More than 20 people from the Isle of Man swam the equivalent of the Channel between February and April this year without setting foot on French shores!
The swimmers were a group of members of LivingWell, the leisure club at the Hilton Hotel and Casino who, together with manager Ken Hedley, were ‘testing the water’ in the club’s indoor swimming pool for a series of future sponsored fundraising challenges in aid of one of the company’s charities of the year 2009, the Manx Blind Welfare Society.
Mr Hedley said ‘This year we’re looking at fun yet motivational ways in which members can raise funds for charity. The Swim the Channel challenge was a pilot to see if members were interested - and they were. We had a good response, with around 50 starting, but largely due to work commitments, some had to drop out and we ended up with around 20 who completed the swim.
‘The challenge was a major commitment. The English Channel is 22 miles wide, which equates to 2360 lengths of the LivingWell pool. Every entrant had a card to record their progress and to remain on target they had to swim 197 lengths a week, and amazingly, one of our members, Viv Hughes, completed the swim in just three weeks.
‘On the strength of the swimming challenge we’re organising a number of others, the first of which is our Three Legs of Man Challenge. This started on 27th April, finishes on 20th July, and requires entrants to row, walk and cycle their way around the Island in 12 weeks using the exercise equipment in the LivingWell gym.
'This breaks down to rowing around the Island (90 miles), walking the Parish Walk (85 miles) and cycling three laps of the TT course - (114 miles).
‘This is a very tough challenge, but there’s the added motivation of raising funds for charity and we’ve already had 20 people sign up.
‘We’re looking at organising probably two more challenges before the end of the year; one will be based on using resistance equipment in the gym and the final challenge will be more on the lines of a triathlon, taking in all of LivingWell’s exercise facilities, including the pool.’
Entry rules, record cards and sponsorship forms for the Three Legs of Man Challenge are available from the reception desk at LivingWell at the Hilton Hotel and Casino, Central Promenade, Douglas. Telephone (01624) 682741 for more information.
Pictured: LivingWell manager Ken Hedley (far right) with the club’s supervisor Kristy Ashe (far left) and some of the members holding their certificates for completing the Swim the Channel challenge.
