My Channel Challenge

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.