Changes

A month ago, life was normal. Training was going well and I was in Dover for my second time in a week, watching one of my friends that I had spent so many hours training with all year begin his Channel swim at Shakespeare beach. I had a long training week planned for when I came back: eight hours, nine hours and ten hours over three consecutive days. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it, but I was looking forward to having it done-another step towards the goal.

And then, literally overnight, everything changed.

It’s been a tough month. There have been good days and bad days, lots of crying but laughter too. I have learned more than ever the importance of doing what makes you happy and making the days count. Thank you for all that you have taught me Páraic.

For all of you that have sent me messages over the past month or have helped in many different ways, thank you. I really appreciate all of the help and support.

And for everyone who has been asking about my training and whether or not my swim is going ahead this year-unfortunately, it’s not. If it was further down the road then I’d be able to take some time off and get back into the training slowly. But at the moment my head isn’t in the right place for doing long training swims, and particularly not long training swims one day after another. Some days I’m fine and I wish that I was able to get back to it all. But other days I’m not, and swimming is the last thing that I want to do. And that’s going to be par for the course for a while I think.

I’m not ruling out doing another long swim-I’m definitely still hoping and planning to swim from Wales to Ireland. It just might have to wait a couple of years before I get to it. In the meantime, I’m starting to put together some shorter goals to get me back on track. I’ll keep you posted…