I joined this year with the Gold option. As I know from swimming with the over 50’s at another pool, 20 lengths a session was normal. So on the 18th May I began swimming with 10 lengths. I started to log my lengths and wondered could I reach 1,000 which would be 25,000 metres in the season. On the next visit it was 20 lengths. It would take a long time. However, my fitness improved and with chatting to the staff I was encouraged to go for the 25,000 metres and gradually the distances in a session went up to 26, 28 and sometimes 30 depending on the day. By the 11th June I got to 300 lengths. On the 18th June Graeme Souness, the retired footballer, swam the English Channel as part of a relay team. Radio 5 advised the distance was 34,000 meters. On 2nd August I passed 1,000 lengths or 25,000 metres. On the 17th August I swam 50 lengths in just under 2 hours and passed 1360 lengths or 34,000 metres. I could not swim any decent distance in the sea, but I could at least experience the distance in the Lido. It took 56 visits to achieve this. Well, I carried on, with Lido staff asking how I was doing and in the last week of the season in 5 sessions I swam 210 lengths to reach 2000 lengths or 50,000 metres on 21st September. 76 visits average 26.32 lengths a session.