Eighty Lengths at 80!

Do you want to join me in making a difference? I'm raising money in aid of WaterAid and every donation will help. Thank you in advance for your contribution to this cause that means so much to me.

WaterAid is an international not-for-profit, determined to make clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene normal for everyone, everywhere within a generation. Only by tackling these three essentials in ways that last can people change their lives for good.

On 23 March, I will be 80! I intend celebrating this rather daunting age by swimming 80 lengths of front and back crawl at 6am on 22 March and, again, on 24 March, to raise money for Water Aid. Here is my story....

Two bouts of surgery for possible breast cancer in my early forties, followed twice-yearly visits to Tyringham Naturopathic Clinic for 15 years (now sadly closed), made me aware of the vital importance of a healthy lifestyle and regular exercise. Totally rejuvenated after a week of exercise and detoxing, I would return from the Clinic brimful of enthusiastic intentions, which proved unsustainable, but I eventually found I could keep up one new healthy habit each time.

One time, I decided to introduce swimming into my regime and, when Kings opened in Sept 1990, I joined with Gold membership (no 002), as value for money would get me up to swim before work; (pay-as-you-go) Silver might have resulted in saving money by staying in bed!

And so began the habit of early morning swimming, followed by a 40min Tyringham exercise routine, seven days a week which, some 31 years later, I still do, though, more recently, cut down to Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays...

Working in Biosciences at Univ of Kent, conveniently next to the Sports Centre, I would do a class or go in the gym most days. I also had personal training with Denise Farnham at Kings; when she asked if I'd ever had swimming lessons (I hadn't!), I took the hint and, when I retired at 61, I also joined Pam Murray's Early Morning Improvers' classes. Pam was such an inspiring teacher, making lessons such fun, and it is her I have to thank for my reasonably stylish (or so I'm told!) back and front crawl and my love of swimming. As a retirement gift, Daphne Arcari gave me a short membership at Kingsmead; I loved pilates and 19 years later, I still do it there on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Tyringham taught me you can take responsibility for your own health and 'strive to be the best you can be', whatever might be wrong with you. In 2002, I broke my wrist badly, with surgery and metal pins, which I returned to normal with targetted exercise in gym and swimming pool and, 20 years later, it is still arthritis-free. That same year, I also exercised myself back to health after nearly dying from mycoplasmal pneumonia. I have had two hip replacements (2008 and 2016); back in the pool three weeks after surgery after the last one, I was told I was in the top 1% of what was achievable after surgery. Again, I believe, all thanks to exercise! Four years ago, I underwent extensive tests for lung cancer (now on hold, due to Covid) but, as I still swim at least a mile three times a week and have no other symptoms, I do not believe I have it...

I have chosen to support Water Aid, as swimming has been so beneficial and such an important part of my life, and I have always enjoyed the privilege of being able to do it in the lovely environment of Kings. I am therefore very happy that I will bring the gift of clean water for the first time to those much less fortunate than myself.

And I'm also doing it to prove that I'm neither old nor past it!

I may however have set myself a dangerous precedent: 90 lengths on my 90th!

Lets see if I'm up for it!

Lanni x (Yolanda Hall)