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Eau de Chlorine...

Is my new favourite scent.  Swimming has for a long time been something more than a simply pleasure.  It is a sanity saver.  When I swim, I need for nothing.  I feel free.  I have nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to be.  I can just swim.  I am fortunate in that I have taught myself a pretty efficiency technique which means that, for the most part, swimming is easy.  I can, and often do, swim with my eyes closed.  When swimming in a lane, I rarely need to see ahead of me, and my position in the water tends to mean that my eyes are downward facing, to the bottom of the pool.  It depends how busy it is of course but peak conditions mean I have the lane to myself and can swim ‘blind’ to my heart’s content, feeling my way through the water and counting my strokes – an average of 9 in a 25m pool, or 3 breaths. 

Next weekend however, the smell of chlorine will be absent, as I plunge into the Thames at Docklands.  I’m excited by the prospect of my open water debut, in my wetsuit.  I’m more excited by the prospect of raising much needed money for two very important charities – Breast Cancer Care and Marie Curie.     

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/riding-against-cancer


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