The last time I updated this blog was in November 2017, when I had just completed my 5K half-marathon swim at the London Aquatics Centre.
In many ways, it was the perfect place to end the story. I’d started the blog more than a year earlier with a mission statement to swim in the iconic 2012 Olympic pool, and accomplished that with what remains my proudest physical endeavour.
But the real truth for stopping the blog is simple: I just stopped swimming.
Having begun a new job in Worcester in February 2017, by November I was already struggling to incorporate a dip into my morning routine. Roadworks on the M5, which ultimately would go on for almost three years, were steadily extending my already lengthy commute, and swimming had to take a back seat.
Having become fitter than ever before in the pool, being out of it, predictably, saw me relax back into bad habits. Eating the wrong things, mainly bought from motorway service stations, hitting me in the wallet as well as the waistline.
A spot of five-a-side football and semi-regular trips to the gym kept me ticking over, but the truth is that the weight I lost through swimming quickly piled back on.
My nightmarish 80 mile round trip on a stretch of road that more closely resembled a building site continued until March this year when, to my delight, I secured my dream job as the Social Media Manager for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, a role that has brought me much closer to home.
With a three month notice period ahead of me I started counting down the days until my lengthy commute was a thing of the past, and to having more time to look after my wellbeing.
Little did I know that my long journey to work would be done a little sooner than that. The Covid-19 pandemic meant that I spent my final three months in my job working from home, and suddenly I had time on my hands to think about my fitness.
While that was one of the personal positives of the situation, one of the negatives was the fact that the doors of my local leisure centre were shut.
In those heady early days of lockdown, of course, we’d been granted a solitary form of outdoor exercise to enjoy each day, and I decided I should make the most of it. So, the Sleepy Swimmer became a Reluctant Runner.
Now, when it comes to me and running, I have a past. I was good at it when I was in my teens, a very promising middle-distancer. My dad, a former competitive marathon runner for Birchfield Harriers, had set his sights on me following in his footsteps and joining the storied old club at Alexander Stadium. Unfortunately, various knee and ankle knacks put paid to that. I quit running, gained weight when I went to University, and have never quite arrested that decline.
In the intervening years, I would attempt a jog every now and then, but found that the pain of shin splints was prohibitive to progress.
But this time, I had no option. So I downloaded Couch To 5k, and off I went.
Predictably, my progress was painful. My shin splints were all too often screaming at me, but were eventually quelled somewhat by my natty knee-high and fluorescent yellow compression socks. I always was a trendsetter…
But, as I ploughed on, something incredible happened. From struggling to run for 60 seconds in the first week of the plan, each week I was getting better. The complete elation of running for ten minutes without stopping almost brought me to tears, purely because it was something I never imagined being able to do. And then it increased to 15, then 20, then 25, then… bloody hell, I was actually running for half an hour non-stop.
All through the Couch to 5k I was posting a selfie on Instagram for every run. Yes, I know that people who update constantly about their fitness routines on social media are unbearable, but doing this, I found, had a profound impact on my motivation. By posting the pictures people knew what I was doing, and conversely, if I stopped, they would know I had quit. And I didn’t want the disappointment of that.
However, I knew I couldn’t keep spamming friends’ feeds with my sweaty face, so after Couch to 5k was complete, I decided from that point I would be plodding the pavements in private.
That’s when I really started finding it difficult. Whether it was the fact that I was no longer using social media to hold myself to account, or simply that I didn’t have that end goal of completing Couch to 5k anymore, I found myself unable to ignore the pain in my legs any longer.
My running, very quickly, went from a relatively assured 30 minute amble, to a stop-start ‘run-a-bit-walk-a-bit’ battle in my own head.
Worse still was the pain I felt when I wasn’t running. My old knee troubles were flaring up again, with arthritic pain causing me real discomfort during simple tasks like getting up from a chair or walking up the stairs.
I couldn’t help but ask myself: “What is the point in getting fit and losing weight if it’s affecting my day-to-day mobility?”
And yet, I didn’t want to quit. I’ve given up on so many attempts to get fit in the past, did I really want to consign this one to the scrapheap too?
I was fully in the throes of having this debate in my own head when, thank God, the Government opted to open the gyms and pools again.
So now, I’m seeing this as a chance to recapture what I had. Swimming is the one form of exercise I picked up and kept at for a long period of time. I felt better, more alive, and lost weight when I was doing it. I only stopped because I literally couldn’t fit it into my routine. Now I have no excuses.
The first swim post-lockdown felt right. By the third, I had reclaimed my place in the fast lane of the pool. Getting a bollocking from the lifeguard for overtaking gave me life.
This is the activity for me. This is how I’m going to continue my fitness and weightloss journey.
I’m a swimmer. It’s good to say that again.
SLEEPY SWIMMER 