Introduction!

Hello World Wide Web!

I'm new to blogging.  The reason I've decided to start now is to raise my profile and possibly drum up a bit of sponsorship for some of the charity work that I do.

I'm currently training to swim Windermere (10.5 miles) in July 2011.  I raise money for Leukeamia and Lymphoma Research.  Claire Wadley, my Wife's best friend and friend of mine, died in 2006 of Leukeamia after battling the disease for a number of years.

A quick potted history of my swimming careeer;

• I swam competitively during my teens.
• After a long break I took up open water swimming in 2008 in a bid to get fit.  My season that year started with a 1K race building up to competing in the BLDSA Coniston Championship which was 5.25 miles.
• 2009 and 2010 have been quiet on the competitive front although I kept up open water swimming / wildswimming on a recreational basis. 
• This year, I won my first open water race.  It was the BLDSA Derwentwater 2 mile mens race.  It was a close faught battle between me and the only other competitor!

I've taken on the Windermere challenge to push myself to the next level of open water swimming, build up a decent level of fitness and hopefully raise some money for LLR.  Keep an eye out on my page for a link to the 'just giving' page that I'm setting up and please donate what you can.

This year I raised in excess of £800 for Leukeamia and Lymphoma Research by competing in the Stockton River Rat Race which was a 10KM adventure race.  I really enjoyed taking part and plan to sign up for next year's event.

You can probably tell that I'm new to blogging so I'll probably be messing around with my page for a while.  I'll try and keep you all up to date with my training progress and will try and put some photos e.t.c. on here too.  Most importantly, when I get round to setting up my 'just giving' page please visit and donate what you can.

Dave