Training in North Wales

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!

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My Channel Challenge

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.

Dover July 2018....3rd Aspire Training Weekend

After hooking up with my Swim Buddy Ruth and negotiating a horrendously busy M25 in 30 degree heat we finally made it to Dover by about 10.30pm on the Friday night. Knowing we had an early start on the beach on Saturday morning we tried to get as much sleep as possible. 6 swims over 26 hours, nearly 16km; in the dark, at sunrise and amongst some nasty stinging jellyfish (who knew that the zinc in sudocreme is the perfect antidote!). Boy were they right that this would be the toughest one of them all. Excellent preparation though and thankfully pleasant air and sea temperatures. I pushed myself, like I'll have to when it's the real deal. We loved our new team kit, kindly sponsored by some fab people and companies, who we're REALLY grateful to! Once again thank you Sean Buller - SAB Consultancy, Ian Woods - Westgate Glass and Mirror Company Ltd, Anna Higo and Louise Grant - Physiocure, James Hunter & Lee Akers - Studio Kaoite, Rob Abiss - RCA Fitness and Marti...

Why Aspire?

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...

My Channel Challenge

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