THE LEEDS SWIM MARATHON
I should perhaps more accurately have called this "The Leeds Swimathon", Swimathon having sponsored the event for the first time this year. However, as the 3 hours 25 minutes and 39 seconds I swam continuously, felt more like the marathons I've run in past years, perhaps the title is somewhat appropriate.
Previously, the Leeds Swim Marathon has always been run as a competitive event, with prizes for the first three in each category, and at one time the category winners were presented with their prizes the following week at the Town Hall.
This has always been a sore point for me. The one year I was lucky enough to actually win my category was the only year Leeds Council decided to save money by not awarding any prizes! I was particularly sorry for Emily, 12 at the time, who came second in her group and received nothing. 5,000 metres is a long way for a 12 year old to swim and I felt she deserved some sort of reward. Since then, she's been in an older age group without a chance of coming in the top three, and the best I've achieved since is to come third - I did get £10 from Leeds council, which is some compensation I suppose!
The swimathon event was inevitably going to be promoted as a charity swim, rather than a competitive event. On the plus side, there was a new challenge, a 10,000 metre swim, 200 lengths of Leeds 50 metre pool, not a distance I'd ever attempted before. I was a bit worried that I wouldn't finish in the time allowed, however the pool were quite happy to give participants 3½ hours to finish the swim, as long as they didn't enter the Saturday evening session (presumably as the pool staff might actually want to lock the building up and go home at a not too unreasonable hour).
After returning from a week's holiday (during which I did no swimming) I had three weeks to prepare. Two weeks to train hard, and a week to taper a little. At this point I would like to thank Paul Hogg, because it was due to his Newburn training sessions that I was able to enjoy the swim without suffering unduly. Nobody likes getting out of bed at 4.30 am to start a session of 3 x 2,000 metres at 5.30 in the morning, but I told myself that if I intended to swim the equivalent of 5 x 2,000 metres, I had better get liking it! During the two weeks of hard training, I put in a total of 7 mornings, with a final two mornings the week leading up to the swim. Combined with the odd evening session either at Newburn or the City Masters, I did at least feel I would last the distance and maintain an even pace throughout.
I had chosen the 9.00 am Saturday session to do my swim, and after a slightly delayed start, we were underway. I have to say the event was well organised and felt no different from the swim marathon of previous years. If anything, it was run more efficiently than I've experienced for some time. Everyone attempting the 10,000 metres in this particular session (5 of us) was put in the same lane. The other 4 swimmers were all much faster than me - one man finished in around 2 hrs 20 minutes - and I felt as if people were whizzing past me every other length. It had the unfortunate effect that by the time I had about 30 lengths left, everyone else (including the slower 5k swimmers) had finished. So for the last 15 minutes or so, the only thing moving in the whole pool was me, swimming up and down with a lifeguard and timekeeper in attendance, watched by people gathering for the next session or sitting on the balcony! At least by then I could swim up and down the middle of the lane, rather than going round in a chain.
To be honest, I quite enjoyed it. Leeds seem to organise these sort of events a lot better than pools in Newcastle, where you often finish a 5k swim exhausted and stressed from being in a lane where a team of head-up breaststrokers are struggling to swim one length at a time, and curse someone who passes them for spoiling their hairdo! Nor was there any of this "no tumble turn" nonsense and you feel you are actually getting a shot at doing your best time.
That is, unless your timekeeper miscounts ..... my only complaint at the end was the certainty that I'd been made to swim 4 extra lengths! I was checking my time constantly every 10 or 20 lengths and had been hitting each 1,000 metres in a steady 19-20 minutes. If you believe my timekeeper, between 6 and 7,000 metres I was inexplicably 4 minutes slower. Having checked and agreed after 6k that I'd done 120 lengths, the next time I asked how many I'd completed (being certain in my own mind it was 164), I was told I'd only done 160. It's surprising how much you resent an extra 200 metres! But whilst I could have accepted a 2 length discrepancy, I find it hard to believe I was a whole 200 metres (8 lengths of a normal pool) adrift over 1,000 metres. I suppose one guy sitting for 3½ hours, counting 5 people each doing 200 lengths means there is some scope for mistakes to creep in.
I swam at a pace which compared to a 5k swim, was comfortable. I went through 100 lengths in 1 hr 40 mins and was happy with that, considering my best time for 5k in that pool is 1 hr 35 mins. I would have been very happy with a finishing time of 3 hrs 21 mins (even splits when you add up the seconds over 1.40), however I had to accept 3 hrs 25 mins, since if your timekeeper tells you you have another 4 lengths left, there's not much else you can do except swim them.
At the end of the swim I didn't feel too exhausted, although it was obviously a relief to finish. 10,000 metres is a long way - reaching the 5,000 metre distance (which would normally be the end of the event) and knowing I had the whole lot to do again was probably the worst point. But I was pleased to have finished within the time allowed and glad that minor worries before the start had proved unfounded. I didn't suffer from leaking or uncomfortable goggles and stopping for a quick drink had fitted in with letting faster swimmers overtake.
That night, I woke up with painful shoulders, but otherwise suffered no after effects. Whether Leeds will invite Swimathon to organise the event next year (I gather they weren't too impressed) remains to be seen, but I'm sure the swim marathon will take place in some form or other. It's an event I would encourage anyone to enter - if nothing else it's a good bit of endurance training at a time of year when there's not much else happening.
5th December 2002
