Stephanie, We Salute You

This morning when I arrived at the Lido I spotted Stephanie's unmistakable smooth and elegant stroke, powering up and down the pool. This past summer (2011) Stephanie joined a relay team and swam the channel. Ever since her amazing experience she is focused and training hard to cross the channel as a solo swimmer in the summer of 2012. She usually swims at 7am and I only get to see her very briefly. As I'm getting to the pool, she is usually dressed and ready to leave and get to work on time.

Today she had the day off which meant she swam later and I got the chance to get some shots of Stephanie and to catch up with her after her gruelling stint in the water. She clocked up her usual (autumn) amount of 36 lengths.

Stephanie, we salute you!

Stephanie's wonderfully balanced and powerful freestyle stroke

pushing off the shallow end and after a underwater glide (while my camera was getting ready for the next shot!) she was taking a breath and off into her first stroke

this time she spotted me and gave me a lovely smile and wave as she was turning and pushing off again.

no wave, this time - just pure focus and sheer determination ...

... for another (of a total of 36) length that lay ahead of her

on my way to get undressed and ready to get in myself,

Suzanne was pushing off the shallow end -

she too swims in great style - albeit a much shorter distance than Stephanie does :)

well, I thought I was on my way to my cubicle but there was Stephanie (again!) - she is fast as well as having amazing endurance!

fully loaded and ready for her owner's return

I'm finally in the water myself - 4 lengths under my feeble belt - time for some shots before swimming another 2 lengths - Spot Alex's under water camera, neatly tucked into his orange trunks - all you see is the cord.

I wanted to get Stephanie in the water too - many people know of Stephanie but haven't seen her face .... as she is in the water most of the time! Sadly, the water was very murky this morning ...

still no sight of Stephanie's face ... well, you gotta breath sometimes!

Always on the attack - remarkably Stephanie's hands (only) start feeling like clumps after 30 lengths - She told me that she has definitely acclimatised to the cold water temperature a lot since last year.