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Coniston Water Championships 20th July 2008 Coniston 2008 At 2am on the day of the swim I foresaw two-foot waves racing down the lake from the north – pushing all the swimmers into every bay the wind could find. The forecast on the previous evening had been grim and a myriad of optional courses and directions filled my thoughts. However, race day dawned more gently than expected, the lake was positively placid in the morning, and even though comments at the finish ranged from ‘interesting bits in the middle’ to ‘god, that was awful!’, all but a handful of swimmers made it to the end. There’s no doubt that it was a tough day – the calibre of those who retired is testimony to that – and our superb rescue boat crews were very much appreciated. It was again a great pleasure to have Percy Bull of Warwickshire Long Distance Swimming Association (the instigators of the Coniston Water Championship) with us to present the lovely Arthur Ayres Trophy for endeavour. The recipient was Chris Green – 65 lengths of Coniston completed. He has to keep going for the century, 65 is such an untidy number. Ian brought back the trophy for men’s breaststroke , and took it back home again. Rebecca Lewis won the senior ladies event and Darren Cordon came back to one of his old haunts to show his training partner how it’s done and the women’s breaststroke trophy came home with me! I haven’t defected to the symmetrical stroke camp – just that our only competitor had to retire. It was a great day of teamwork. Being incapacitated by throwing myself off enormous (2cm at most!) rocks, I was helped tremendously both before and during the swim by many, many people and my thanks go to you all. Reluctant to mention names just in case I miss one, I must thank my son, Joe, who not only helped with the swim organisation but spent his anticipated four weeks of post-GCSE freedom making coffee and meals, fetching my reading glasses, passing the ‘phone, walking the dog, etc etc etc! Hope to see you all next year, provisional date – Sunday 19th July. Jean Wilkin-Oxley
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