Incredible weekend at Grantham Swimarathon - next stop the WORLD!

20 days to go. 

  Forgive me, for turning attention away from the Global Swimarathon for a moment, but one of the main drivers for RGS is to try and create a legacy of annual swimarathon events in communities around the world and we really want to share the Grantham Swimarathon experience as widely as we can.

From Friday morning at 8.30am right through to Sunday at 6pm, myself, Roger Graves and at some stage or other every single member of the Rotary Club of Grantham, along with members of our Grantham Kesteven daughter evening club and Inner Wheel and numerous other supporters have been enjoying our 23^rd and  best ever local Swimarathon event!

Here are just a few of the amazing statistics from this years event –

•  A record £37,100 from pledged sponsorship forms over the weekend (up £1,000 from the same time last year)  - With further sponsorship and just giving funds / text donations still to be counted we are set to raise close to £50,000 , all of which is shared between more than 40 local charities.
• More than 35,000 lengths swum – including a brand new record set by Kings Water Polo team of 5 who between them amassed an incredible 281 lengths of our 25 metre pool in just 55 minutes!!
• A record number of teams taking part – 238 in all ,and over 1400 swimmers.
• All of this over a weekend hit with snow and icy conditions, a true testimony to the amazing support and commitment to the event

As I wrote in previous blog entries, we were very honoured to be joined by RIBI President 2011/12 Ray Burman for the opening hours,.  He has really been a huge help in the promotion of Global Swimarathon and and how proud we were to showcase an event that is truly at the heart of our community.

On Saturday we were overjoyed to have the company of our Global Swimarathon UK ambassador Fran Williamson and her manager and partner Chris Whitaker. She brought a couple of her medals along with her, a Gold world championship and a silver paralympic medal from Beijing which we were all in complete awe of , and we had a wonderful time soaking up the atmosphere together.

She did also make sure that I got back on with my marathon swimarathon challenge !! IF you haven’t seen the details please take a look at http://www.justgiving.com/PaulWilsonRotary - would really appreciate your support - up to £452 raised so far!!

 As I said on day 1 Friday in between supporting the event team,  I swam in 2 1 hour sessions including the very first at 1.30pm in the company of Grantham Journal and then at 5.30pm with the Gravity FM teams,  which brought me to 52 lengths by close of play Friday. With Fran’s encouraging words echoing in my ears, I stepped up on Saturday afternoon, swimming with a lovely bloke Andrew who’d swam in 22 out of 23 swimarathons and who’s friends were unable to join him and and Anne who just floated gently on her back  and managed another 27 lengths. The following hour there was a spare lane, so I filled in a few minutes late and managed another 60 lengths.

I joined up with our very own Rotary rollers team , who considering we had an an average age well in the 60s put in some sterling work and I finished the day on 168 – still 31 short of my 201.2 target. The drive home was a little treacherous a sudden snowfall had turned it into a snowmarathon , but made it safely back.

Sunday morning a shift on computer admin, processing all the sponsor forms and photos for every team taking part – every single entrant this year got a special t-shirt, and once again our sponsors did us proud with over £8,000 paying for all the costs of running the event including the pool booking fee, allowing us to give every single penny raised direct to the charities.

An honour to get back in the pool at 2.30pm with President Elect and Swimarathon and Global Swimarathon website master Irvin Metcalf.  Especially brilliant that after all these years, our inspirational chair Roger Graves took the plunge, even in a middle lane away from the safety of the wall and joined us. He actually managed 20 lengths – a very impressive haul for someone who has literally never swum more than 100 metres before – so he’s one name down on the sign up list for Global Swimarathon!! Was great to be with them as I finally made it in hour number 6 past the 201.2 mark ,and racked up 211 laps.

All weekend long we had a tremendous response to our announcements on the upcoming Global Swimarathon and with schools and clubs to confirm, we are looking well on track to make our own 500 entrants target.

Back to my own target,  back in the pool for the last hour of the weekend 16:30.  Doesn’t get better than being able to swim it with the Grantham Lynx Disability swimming club – who were actually founded by Rotary Club of Grantham in 1953 and who have supported us brilliantly ever since the first event when members of the UK Paralympic squad swam non stop in relay for 24 hours.

Very emotional to have my little 6 year old boy was there to swim length 212 with me, and he went on to manage an impressive 6 lengths all on his own,  with his Daddy trailing behind him at times! – Then we powered through the last half an hour – helped by a fabulous team we made it to 153 lengths as a team , my highest total of the weekend, and for me personally , just amazing to get to 250 lengths.  Nearly 4 miles – definitely in need of  a rest now!!

Come tomorrow morning I’ll be raring to go though – news of a Croatian club entry to confirm on the website and plenty of other encouraging messages over the weekend – so much to look back on, but for now its full steam ahead!!