This week, our GM Chris Penn took a rather more aquatic approach to his Olympic Challenge. Read below for Chris’ race against the clock for his third sporting challenge.
‘It is week three of my Olympic Countdown Challenge and again, the weather has slightly hampered my progress as my plans have had to change due to the icy conditions. This week, I decided that I should try another indoor sport and thought that it was an ideal opportunity to get into the pool. Olympic swimming has 34 medal events so I had a huge range of options for my challenge. By far the simplest would have been swimming the 50m freestyle but I thought that I would take it a bit further. As Britain has had some success in longer distance Olympic swimming in the shape of David Davies (and others), I thought I would try to replicate his 1500m pool swim. In Athens in 2004, David swam the race in a National Record of 14 minutes 45 seconds so I had a go to see how close I could get. I have absolutely no idea how he swims that fast! I consider myself a relatively good swimmer and I came in at just under 22 minutes. The first 40 lengths (I was in a 25m pool) were quite pleasant but it started to hurt after that. I struggled through the final 10 lengths and whilst I will never be a threat to the Olympians, I still feel happy with my swim. My hat off to you David!’
If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check The Insider next week to find out what other epic Olympic challenges Chris will take on in his countdown to the Games.
