This article is time effected. If you’re reading it before Sunday 27th September, that means you’ll be reading it Saturday 26th September (see how clever I am), and it will be the day before I undertake what is possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Sure some may say shouting “You, are a cunt!” into a huge rugby player’s face after he’d held a door open for me wasn’t the brightest thing. And If I had the choice again, I might have made a move on that girl in Leeds Uni that one time, but this stupid decision, I made completely stone cold sober.

For tomorrow (currently, or previously depending on when you read) I will take part along with 14 others, in the 11 London Lidos 2009 Challenge. This is a charity fundraising event devised by two of my workmates, who I now realise are two of the biggest, almost Germanic, sadists. The standard you could imagine having to pay top dollar for in a seedy upstairs room just off the autobahn. The challenge, as the snappy name suggests, involves swimming in every one of the 11 Lidos (outdoor swimming pools) in London, in just the one day. I know it sounds pretty easy, why do you think I agreed to do it? Couple of lengths in the pool, few in another pool, bit of lunch, bit more swimming, then to the pub? No… NO!

At the time I agreed to be involved, it was summer. Depending on your outlook, you might agree or disagree with my optimistic memory that 2009 summer was actually pretty nice, and consistent. So I was confused by the weather. It was touching 30 degrees outside, humidity was high, I’d have loved to knock about in a couple of swimming pools for the day, lovely. Of course, it’s not quite summer anymore. No one’s walking round in flip flops, barely does anyone walk by in just a t-shirt without getting a nip on, I’ve seen coats. Coats for Christ’s sake!

With the logistics involved, 11 separate locations in one day, having to change, swim, dry and change in each one, means a 07:00 start! Have you been around at 7am lately? It’s not warm I’ll tell you that.

So apart from being conned into it somehow, why the hell am I putting my poor deluded body through this Everest of self-mutilation and torture? Why for the good of charity of course! First of all there’s prostate cancer, which no one’s a fan of, so it’d be good to stick a couple of straight, bold fingers up to that bastard eh? Plus the John Henry Memorial Fund (which goes towards various cancer charities and development work in Africa).

If you’re reading this on Sunday, then please take the time to think of me, outside, sitting in what is basically a huge bath of pond water, struggling up enough energy to move another limb another inch. And feel that little bit warmer, inside your house watching the Hollyoaks Omnibus like a bastard. If this makes you feel at all sorry for me, guilty or wishing me luck, don’t do any of these things. Instead why not go online (you’re here already) to Just Giving, and throw a little money towards the cause. I’m fucked if I’m going to end up doing this for nothing.

And if you’re reading after Sunday, don’t sweat it, there’s still time to head to the link, and donate.

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POST SWIM UPDATE

O.K. I have to start off with an apology. We didn’t manage to swim in every one of the 11 Lidos of London last weekend. I feel so ashamed! But then, I look at it another way, how many of London’s Lidos did you swim in last weekend? I’ll bet it wasn’t even 4! Sadly we only hit 9 at the most. And these are the best bits.

07:00 – Shoreditch House

Private members’ lido in the swanky area of town, Shoreditch House really shows off its credentials. First off, it’s only 16m long. Acting like it’s one of those impossibly small SONY laptops important pretentious people like to use to pretend they’re important. Its Japanese technological stature is one of the reasons they’re able to heat it to within an inch of its life, it’s like swimming around in a huge bath. The idea of the day was that we did a different number of lengths in each pool, but you could do whatever number in whatever place you like. Of course we all saved the 11 lengths for the final hurdle, just for the occasion of the thing. Struggling over the finish line with row of crowds urging us on isn’t the same unless we’ve almost drowned at least once. So obviously everyone did their 10 lengths in the 16m Roman bath-like pool.

08:00 – The Serpentine

Actually we were planning on having to miss this one out too. We’d been waiting for the go-ahead for free access right up to the last day, but it didn’t come in time, after we’d already scheduled it into the itinerary. This would just be a breakfast and coffee stop to warm our blood. If anything, after Shoreditch house, our blood needed a cool drink. After arriving at the gorgeous Serpentine river in the middle of Hyde Park at 8am, under the light of the sunrise over the river, the pool (it’s just a cordoned off area of the river) wasn’t actually open, but nor was it shut. So with no one to tell us off, we just whipped our clothes off on the bank, and jumped in. Bloody hell. If I’ve learnt one thing from all that swimming, well it’s that I can’t really swim, but the second thing is that for the first half length, you’re just trying to keep your limbs from freezing in the centre of a huge ice cube like a cartoon. After the full 120m length, despite the water being warmed by nothing but a pittance of sunlight, paying only a passing interest, and being spread across the whole of the river, it was getting pretty cosy. So much so, I felt like doing another lap (which I instantly regretted). Halfway through, my legs just sank. With my upper body chasing after them, it was all I could do to just wildly flap and hope I stayed afloat. Owing a pretty big favour to every God ever dreamed up, I continued until my legs were scraping across sand.

If I’d have known then that The Serpentine would actually be one of the warmer pools, I may just have given up and sank to the bottom. Lidos 3 and 4 were much worse.

Lido 5 was where we hit the first problem. Finchley Central. Originally we’d been given access, and the plan was running smoothly, but a few days beforehand, they revealed the thing was actually being drained that day. ‘Drained?! Can’t they do that afterwards?’ I thought. ‘At night?’ I mean how long does it take to pull out a plug?

By the time we got to Tooting Lido (Possibly the most famous lido in the world judging by the excited sounds coming from people’s mouths when they learnt it was on the list), it was maybe number 7 or 8. Now the thing about Tooting Lido, the thing that makes it special, is that it’s very nice. It’s a lovely little pool, very clean, very tidy, very friendly, a family place. A few more things about Tooting are that it’s unheated, and incredibly cold! Oh also… it’s 2-frigging-00m long! One length! 200 meters! This was the first time the extra length and sand-scraped thighs of The Serpentine were worth it. They meant I only had the one length at Tooting. I can now say, in no uncertain terms, that extra length I’d already done, saved my life. After just the one, I scrambled out, and instantly fell backwards, almost dropping myself back in to a watery, very very cold, grave.

One more Lido (No. 9) – (8th one we’d swam in) down, and it became clear it just wouldn’t work. The last one, Lido 11, the big finish, closed at 18:30. We had about 45 minutes to drive to the last two, and complete the swims. Sacrifices always have to be made, and in order to get the big finish, we said goodbye to the Oasis Leisure Centre in Holborn. Straight on to London Fields in Hackney.

This was it. Lido No. 11 (9th to swim in). The end was in sight. My legs were half a mile behind me, my head was blacking out with every stroke, and my arms were grasping at each other just for something to hit me with. But I kept on going. I’m not trying to make myself out to be a hero or anything (I am). I didn’t save anyone’s life. I mean it’s not as if I got through by thinking about the charities, and what all the prostates out there would think If I stopped and let cancer have its way with them. Put simply, once you’re in, once you’ve agreed to do it, it’s far easier to just get on with it, just carry on, than it is to actually say “No. I’m out.” So you do it, no matter how much it kills you.

By length 2 of 11, all of my unbelievably fitter than me companions had already finished their 11. Meanwhile I was moving slower than the horse you’ve wasted your last tenner on. By length 6, I heard the bell – what I assumed was the ‘Get out of the fucking pool you fat fuck, we’re closing’ bell. As well as an endurance challenge, this had turned into a race. Against the best opponent I’ve ever faced. The clock. The clock is a nightmare to race. You know it’s good, that it can have you, if it wasn’t, why are you worrying. You also know the clock’s consistent. You know exactly what time it’s going to do. Exactly what time you need to beat it. It’s all on you. You know it’s not gonna fuck up on the last fence, you have to get it done. I manage to keep my head down until length 11. I’ve been the only one in the pool for a good 2 already, when the lifeguard is waiting for me at the end. I, part guiltily, and part just making sure I don’t pass out, swim towards him. “Closing time. Get out” he says. But what do I care? I’m done! 11 lengths!

Now let’s all go to the pub and get some fucking food.