The summer solstice saw 21 swimmers taking part in a massive marathon swim at DCLT’S Hatfield Outdoor Actitivy Centre in Doncaster last Thursday. The final 21 were out of a field of 24 that initially signed up, with training injuries sadly reducing the number of swimmers to our final starting line up.
The weather conditions were absolutely perfect for the whole of the event with bright warm sunshine during the day and clear skies, with shooting stars during the night.
The starting swimmers were made up of 7 female and 14 male swimmers with 13 non wetsuit and 8 in wetsuits. The combined distance they covered was 300.60 miles with the total hours that they were in the water being 152:57:27s
The finishers consisted of Team swimmers Ruth Elias & Chris Hill, Tracy Mistry & Matt Smallwood with solo swimmers Jim Bridges, Steven Proud, Andrew Allum, Nat Foley & Julie Taylor with Butterfly swimmer Mark Padley finishing on an impressive 10.2 miles.
I think it was around hour 23 that Steve Proud exited the water and said ” You do realise you’re all going to hell for organising this event don’t you” with the exception of seeing Barbara overdosed on coffee, it was probably the funniest moment of the event. The most heartwarming was seeing the final 8 swimmers complete their final 1.2 miles.
A special mention has to go to Sarah Marks who completed her miles running / Nordic walking around the lake in a team effort with Caroline who was swimming. What makes Sarah’s effort even more impressive was her knee dislocated half way through, after some specialist care and lots of strapping Sarah completed her full 26.2 marathon.
As always these events just wouldn’t be possible without the volunteers who give up their time and sanity to see so many swimmers achieve their goals, so we would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who helped make the 26.2 such a success. Jane Mintoft and Poppy Livingstone on timing, Barbara on coffee and drugs, Stuart Livingstone, Andrew Walker and Mike Bullivant on safety boats, Angela Davidson, Angela Longname, Bethany Murphy & Andrew Marsden on support kayaks, Charlie and Lesley Hill with Lorraine Murphy on ground support and overseeing everything Jane Crosby who deserves a medal for propping me up.Thanks also to Stuart Wearing & Keith from DCLT for staying up and providing us with a safe venue and Cheryl and the team at design box for all their hard work.
We’ll be back in 2020 for another 26.2 and a new half marathon event. See you in the water.
