So, I finally made it into the water! A friend of mine noted in a conversation of ours that I had mentioned I needed to swim ready for the Henley Mile, and he had been looking for a new swimming buddy, so fate has intervened and given me a bit of moral support to see how I do now that I can get back into the water.

Without being in the water for years, I have discovered just how your psychology can influence your behaviour. Getting into the water, I had the memories of the fun I had when I had last been in the water (about 10 years ago) battling with the recollection of incidences I have had since then:

• When I was on holiday with my family, my brother and I were playing in the pool. He was enjoying diving into the water from various bridges crossing the pool, the sides, and diving boards, whilst I has being a lazy sun body and enjoying lounging on the family dingy. As brothers do, he thought it would be more entertaining to capsize the dingy, with me in it. But to make matters worse, he then held it down so that I couldn’t get out (or so I felt – of course I could have just dove deeper into the pool). Panic kicked in and I couldn’t think straight for how to get out, other than scream at the top of my lungs until my parents came to help. I actually managed to carry on playing in the pool after that day, but it stuck with me for years to come.

• The second incident was a couple of years later. I used to also enjoy going to the sea to swim and paddle, and jump the waves; open water I saw as a different ball game to swimming pools. My family and I were enjoying the seaside and playing with the old favourite, our dingy, again. Whilst out close to the shore, the water suddenly felt a bit “thick”: the dingy had become surrounded by lots of dead jelly fish! To this day, I have no idea where they came from but it was enough to put me off properly playing in the ocean since.

So back to getting back in the pool, with my nearly diminished core strength since my back injury from coming off my horse…even just mentally pushing away from the side of the three foot deep pool side was bad enough. Long story short though, I managed to complete my first length tonight! I even had one moment of losing my battle over my head, and having half a second under the water “longer than expected”, but managed to push on to complete the length. I felt as if the lifeguards from that point were watching every stroke I took, with a “that one’s a drowner” label in their head for me; however, stick and stones…

In total, my core couldn’t help me complete more than about eight laps: a long way off the target to make me ready for the Henley Mile in my Beginners Guide.  But I am not going to let this deter me, because although there is a mountain to climb, I felt for the first time in years, the challenge of mind over body sport psychology, which I think might be a fight worth fighting.

Oh and, yes, my swim buddy was great at motivating me and telling me how well I was doing so I kept pressing on doing my laps. So if you are ever feeling a bit low, ask a friend to come help; it’s a lot of fun swimming in twos.