Midsummer relay

The midsummer relay took place at the Lido last night and we had a proper midsummer evening with long shadows in the setting sun. I felt quite nervous arriving at the pool to see the large crowd of swimmers. Twenty nine teams of four were taking part, almost 120 swimmers!. We signed in, got our colour coded team hats and were assigned a lane. Pip's Squeaks were in lane 18, Margy's team were in 20. A quick and confusing run through of the rules and we were off. No images of the racing itself, I was too busy swimming!

There were many time keepers and helpers who did an excellent job. They were also serving coffee, hot chocolate and cakes afterwards.

The real hard work was working out who won. Nicola and Mandy fresh from the water looked over the numbers and Sue filled in the certificates. There were awards of bronze, silver and gold for the three different age categories.

First up were the under 150 (total age) winners. I don't know who they are but there were some powerful swimmers in this group.

The 150-200 winners were the Met police I think, they had quite a few swim teams here.

So Margy's team beat us to win the 200+ group. Swimtrek Dan who is holding the certificate had us in check all the way.

Here we are, silver medal for the Pip's Squeaks. It wasn't really all that relaxing but I was glad to take part. I think we did very well and I'm proud of my first ever swimming medal.

Good to be back

I'm back from the north and back in the water. It's feels good to be swimming, the rain has made the water soft with a fresh earthy smell to it. On Monday there were only three people in the water at 8am and although there were a few more this morning it wasn't the usual rubber Tuesday crowd. I'm not sure of the temperature because David is on holiday at the moment but a thirty six length (two mile) swim was fine. Wednesday sees the midsummer relay race, I'm in a team with Sue, Nick and Pip. Our main rival will be Margy's team, she has somehow coerced Swimtrek Dan to join and he's probably the fastest person I've seen in the lido.

Tootin'

An old picture, but I like it. Water still 19.5ºC swam a pleasant twenty four lengths. Will be taking a bit of a break now, off to Scotland for a couple of weeks. Happy swimming!