Saturday 27 December 2008

Boxing Day dip at Waldringfield raises over £6,500 for CLIC Sargent Children's Cancer Charity

Above: The registration desk at Waldringfield Sailing Club, the venue for the 2008 CLIC Sargent Boxing Day "Dip with a Nip".

As mentioned on the post before last, one of my two chosen charities for my open water swimming endeavours, CLIC Sargent, were holding a "Dip with a Nip" in the River Deben in the small Suffolk village of Waldringfield near Ipswich. So at 9am my wife Beccy, cousin Trevor Cole and me set off on a beautiful sunny, but frosty winter's morning to take a dip in the 8 degree Centigrade'ish water.

Above: With my cousin Trevor Cole from London in the Waldringfield sailing club, club house.

It was my job to motivate the 28 competitors to dive into the the icy waters of the River Deben. I was introduced by Claire from the CLIC Sargent Bury St Edmunds office. Having completed my Diploma in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) this year, I used a technique called a "Chained Anchor" to help them visualise their dip, and to make them mentally feel that when they entered the water, it would be hot rather than cold! They all participated and seem to enjoy it!

Above: Mentally preparing the swimmers for their icy dip using NLP techniques.

At 10.55am, we all left the warmth of the club house, to strip off and prepare ourselves to enter water.

There were roughly 50-60 people on the bank watching the event. We gathered by the waters edge, I shouted at them to "Fire the anchor", which would if used correctly, make them have warm feelings and thoughts, then after a 10-9-8-....2-1 countdown, we all entered the water!

I swum along the bank and back for about 5 minutes, and got out feeling remarkably warm. It was cold, but not that cold, especially after all the cold water training I have completed this year. In fact, it was positively refreshing!

Well done to all of the CLIC Sargent team for organising the event, and before they even started the dip, it was announced that they had so far raised over £6,500! I'm sure there will be more come in over the next month. Well done. Fantastic achievement to all who entered. If anyone would like to sponsor me for the event, please do so by clicking on the link below:-

Please sponsor me for Boxing Day "Dip with a Nip" 2008

East Anglian Daily Times - Saturday December 27, 2008:-

Click on the article above to download a higher resolution copy.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why is everyone in your blog so porky? Obviously swimming isn't doing the trick, you all need to get your noses out of the trough now and then.
Obesity kills.

Hoffy Swims said...

Neil, thank you for your comment. As and Herbalife distributor, I am fully aware of the obesity problem in the UK and other parts of the world, and my business activities with Herbalife aims to address this problem.

However, as open water swimmers we have to address three things. Firstly to mentally prepare ourselves to swim in water temperatures sometimes as low as 5 degrees centigrade. Secondly, to train long and hard enough to enable our bodies to physically withstand swimming for sometimes over 20 hours in the sea to complete a swim challenge (e.g. The English Channel). Lastly, which is the answer to your question, we have to pile on enough weight to ensure that our core body temperature remains at the correct temperature and to enable us to withstand normally unbearably cold water temperatures for such prolonged periods of time. Most people fail the English Channel due to the cold, putting on weight is the only known answer to enable us to achieve this. The physical fitness we have, hopefully goes someway to compensating for the weight we have to pile on.

I hope that answers your question.

Kind regards.

Hoffy

Maggie said...

Well after choking on my sausage sandwich while reading Neil's comment lol I would just like to say that im quite sure Neil is one of us porkies too who is just a bit jealous because he cant get his nose out his trough long enough to do any excercise.

Happy New Year Hoffy & Becky :)

Now back to my trough lol

Steven Munatones said...

There may be another possible (or partial) answer: Third Spacing. Read here: http://www.10kswimmer.com/2008/12/eat-well-and-blame-it-on-third-spacing.html.

Anonymous said...

he's just big-boned

Hoffy Swims said...

Maggie – Happy new year to you too! I hope you didn’t choke on your sausage! Good points raised. Happy troughing!

Steve – Yes, I forgot about that one. I remember very well Grant Hackett being all over the press here in the UK because he was “overweight” after his open water swimming experiences. Third Spacing is another good reason for us appearing “Porky”. Thanks for this.

Chris – LOL! Who me????

Anonymous said...

They say there's no such thing as a free lunch. Try telling that to 'Hoffy' and his missus...!

Hoffy Swims said...

Neil, I'm really not sure what the above is supposed to mean, however, my full time job is as a Chartered IT Professional, so I know it was you who wrote this comment. Hiding behind anonymous doesn't cover who you are. My wife and I are ceratinly not in the habit of taking free lunches from anyone. As councillors, we are not allowed to. If you have issue with something which I am unaware of, then can I suggest you e-mail me at paul@hoffyswims.com and we can discuss, otherwise, please stick to swimming matters. This is a swimming and charity fundraising blog.

Thank you.

Hoffy.