Gutted like a fish.......

It's been pretty hard to write this post. We had no sooner arrived in Grassmere then we received this:

BRITISH GAS GREAT NORTH SWIM ONE MILE EVENT CANCELLED ON SATURDAY 23RD JUNE

Dear Sarah Bosomworth,

We regret to inform you that the British Gas Great North Swim one mile event at Windermere on Saturday June 23rd has been cancelled.

The decision was taken this afternoon by the independent event planning group, as the weather forecast for tomorrow predicts strong gusting winds, which are expected to ease overnight on Saturday.

Strong winds affect the ability of the safety kayakers to operate and also may make swimming conditions extremely challenging.

The programme of events is intended to continue as planned on the Sunday, although we regret to inform you that you will be unable to transfer your place to the Sunday event.

_____________

Obviously safety has to come first, we could see for ourselves that the weather was pretty awful and it's never easy to take a decision to cancel such a large scale event with so many people's expectations riding on it. We were mostly annoyed that the decision was not made to reschedule an entire day of events. 6mths of training, the expense involved, people's expectations of us not to mention the money we'd been sponsored were all weighing heavy on our minds. In some ways it was easier because the decision was out of our hands, we hadn't pulled out, we'd done the training, we were as ready as we could be in the time we'd had. Still you feel a certain pressure but often you are your own harshest critic. Nobody has so far asked for their money back, everyone has been really understanding but there's obviously the disappointment for us that comes with not reaching a goal that you have set for yourself.

Here's a few pictures to prove that we were there!

The security guys let us see the start line but we wont be crossing it in 2012.......

 

This is as close a I got to swimming greatness....... this time!

What you can't see in the pictures is the howling wind and intermittent monsoon like downpours, it was also freezing cold (Hence the hoodie & jacket sumo look) and that was on dry land!

Then we tried to drive home........... :-S

Wished we'd asked British Gas for a lift home, they must have known something we didn't:

 

All in all it was not exactly how we'd planned to spend the weekend, to say I'm gutted is pretty much an understatement but these things happen, that's life, no matter which language you speak.

Time to retreat and regroup.

C'est la vie

Che sarà sarà