NORTHERN PLANNER

I may have mentioned that I like to swim a lot.

I don't think I've mentioned that I've actually gone swimming about three times in the last 4 months. New baby, having a job and demanding toddler have just meant something had to drop.

I've been doing the gym and getting on the bike, but to be honest, it's been killing me not doing what I really love.

Which is why I'm extremely thankful the mini sabattical is nearly over and we're in a place where I can start to go on a morning again.

To be even more truthful, I'm also a little nervous. For a while, by body will fiendishly resist what I want it to do. It will hurt. I'll be slow and weak.

Which will mean patience and a little determination, and there's nothing like a meaty goal to keep you going.

Not like The Great North Swim and chasing times I did when I was a kid, like before. Something both realistic and sufficiently out of reach. So I'm going to work towards doing a 400 metre medley.

That's four lengths of each stroke in succession – butterfly, backstroke, breastroke and freestyle.

The last three are easy, it's the butterfly bit that's the challenge. I reckon right now, I'll just about be able swim two lengths. Rubbish (to put it in context, when I trained as a kid we used to do 5 x 8 lengths with about 15 seconds between as standard training).

So the first challenge is just to get strong enough to do four lengths fly.

Then be able to continue and do the whole thing without my lungs bursting.

I used to be able to do it in around 5 and minutes. I'll never get close to that again.

Lets see if I can do 7 minutes by the end of the year.

No reason, just because.