When I turned 50, I wanted to do something new. I have always enjoyed swimming, however I didn’t enjoy crawl and wanted to learn how to do it. I live in Paphos, Cyprus, 3 minutes away from the sea, so I joined the Wave Warriors - a group of swimmers with a coach - and it was there, with some guidance, that I began to brush up on my front crawl skills, and my love with swimming in the ocean began. Now I swim at least 3 times per week.

My main reason for swimming is the challenge and mental health.  I love swimming in the ocean. I teach yoga but it’s the only place I completely switch off, it's like meditation.  I am very lucky I live by the Mediterranean, so sea temperatures are warm and I don't mind a challenge with a choppy sea. Plus I get to swim with turtles!

I found out about the Aspire Channel Swim through my friend Sharon, who has done several swims with Aspire.  I decided to embark on this challenge as my 52nd birthday was looming and I am also in the perimenopausal phase of my life. I am choosing to not let perimenopause define my life and am finding these challenges really help. The funny thing is I thought I had signed up for 44km, not miles, and so I found myself facing a 77 km swim!  But the Aspire Channel Swim became addictive; the more donations I received, the more I wanted to achieve that goal.

I really wanted to do the swim in 7 weeks. I began in August but I had to travel for work and was gone for 3 weeks. However, I am happy with the time it took and on my last swim some of the wave warriors joined me and celebrated with me.

Initially I had a goal to raise to £500 and thought this might be a challenge, but by day 3 I had raised that amount and it just kept growing and growing and I raised over £1,500. I am so happy as it is such a beautiful charity. I have a friend with a spinal cord injury which was a great incentive to keep going. People were so generous with their donations.  I will be signing up again next year, and want to raise twice as much.

Sponsor Vanessa

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