PAIGE GALLAGHER - AMBASSADOR DAY BLOG

Meet our youngest Swimathon Ambassador - Paige Gallagher, and read about her experience at this year's Ambassador Day hosted by Olympic Gold Medalist and Swimathon President Duncan Goodhew!

Ambassador Day 2019

Hi everyone, 

I'm Paige, I'm 13 and this year will be my 3rd Swimathon and I'm doing in the Triple 5k Challenge! (argh I must be mad lol). No seriously I'm really looking forward to it.

Mum and I recently went to London for the 2019 Ambassador Day where we met all of the other Ambassadors and Duncan Goodhew. I was really nervous at first as I was the youngest Ambassador there but everyone, Ambassadors and the event staff, were really nice and made me feel at ease. 

We began the day with a get to know each other where we shared our stories of why we wanted to become an Ambassador and what we hoped to achieve. Well for me, I wanted to become an Ambassador because I feel it is important for everyone to learn to swim as it is such an important life skill and because I have lost family members to the horrible disease that is cancer. For me my passion for water began when I was about 6 and I was in a new swimming level so where I swam changed and I wasn't used to the pool so as I started to swim I got out of my depth and I began to panic a bit which caused an asthma attack. I ended up needing to be rescued by a lifeguard. Well as you can guess I was scared about getting back into the water but my mum and dad told me that what had happened was just a little set back and that I should get straight back into the water and it shouldn't put me off doing something I really enjoyed. Well I did and now I swim regularly and I've completely the bronze medallion in life guarding and I dive for Plymouth. So for me if I can inspire at least 1 person to put away any fear and get into the water then I've done something good.

Duncan Goodhew gave us all some great tips while in the water and I feel I have improved my swim strokes thanks to him as he showed me some great shoulder positioning. I'm currently training up to 3 times a week for about 2 hours around my diving and school schedule and I feel it's really helping me with stamina.

My fundraising is going ok, my mum is helping with a lot of my online bits because of my age and my dad has printed off lots of sponsorship forms which I've shared around my family so I hope to increase what I can raise. My school has been great and are working with me to raise awareness of Swimathon and hopefully we can raise some extra funds with a possible fundraising event at school which we are thinking of together.

Ok so I guess I had better hit the school books again. Look forward to hitting you all with my next message.

Bye for now

Paige

Swimathon 2019 Ambassador