A THAMES SWIM
HAMPTON COURT PALACE TO KINGSTON BRIDGE

(CHIP TIME 1:24 MINS)

The river was brown in the morning light. Viscous water, hostile and wide outside my window.

A few hours later I was one of 1000 people to swim just over two miles, in the Thames, from Hampton Court to Kingston Bridge; a fleet of bodies making solitaire patterns of Surrey waters.

Open water swimming is a passion for me. It is my way to feel 6 years old, not so much again as still; touching the surface by stealth, pushing beneath the waterline, lifting my face to breathe is what it feels like to be a child.

In recent years I have had the gift of this being possible, as a holiday.  A dear friend, perusing magazines in a dentist’s waiting room, found one advertising ‘swim treks’ in which, for me, all the best components of the elemental are combined: the romance of being allowed to cross the sea, energetic undertakings after which well fed laziness is at its sweetest.  The Greek islands, Schinoussa, Koufonissi; Croatia, The British Virgin Islands, a second trip to Greece (it being in my view the most beautiful) followed. The novelty and oneness of being able swim ‘from ..... to’ has never worn off.

But I had not considered being among the rushes and tales of the riverbank, the unexpected joy of slipping through thin, green glass water. (The muddy opaque look of Hammersmith currents must accompany the over confident boats trying to pass under its bridge, the teenagers exiting its pubs.) This was the same river, beside which I live, framed by the windows of my home.

The Thames begins in the west of England near Cirencester. On its journey, of just over 200 miles, it runs through Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and on into Middlesex and Surrey before entering London. It reaches the sea, its end, at the Thames Estuary near Southend-on-Sea.  It had passed through Pangbourne, Henley and Marlow before I joined its journey.

The starting point for the swim, the fabulously named Cigarette Park Island, is opposite Hampton Court Palace. The palace was built in 1515 by Cardinal Wolsey, Henry the VIII taking it over in 1529 following Wolsey's downfall. Ancient and literary souls must have bathed in or travelled upon these waters. From Kingston upon Thames Jerome K. Jerome and Harris and Montmorency began their "Three men in a boat" journey. I was in cream paged company. I was a nymph sliding through history.

But I was wet-suited. The rubber outline between my body and the water was unwelcome. The pleasing zip and knowledge of how to put it on are no match for the discomfort of attempting free style in such encasement. And breaststroke becomes ridiculous.  The month ahead was geared to training for a second and more iconic swim, across the Hellespont. I had understood it (as it turned out, incorrectly) that wetsuits were compulsory. I felt stifled and made the mistake, five minutes into the novelty of the start, of contemplating removing it. I have learned my lesson. Viking that I am, cold waters and no wetsuit would be my way for the future. 

Crowds made photograph line-ups of the riverbanks; a mix of those who had known of this and others surprised in their weekend walks by flanks of splash and coloured caps interrupting the skyline. 

The finish line is a somewhat surreal large white Nokia cube, seemingly suspended about 400m from Kingston Bridge. Among large chestnut trees in the parkland and towpath photographers waited, alarmingly at the ready, to capture the exit moment. On reaching the cube, I was semi-hauled from the water, via the incongruous stepping-stone of carpeted wooden decking. 

Post race moments in which the hug of the hat makes a post forceps look of the face are not the best. But the elation was there. 

Breakfast was a feast. In a month book-ended by open water swims, my mind settled on the achievement of a first race in fresh water and then leapt ahead to the Hellespont. I had almost covered its distance but it is ruled by greater currents, between Europe and Asia, where seas meet.

THE BRITISH 10K LONDON RUN
(Chip time 00:57:58)
Yesterday I ran 10 kilometres, in the mutually supportive company of 25,000 others. It was a personal first.

‘The British 10K London run’ does exactly what it says on the tin. It celebrates its city, and there’s queuing at the start.

For a first-timer, the weeks of technology preceding a major race day are pleasing. A fat pack arrives in the post. In tandem the related website displays a 3D route on which a turquoise disk whisks its sleek way between historic landmarks, along the roads to be run. It is the stuff of hypnosis. It comes close to precluding the need for participation.

The day came. At a Sunday morning hour at which, ordinarily, I would not be conscious, I was at Embankment tube station. The area was a configured star of veteran and one-off athletes replete with sport-top water bottles and mobile phone wielding relatives, dividing at tangents in the quest for loos and coffee stalls.

Safety-pinned sheets of A4 (on the reverse of which emergency contact details were penned for the event of collapse) displayed race numbers while red electronic chips sat proud of trainer laces, ready to register the time at which each person passed the start and finish lines.

The runners did not come in a standard shape. For every sinewy biology drawing physique there were angry curves. Charitable causes painted the crowd fluorescent: OCD and Alzheimer Society text alongside the somehow more emotive photographs of lone individuals in whose name the race was undertaken. A weather warning (extreme heat) had stipulated no fancy dress, tempering that very British need for the hairy to put on a tutu.

It was not, for me, an altruistic enterprise. The instances on which I have asked my friends to show their support for a selected cause with money seemed too recent and too many. I am stowing brownie points for a Channel crossing. This was a question of whether I could do what I had set out to do.

Ploddingly slowly, batches of people were ushered towards the arched start on Piccadilly. The ‘gun’ and we moved. A shot of elation carried me along Pall Mall, an element of nodding to the crowds, inner dialogue telling me they were there for me. The relatively small proportion of their time which would be spent with their runner in view lent this credibility.

‘Muscles have a memory’, my pacer had told me. Did mine know, half way along the Embankment, on the return lap, that this was distance unremembered? We were in a tunnel which swallowed the available air. 7k and my legs were buzzing with the need to stop but not enough for me to fail to appreciate the novelty of throwing an empty water bottle to the side of the road. In a society in which anything thrown is known there was a freedom to this. The discarded plastic crunched underfoot.

As we approached Parliament Street 'Chariots of Fire' blared from unseen speakers. 'I vow to thee my country' segued into a more buoyant 'Land of Hope and Glory', confirming this as an event neither for the nationalistically self-conscious nor anyone who can picture Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams.

Where did the final sprint come from? The finish in view, something in me remembered.

Much red, white and blue razzmatazz at Trafalgar Square and Horse Guards Parade. I felt proud, the 'goody bag' and primary-coloured medal small beside the achievement.

At the post race meeting point, my wonderful mother met me. She thinks I should be a year younger than I will be on my next birthday and doesn’t know where the time has gone. I don’t know where it went either. I trap morsels of it in hours in which I do as I did yesterday.

This is my year for sporting feats in which the muscles remember and the memory follows.