Keep going and enjoy the ride
Lessons for life and cycling – from a channel swimmer, an ultra-commuter and my elderly neighbour.
A little while ago, for my day job, I interviewed a woman who had swum the English Channel, crossing more than 20 miles of cold water in the world’s busiest shipping lanes. One thing in particular from our conversation has stayed with me: she’d doubted herself because she was a slow swimmer.
To train for her channel crossing, she’d entered open-water races around the country. These were big swims, many miles long. And it was a dispiriting experience. Impostor syndrome kicked in as other competitors streamed past her. How could she swim the channel, she asked herself, when she was so slow?