My 24 Hour 'Charity' Swim for Level Water

I wanted to share my latest challenge with you all in the hope that it may inspire a few of you to venture out of your comfort zone, go click that button and sign up to an event in 2025 ;-)

Over the weekend I completed my hardest challenge to-date;?

I swam 24 miles in 24 hours! That’s basically swimming to France! ?????

Most of the (sensible) participants were in teams of 3-8 people, taking in turns to complete the 24 hours in relay... but not me, I wanted to see if I could push through this and complete the challenge solo, this hadn’t been done before at any Level Water event I later found out.

The cause for this madness is to raise money and awareness for Level Water - a UK charity who work with children with disabilities providing the opportunity to learn how to swim. Swimming has so many benefits both physically and mentally, not to mention it being a key life saving skill.

The first 8 hours were enjoyable with sun shining, spirits up, knowing I had now swum further than I had even done before (10k in 2023). However, as soon as the sun set, it got cold very quickly & that made everything so much more difficult, both mentally and physically. It was character-building to say the least!

I had a specific plan for the hour; swim (30-35mins), get dry/warm, refuel and hydrate as quickly as possible. This took longer as the night progressed and as the midnight hour was close at hand, I was ready to give up, shivering to the core, hugging a hot water bottle, hogging the gas heater and chomping on a ham sarnie and cold, lumpy vegetable soup, whilst glugging half a litre of sickly-sweet energy drink. Going back out into the dark, cold waters and swimming again wasn’t appealing at all. These 30 seconds; getting up from a warm tent and immersing myself into a cold, dark lake to swim another mile was the toughest part, especially for my mind. The art of resilience was starting to carve its path (thanks Ross Edgley), battling every negative thought, of which there were many, I ploughed on, like an NPC in some surreal game.

This continued until 5am at which point, I had my biggest wobble yet! I was shivering, tired, my arms were aching all over and wanted to give up, give in. I had achieved more than I ever thought I could do, it was time to make a decision…how could I get through this? Did I want to get through this and WHY?

With the help of one kind lady who gave me a warm mug of coffee and my wife who turned up in the darkness with hot soup, somehow, something inside just switched. Sunrise was around the corner, if I could at least make it through the next one, then see how I felt, I would be one hour closer to the finish, then I could repeat this mentality of;

‘just one more swim and see how I feel’?

Which continued to work for the next 4 swims when at 9am I only had 3 more swims left, everyone was up and the sense of achievement was overwhelming, the energy came from nowhere, the external temperature was rising, the sunlight made all the difference. At this point, I knew I could make it, well unless my arms fell off, which to be fair, it felt like they just might at times! I even sped up for my last 400M lap, I was super-excited and couldn’t believe I had swam without sleep for 24hrs. The challenge was completed, there were people cheering and clapping as I exited the water, my daughter turned up with my wife, again and the feeling was incredible, it warmed from from the inside out.

My advice for anyone doing any event would be this;

“Never give up, never give in, just one more lap and keep on swimming! When you think you’re done, you’re only at 40% capacity!” ;-)

If you can, please do donate through the link below. Every little really does help and will be appreciated!?

https://justgiving.com/page/mark-kenna-1725563981969

Thank you for your time (to read this post) and for your support,

Warm Regards,

Mark