5k is a distance I’m familiar with, being a runner, but swimming it felt like a whole different ball game. I’ve been trying to teach myself to front crawl and this distance was my first big test!
I’ve been training hard over the past few weeks but it has just been weeks that I’ve been attempting front crawl. I tried this distance in the pool to see whether I might be ready to try an open water swim event in September. It was between a 1.5k distance or 5k. My heart wanted to do the 5k but I needed to prove to myself I could do it first
Fuelled by a Yorkshire pudding wrap and a dream I set to it. I only did 6 breastroke warm up laps and the rest was front crawl. Probably very sloppy front crawl but still front crawl
It was a spontaneous plan so I had no water or fuel during the swim but felt fine during and after. I kept up the technique and felt fine with the breathing, doing my best to relax into the stroke. In the end it didn’t feel that long although there were certainly points that I wondered what I was doing
I am so proud of this achievement even if I am probably a ‘slow’ swimmer with less than brilliant technique. It’ll be a whole different challenge in open water with sighting and temperature but I’m willing to rise to it!
Iona the Midwife runs 