Knocked off another 64 lengths (1 mile) tonight - so just 7 miles left until I get to France ... I reckon if I knuckle down - okay, maybe splash on might be more accurate - I could be there for Christmas. How great would that be? Champagne and good brie will be required for the celebrations!

What I have found interesting about my swimming this week is that, with the increase in distance that I've taken on this week (see post from last week), I'm swimming further and getting less tired! Up until last week, I was aiming for 40 lengths per visit, and feeling it, so that I was sometimes having a rest at 20 lengths. Since I've upped the distance to 64 lengths, I've been feeling great and keeping going for 40+ lengths without a thought. I reckon I could have kept going, but I wanted a drink!

I think some of the improvement is because of a tip another swimmer - a triathlete - gave me the other day about my stroke. He reckoned I needed to widen my stroke to make it more efficient, and since I've done that, I do feel that I've been swimming much better. Now for those of you who don't know me, I'm not really a swimmer. I never learned how to swim properly as a child and kind of put my front crawl "style" together from how I "thought" it should look. Then a couple of years ago, I did have one lesson to try to tighten things up a little, but that's been it. But I've never really got my kick together at all, so most of my efforts are focused on my arms and shoulders. In fact, tonight I did a quarter of the distance with one of those floats you hold between your legs (when you actually want to work on your stroke) without any difficulty at all!

Tell you what, once I've made it across to France, I just may have a few proper lessons to work on that kick thing, and maye then I'll make the swim back a little more easily. What do you think?