The DSS GB swimmers, their families, and the coaches have walked, run, cycled, rowed, open-water swum, and sailed over 25,000 km as part of their fitness training during the first 100 days of lockdown. I’m sure a couple of glasses of that special water they have up in Scotland were involved when Karen (Cerys’ mum) had a brilliant idea three weeks into the lockdown. Since the DSS GB team was not able to take part in the DSISO World Championships in Antalya, Turkey, that month, they decided as a family to “get” from Ayr, Scotland, to Antalya by October, when the competition was hopefully going to be rescheduled. They planned to cycle, run, and walk the 3361.92 km!
Having posted this on the WhatsApp group chat, everyone wanted to join in, using their training distances to contribute. In an amazing 8 days, we had already arrived in Antalya. Ok, let’s go home, but via Sardinia and Paris—venues for the previous European Championships—adding 5457.4 km. This took 13 days. We were all still in the middle of lockdown with no end in sight. The next challenge was Ayr to Mealhada, Portugal, where the 2021 European Championships were going to be held, and back to Ayr—a total of 5315.34 km. This was achieved in 16 days.
Now, for the biggest challenge: Ayr to Ireland, then on to New York City, and finally to Nova Scotia, Canada, where the World Championships were held in 2018, and all the way back home to Ayr—a total of 11,157.4 km! This only took 43 days.
Karen and Terry undertook the daily logging of distances, with Terry producing some lovely charts plotted to look like the Scottish flag. I’ve just calculated that, over the 79 days, the team averaged 320.46 km per day.
Each week, the team “met” on Friday evenings via Zoom for quizzes, visualization competition preparation, cookery, Zumba, and fitness sessions to foster team spirit, along with some motivational messages from Team Captains Thomas and Flo. The highlight of these sessions was having Hannah Miley and Chris Cook—Olympic and Commonwealth swimmers—each attend a Zoom session to inspire the swimmers with their stories.
It has been an incredible achievement by Team DSS GB, and they are still going strong. Will we manage to go around the world—40,000 km—another 14,683.42 km before the pools open again?
