The past 48 hours have been a bit of a nightmare......my legs have been so heavy and tired, my body has been buzzing all over and I've been even more fatigued than usual. It's amazing how long it takes to recover too. I was remembering when we had been training for a while last year and of course it did have an affect on me afterwards but because we were going regularly my recovery time was so much quicker........I found it impossibly hard to actually get up on Wednesday morning!!
But I can't wait to go back!! 😉
It's weird because this time last year my best friend, Joanna, and I were working towards doing our sponsored swim. We had decided that we would swim a mile between us. In the pool that we use that worked out being 120 lengths......60 each.
We decided on a training program and we set out how we were going to do it. We would each swim six lengths at a time in a relay. So Joanna would go first and swim six lengths then she would rest and I would swim six lengths and so on. We did this ten times each and there was our one hundred and twenty lengths.
Joanna was swimming to raise money for the British Heart Foundation and I was swimming for the MS Society.
When we started training we didn't set a date for when we would do it, we just set about training and when we were getting close to the target we then set a date. It ended up being the beginning of MS awareness week.....28th April.
We completed our swim and we were so proud of our achievement! Not only had we set out to swim a mile between us, we had hoped to raise awareness of our charities and to raise much needed funds for them both. We achieved all these things and we raised over £1000 too! 😃
It was amazing how having a challenge like that had given me something to focus on, which in turn kept my mind busy. Don't get me wrong, it was quite a challenge and it took a toll on me, physically, but I was at a point where I needed that.
I had hoped that I would push on from there too. I was swimming sixty lengths, it wasn't easy but I was in a zone and I wanted to now build on that. Our plan was that this year we would both swim the 120 lengths!
It didn't seem that unrealistic. We could already swim sixty, we had a training plan that worked so we would have a short break and then get back in the pool and swim just for enjoyment. Then after a couple of months just swimming and not training, we would start concentrating on building ourselves up to be able to swim 120 lengths each.......a mile each.
Unfortunately things haven't exactly worked in our favour. For a few months last year I had been experiencing very debilitating vertigo which kept me out of the pool. It has now been diagnosed as Menieres Disease. I have lost most of the hearing in my left ear as a result of the Menieres so I knew I needed to be careful.
But, touch wood, I've not had a severe attack since mid December so I'm happy that we are back in the pool but it means that we find ourselves back at the beginning and starting from scratch. That's ok though, as Joanna has told me, we aren't in any rush and we will get there because we are both determined to! 😀
Giving yourself a challenge, however small, or something to focus on, I believe, is really important when you are dealing with any long term, chronic illness. Anything that can distract you from your symptoms and the daily struggles of managing your condition can only be a positive thing........as long as you don't take it too seriously otherwise you are in danger of making things worse for yourself! This is a lesson that I have taken too long to learn though. I push myself so hard sometimes when there is really no need to and it's only me who pays for it in the end!! 😉
Now that spring is starting to show its face, I hope you are all enjoying the better weather and the flowers that are starting to bloom.......long may it continue!!
XxXxX
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