6 charitable Otters ventured out of their inner city comfort zone to the
open spaces of Dorking last Saturday, for the annual
cancer research swimathon. This meant foregoing the usual Saturday morning
routines (another Olympian training set,
recovering from a trip to the spa, a refreshing early morning swim in the
serpentine with the native wildlife, or a traditional 11am sleep-in)
to attempt to beat to the record 112 lengths set by the ghosts of Otter
past, and of course raise money for research.

For those who've not attended before and are already looking forward to
next year, the event is an enjoyable 55 minute continuous
relay of 50m sprint freestyle lengths. This years participants clearly
considered it ideal training for their range of upcoming events and
personal motivations (swimming the channel, winning the London to Paris
triathlon, heading in the direction of Beijing, completing another
year of PBs or reversing a general physical decay). For those who have
been before but were unfortunately busy this year, you'll find
time (say 2-3 years) does heal.

With I assumed the mayor of Dorking starting things off, the first 35
minutes sped by with some committed swimming, and each member of the
team had at least one chance to race against the local young guns in the
adjoining lane (ie. every time they lapped us). With around 20 minutes to
go,
the numerically minded amongst us estimated that at current pace we would
end up on somewhere between 85 and 103 lengths, but the
consensus was clear - we must do everything possible not to finish on 99!

The choice was stark - either swim slower or swim faster and break 100.
The team chose faster and went all out for charity. With 2 minutes left
we were consulting the rule book searching for a phrase "...number of
lengths rounded up...", and aimed for 99.1. Alas the official clock was
running fast and we never quite managed the 99th change over before the
buzzer went. Fortunately our competitive streak meant we never once
agonized over the 0.05 seconds per length faster we needed to be to make
that final change over, and there were no rash thoughts of "wait until
next time".

Never the less Ninety Nine is clearly a very memorable number

- number of Luftballons in that song
- number of green bottles that once hung on the wall (if you have a lot of
time to pass)
- almost a century
- only 11 less than that total number of runs scored against the mighty
Kiwi cricketers just a few days ago

and now of course most memorable as the number of lengths completed for a
good cause in 2008.

Our own Rachel Joyce has the sponsorship forms if anybody would like to
sponsor the club's efforts last week,
and I'm sure some of us will be back next year, aiming for ........

regards
Steve