Poole Lions Club Swimarathon February 2009

On a slightly chilly Saturday afternoon in February, a team from Coleman decided to brave all and take part in the Poole Lions Club Swimarathon at the Dolphin .

Had we seriously trained for this? In a nutshell, ‘no’. We did attempt a few practice runs after Christmas but it was a bit cold and between us, we had a myriad of excuses for not training.
So we went in cold!

‘Colemans Crustaceans’, swimming alongside seven other teams from Precision Disc Castings set off at 2pm, taking turns to clock up as many laps as possible in their allotted hour.

Lisa (‘Lobster Loo’) Vine took to the water first and set a good pace for the rest of us to ignore. Jon (‘Sammy the Crab’) Hindley looking splendid in his floral shorts, managed his lap admirably. Ester (‘Blinky’) Hindley sliced gracefully through her 100 metres and Lou (‘Flounder’) Starkie, sporting a celebrity swimsuit, impressed the crowds with her elegant stroke (despite battling the after effects of a full English breakfast she’d eaten earlier).

From left to right:
‘Blinky’’- Ester Hindley, Barnacle Bill - Peter (the coach), ‘Sammy The Crab’ - Jon Hindley, ‘Lobster Loo’ – Lisa Vine, ‘Free Willy’ – John White, ‘Flounder’ – Louise Starkie & ‘Mrs Puffa’ – Dee Barron.

The ‘vets’, Dee (‘Mrs Puffa’) Barron and John (‘Free Willy’) White displayed maturity and consistency in the water and after their first lap talked incessantly about how long the pool was and whether they were going to survive another 50 minutes!

Our team Captain, Peter (‘Barnacle Bill’) Moody, noticing that the first lap had done most of us in, delivered words of encouragement such as ‘next time don’t forget to use your arms’ and ‘hurry up’ – this kept the Crustaceans buoyant and determined to complete the job.

We managed about 70 lengths of this full, Olympic sized pool in 55 minutes – a credible result, made better by the fact that we’d generated over £800 in sponsorship towards the chosen charities.

In addition to everyone at Coleman who dipped into their pockets to support us, we must say a special ‘thank you’ to some of our insurers donated considerable sums towards our worthy cause.

Dee Barron