Day Five

AM: 3 kilometres (120 lengths of a 25-metre pool or 60 of the Aquarium)

The last swim of a swimming holiday is a mixture of emotions. For some it may be relief that the next day they can fully rest; swimming these sorts of distances for a leisure swimmer can take its toll on the body. For others the adrenalin crash of not being able to swim is the issue. For our swimmers they have every reason to feel deflated as two of their group are not with them, and they’ve lost one of the people looking after them. However, they have
enjoyed the holiday overall and are on a swimming high. Sophie has a difficult task trying to look after swimmers of varying speeds and abilities, which means a lot of swimming back and forth between the fastest and the slowest –– exhausting for her physically.

Today’s swim is a fairly straightforward one. It’s only 3 kilometres and the group will be hugging the coastline so no one should be going astray and they won’t have to worry about sea traffic. The swim finishes in a cove and it’s a nice way to end, swimming onto the beach.

On holiday in Turkey once, my husband and I decided to swim into town rather than use the water taxi, it was fun arriving at a hotel for breakfast via a ladder from the sea, hauling our tow floats and changing into dry clothes. There’s a feeling of accomplishment putting your feet onto land after a swim, a sense of having commuted via swimming and under your own steam!