Cold Water Training - Brockwell Lido; 20/04/2011

Submitted by Danny

After walking through the mean streets of Brixton, armed with only swimming hats and goggles for protection, we arrived at the lido in Brockwell Park. Taras arrived fashionably late after an arduous day of auditing in what he described as a “greenhousey” environment.

Changing into our swimming attire in preparation for 15/16 degree water temperatures for some odd reason was a very slow process; however not as slow as the descent into the pool!

Adam was protected by a thick layer of man hair and so entered the water with ease. Tarkan ‘The Machine’ being made of metal doesn’t feel the cold and merely dived in the deep end and started swimming, although he was a little rusty! Rosie was all ready and waiting in the pool leaving just Yvette, Taras and I to battle the elements. Yvette probably coped most admirably having head under water in 2 stages: up to waist, above waist within 3 minutes (rounding down.) Taras and I struggled slightly more between us going through roughly 20 stages and 20 minutes. I have to at this point sincerely thank the 9 year old boy who mockingly advised me “it gets better when you’re head is underwater,” as without those wise words and subsequent spontaneous loss of all ego I’m not sure if I would have made it in.

Once we were all under, the actually swimming became a luxury as we were relieved to get our muscles moving, however we all had to stop briefly every few lengths to catch our breath as we experienced the cold for the first time. At the end of a 45minute session (20 minutes of that adjusting) our bodies all reacted slightly differently to the cold. Some couldn’t feel their toes, some had back aches but we all felt dizzy as we came out the pool which can only be likened to being drunk. Once we had stumbled to the changing rooms we swapped the bitter cold for the bitter beer as is usual procedure!

Easter Egg'stravaganza! ; 18th - 21st April 2011

Submitted by Tarkan

Back in February after all the tax returns had been submitted (well, almost all of them) a member of the tax team, although I still had work to do (contrary to popular belief that the tax team sit with there feet up for 11 months of the year and only work in January) I managed to squeeze some time in and come up with a simple yet brilliant fundraising ideas, which was to feel a jar full of mini Easter eggs and charge people a pound to guess with the closest winning all the Easter eggs.

I thought if we contacted chocolate companies they would be generous and donate a free pack here and there, which would lead us to filling a giant jar and help us with raising extra funds for the charity. However it appears that the chocolate companies are too driven by profits and making the next generation of British children clinically obese to help with our worthy cause.  One company (I wont mention any names but I am sure you will be able to guess with a little thought) wrote back saying they only work with charities that help seahorses were therefore unable to help people in the UK with spinal injuries. Anyway now that I have ranted and let my frustration out, back to the task in hand. The weekend before Easter Deniz and I went shopping for mini chocolate eggs and a jar big enough to hold them. We purchased approximately 2.4kg worth of chocolate eggs (minus a few handfuls that Deniz and I ate :-D). We then decorated the jar to look like the Easter bunny (check out the picture on the right).

After Deniz and I had counted the eggs in a top secret location in London we began selling the idea to friends and family and by Sunday night had managed to raise enough money to recover our initial costs and actually started raising money for charity.

On Monday Adam started flogging the idea at work, then it was my turn on Tuesday and Danny’s on Wednesday. On Thursday, Danny & I decided to try and double team everyone with the hard sale. As the only team member that knew the actual amount in the jar the person with the closest guess at the end of each day changed more often than the British weather. On deadline day, 5mins before the results were to be announced, Deniz had one final sweep of the office as nobody still had the correct answer. Up steps Mr Andrew Wheeler with a last gasp entry just as the results were to be announced with a guess of 453 making him one out from the total of 454, stealing the eggs from under the nose of Muiz with now the second closest guess of 456.

Congratulations to Andrew. See picture on the right of Andrew holding the eggs like he just won the Copa del Rey (thank god Sergio Ramos didn’t win otherwise we would have been picking up the eggs off the floor). See next picture on the right where Andrew seems to be slightly over excited at the prospect of winning the eggs (get a room). 

There were side bets going on to see how many eggs Andrew would be able to eat in one sitting before he was sick , however rumour has it he wasn’t sick as he warmed up with 4 KING size Easter eggs and washed the mini eggs down with a glass of pure melted chocolate!

Thanks to everyone who got involved and helped us raise £136 for charity. Our total so far is over £4000, we have almost guaranteed 3 team members seats on the boat.

Look out for future fundraising events coming to an office near you!!!

Day 5; Oasis Sports Centre, Nr Tottenham Court Road (01/04/11)

Submitted by Tarkan

A bit of team news to start off with; we have had a recent change to the SRLV Channel Swim Team starting line up. We bid farewell to Jagdeep Kooner who unfortunately had to drop out due to other commitments and we wish him well.  However we are happy to welcome on board Yvette “Ariel” Du Preez who recently joint us as a reserve and planned to sunbathe on the boat all the way to France with a bottle of Champagne without dipping her feet in. Unfortunately for Yvette she will have to hold off on the champagne until she helps us cross the cold and murky waters of the English Channel. Yvette just a little reminder no wetsuits for this swim, sorry L

After my  recent interview with the press for the local Enfield Independent , it appeared my story had blown up from Enfield to the Turkish community in London (http://www.londragazete.com/haber_detay.asp?haberID=8083) and then to global heights with an article in an actual Cypriot paper (http://www.kibrisgazetesi.com/print.php?news=114614)  however I was brought back crashing down to earth with the less glamourous side of Channel swimming with a training session with the rest of the team at the Oasis Sports Centre.  I say the rest of the team however both Taras and Danny flopped the training session with better offers well actually Danny had a better offer which I am sure involved lots of alcohol and pretty women but poor old Taras was working at a clients and was unable to attend.

Finally the Jubilee line was working and Rosie made it to our group training session with an injured finger from a game of basketball but soldiered on to put myself, Adam and James through the paces. We also had drill sergeant Yvette standing on the sidelines barking orders at us of “Less chat and more swim”. Yvette decided not to participate as she had a major training session planned for early Saturday morning but came to bond with the team (basically she fancied a drink at the pub). Due to the recent change in the clocks, we were now officially in British Summer Time and for once the British weather didn’t disappoint; we were bathed in glorious sunshine which meant the pubs after swimming were rammed to breaking point, however thanks to Rosie we managed to find a hidden little gem of a pub just off Leicester square. We discussed team tactics for raising sponsorship and Rosie gave us the gruesome details of what was planned for us at the upcoming Brighton Trip (I am sure I speak for everyone when I say we cant wait to jump into the freezing sea). And I actually managed to only stay for one like I planned (I guess the sun must have got to my head).

Other team News:-

Yvette had a monster session in the pool on Saturday morning whilst James turned up late for his 5km run. He had set himself an ambitious target of 19 minutes and 30 seconds to beat one of his work colleagues, however he just fell short with a time of approximately 21 mins. I am sure he will do it next time which he plans to do in a couple of weeks, good luck mate and make sure you get there on time this time.

I entered the swimathon 5km individual challenge (200 lengths) and set myself a time of 1 hour and 30 mins which I managed to just beat with an exact time of 1 hour and 29 minutes and 24 seconds.

Rosie’s finger is on the mend and she is now back in full training

Adam is racking up the sponsorship monies through his personal and work contacts. A big thanks to him and everyone who has recently sponsored us, we are close approaching the £3000 mark.

Taras is still overworked and underpaid

Danny is still suffering from a hangover.

The next entry will be after our first cold water swim, when we tackle the Brockwell Park Lido on 20^th April. 

Hot off the Press

Tarkan's made it into the newspapers!!

http://www.enfieldindependent.co.uk/news/localnews/8922855.Channel_swimmer_in_bid_for_charity/

Cake Sale; 28/02/2011

Submitted by Danny. (Photo's as always, to the right)

After a long weekend of baking night and day I arrived in work Monday morning delighted to see the others had made similar efforts with their cake baking. 

- Hayley’s array of cupcakes made the most vivid of rainbow’s look black and white.

- Deniz’s (I mean Tarkan and Deniz’s) efforts could have supplied a bakery for 3 weeks complete with doughnut muffins, whoopee pies & carrot cakes. 

- Taras proved quite the crafty baker whipping up some delicious lemon butterfly cakes.

- Adam chocolate chipped in with cookies, butterfly cakes and his Nan’s homemade Victoria sponge!

I was obviously bread to bake and my buns went down a treat, providing the most shop-like of 

chocolate cupcakes and muffins.

After setting up in reception downstairs we very reasonably priced up our goods ready to sell to the generous workers in our building. Other than the position of our cake stall other measures were of course in place to ensure no one could avoid the wrath of ‘pressure charity cakes’.

These included mass emails and posters in both lifts and so unless you had pre-planned and brought your lunch in, there was no avoiding us. 

With these SAS tactics in place the produce went like hotcakes and soon we had made loads of dough (My thanks go to Laurence for that one), in fact by 2.00 pm they had all scone. 

There was however one complaint: that there weren’t enough tarts on sale but the muff-in more than made up for it.

Apologies to all for cheesy puns! Thanks to all who bought our cakes - £200 was eventually raised.

Day 4; Oasis Sports Centre, Nr Tottenham Court Road (28/02/11)

Submitted by Tarkan (Photo's as always, to the right)

Pay day had finally arrived and as Danny has explained with his entry we spent all lunch time flogging homemade cakes (apart from the Baker Boy Brand Danny managed to buy in the morning) in order to help both raise awareness of our upcoming Channel Swim and some funds to go towards our £10,000 target (If your reading this please feel free to check our progress and please give generously to our cause :

(http://www.justgiving.com/srlvchannelswim2011)

Well after a hard day at work, selling cakes at lunch time for charity and trying to stay awake in our Money Laundering training course, when the time on the computer said 5:30pm I think it was a safe bet to say we were all relieved despite the fact that we had to face a training session at the Oasis Sports Centre outdoor swimming pool whilst the weather conditions outside could only be described as Arctic.

When I said we were all relieved to see the time 5:30pm this wasn’t true for the entire team, as Taras, James and Jagdeep all had to stay at work late to make up for the lack of work they had did during the day (jokes, if any of their managers are reading this I am sure they worked hard all day like they usually do J).

Anyway myself, Danny and Adam left the office after deciding it was best to get changed at the office first (based on the adventures of our last visit to Oasis Sports Centre). On the way Adam received a quick phone call from Rosie with a TFL update that the Jubilee line was up the spout and would therefore be running late. We later received a further TFL update from Rosie that the Jubilee line was in fact inoperative and she would therefore not be able to join us (Thanks for the reliable service TFL). 

When we arrived at the pool we met our newest recruit , Yvette (former Everest Climber, Marathon runner and Tri-athlete). She got us all in the pool not before we were charged down by the screeching lifeguard performing Rafa Benitez style hand signals which even Rafa would have struggled to understand. The signals were a mix between a chimpanzee scratching his head and a cat licking his balls which could only mean we had to have a quick shower before we were allowed to enter the pool (again showers not such a great idea based on our last adventures at this swimming pool).

Anyway, Yvette put us through our paces with an 8 length warm up and various training drills, including the one arm pull, a bit of underwater swimming and some heads up swimming whilst trying to dodge the annoying swimmers in our lane who appear to love swimming on top of each other or literally up each other’s , well, you know.

Jagdeep “The Trooper” Kooner managed to get away on a coffee break from work and joined us in the pool for a while before returning to work to seal some big money deals for his company. (Note to everyone wasting chargeable time reading this learn from Jags “Money never sleeps” now finish reading this quick, give us a little or big donation depending on how generous you’re feeling and then get back to work). With James missing, the responsibility was left to Yvette to say time to get down to the pub at the same time as a gust of wind blew in our ears hissing advice of “only have a quick one”. 

We left Danny and Jags in the pool to get a few more laps in whilst us 3 left to go get ready for the pub. Danny came out of the swimming pool complaining of getting something in his eyes, based on the type of people who use the swimming pool I didn’t want to ask to many questions as I was scared of the possible answers but my advice to Danny “The Length” Fletcher is invest in a pair of goggles quickly. 

Down to the pub where we got to know Yvette better and explain the situation of our future training weekends, by the way have we booked our accommodation yet or are we gonna be pitching up tents on the beach like the troops did in Normandy (and like we plan to do come September)?!?!?!?!?!? 

Adam made the error of getting the first round in and one pint just not being enough to quench my thirst after such a long training session and ignoring the voice of reason nagging in the back of my head (the missus) I decided to get another round in. Perhaps training sessions and a group drink up is better suited to Fridays.

So, Adam  . . . . . .  when’s the next team training session down the pub, I MEAN DOWN THE SWIMMING POOL?