Be realistic and prepare if you want to achieve!

Wow done and dusted and a bucket list swim is ticked off. The swim with Oceans8 was excellent the people , atmosphere and organisation were all top notch and the DUC club is certainly the ideal venue for this great event.

Now onto why this achievemnt or life event needs an artcile, simply put I learned allot and would like to share.

Openwater vs pool swimming time difference is between 7 and 15% for me it was from a 1.36 average to a 1.50 - 154 odd time frame per 100m. The distance i covered in preperation was aorund 250km in 6 months with a steady average of 15km a week. Heard somewhere you should be swimming in a week what you plan to swim in a day, this was certainly accurate for me, would have preffered more training however very satisfied.

The preperation certainly helped and it was so rearding to see the hatrd work paying off, putting in the effort towards a goal and acvhieving it. Being fit and ready meant that I enjoyed the event more. Preperation in life is like this and was a great reminder as to its massive importance. Not only was i prepared for the event I was surunded by others with a similar goal and many of the starts we set off togther like a school of fishes. Swimming in a school / pod like this for my first time was exchilirating and been able to keep up most of the time was amazing.

Once i heard a proverb - if you want to go fast go alone - if you want to go far go together. This did equate well to swimming together in my case as when we were in “school mode” it was the pace of the collective that kept everyone going giving each of us the pace setting beyond our norm, a pace that was slightly faster than our own norm helping us push ourselves that little bit more. How important it is in our own lives to suround ourselves with people that dont push us to destruction but rather with sustainable enocuragement.

Goals - this was deffinately something that as drummed into me as a kid and doing the same with my kids, intersting how esay it is to forget the importance. While the goal was to finish the event the tasks and the preperation to meet the goal was done in such passion and dilligent somewhat that the outcomes exceeded the expectations of the goal itself. By not only finishing but swimming a personal best of 26.28 for a mile, to complete more miles under 30 minutes than over. See I swam 8 miles a few years back and the goal then was to complete all of them in under 30 minutes, a goal that was not relaistic at the time nor would it had been for this event. The goals and expectations were realistic and in line wiith the effort to achieve the goal head on. Set goals again no matter how old you are and they can be small ones , big ones, short term and long term - embrace the challengs and plot your course in your business and personal life.

Be realistic and prepare if you want to achieve!