My Channel Challenge

We are on our annual jaunt to Aberdaron in North Wales, beautiful beaches and clean seas and even dolphins! As we need to do a 2 hour test swim in Dover on June 8th I had the perfect opportunity to build up time and miles in the sea. I decided to start with 1 hour then build up by 10 minutes each day. On schedule so far!  Setting off on Day 5 and completing a 1hr 42 minute swim and 4.5km!

On a recent visit to Southport for some R&R with a friend I ventured into the sea off Formby beach to do an hour's practice. It was a bit rough but very warm.

I had taken on the previously mentioned pool equivalent of the Channel for a couple of reasons; the main one being to raise much needed funds for  Aspire , the Charity for those living with a spinal cord injury (SCI). I could not believe that 1 person in the UK sustains a SCI every 8 hours. Meaning there are 40000 people living with it in this country alone. There is no funding for them for specialist lightweight wheelchairs, other specialist equipment and adapted housing, that is not deemed ‘essential’ by an already overstretched and underfunded social care system. The charity’s strapline ‘From Injury to Independence’ particularly struck a chord with me, having overcome adversity so many times and facing the challenges of living with a physical impairment on a daily basis. Another reason was that I had reached the 20th year anniversary of my amputation. Having needed surgery to reconstruct the ligaments in my remaining ankle in December 2015, followed by 5 months in a cast...

Each year Aspire have several teams entering the Channel Relay. This year’s name theme is sea creatures. So together with the Sea Dragons, Frog Fish and several others; Team Hammerhead was formed. Six strangers who have to work together to complete this Challenge, whilst raising as much money as possible for Aspire. So, as well as WhatsApp and Facebook Groups we met together for the first time in London in February. We swam in FREEZING cold water in Parliament Hill Lido (less than 5 degrees!) and boy did that hurt! I managed 4 lengths but paid for it afterwards. Then onto a much more acceptable London Fields heated lido! And here we are having warmed up afterwards.,...... Our Team Logo Our 'spot' on Dover Beach for our training weekend

I’ve been mostly training on my own, when time allows. I’ve got up to 2 miles in the pool. But I’ve also had some great Lake swims with some of my buddies - Joe’s first swimming teacher and super amazing triathlete Jane Suggitt at Allerthorpe near York and my Channel Buddy Ruth. We did a rather chilly swim in April at Stanton Lakes brrrrrrr! Not to mention of course my fab team The Hammerhead Sharks; Fran, Peter, Liz, Hannah & Sam. Definitely not forgetting our super supportive and kind Boat Leader Dirk, a Channel Relay Veteran! We attended our first Dover training weekend mid May. We did 4 sea swims in total, amounting to about 4 miles. I realise for me it’s actually the logistics of entering and exiting the water, especially from the beach and no doubt in time from the boat, that proves the most difficult and not the actual swimming! Also it causes the most stress and anxiety. I guess though where’s there’s a will there’s a way, as the saying goes! I haven’t yet ‘accli...

Welcome to my new Blog! Where I keep everyone up-to-date about progress towards completing my latest challenge. Fundraising link https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/victoria-gilbert2 Those of you who know me will already know I like a Challenge. Some more welcome than others though. One such Challenge, that sadly wasn’t chosen but needed to be faced head on, was the diagnosis of aggressive Stage III breast cancer is December 2016 (you can read more about that Challenge here ) Shortly before the diagnosis I had completed a pool swim over 12 weeks that was equivalent to the distance across the English Channel i.e. 22 miles.