rainfall means the temperature may be even lower. To help combat the cold I’ve hired a wetsuit, which should also give extra buoyancy.

I’m a little bit worried about how I’ll react to the cold, as although I can swim a mile in a swimming pool but without the aid of tumble turns and the warmth of a pool, I think I might find the swim quite hard going.

Mark Foster, the 2008 Team GB Olympic flag bearer and Joanne Jackson who took bronze in the women’s 400m freestyle are amongst quite a few well known swimmers who are taking part on September 13th, which makes it very exciting.

Kimberley in her wetsuit

The Great North Swim is the first of it’s kind, taking inspiration from the Great North Run – and it is hoping to become the biggest open water swim in Europe.

With less than 2 weeks to go, I’ve started to increase my training. The pool I’ve been using is a 20 metre, which means 80 lengths is equivalent to a mile. When I first began my training I did it as 8 blocks of 10 lengths, then I upped it to 4 blocks of 20 and now I’m doing 2 sets of 40 lengths. I aim to have done the full 80 right through without stopping at least twice before the big day.

The recommended strokes are freestyle and breaststroke and we’ve been advised not to do backstroke as we’re likely to swim into each other! I plan to do mainly freestyle with the occasional breaststroke – just to make sure I’m heading in the right direction! There are 2,200 entrants, making the event fully booked and swimmers will be setting off in blocks of 200 every 20 minutes.

The Great North Swim is going to be tough but it’s a challenge which I’m relishing. The event has given me the motivation to start training properly again, which was one of the organisers main aims, to get more people active.

My family and friends are coming down on the day to give me some extra support – I hope to make them proud!

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