What's next?

Everybody asks "what's next?" - a fair question, I suppose, especially from those who (probably quite rightly) assume that I'm not done with the swimming yet ... but can't I just enjoy it for a bit longer first?

There's a lot of advice out there about Channel swimming, a lot of it very contradictory, and one of the ways I've been using to sort the wheat from the chaff is to try and identify those tips that get repeated across a variety of training contexts - don't look up for France; don't ask how long you've got to go; swim from feed to feed....all good examples. (Practise sprinting during long training swims - that's another one, but we won't dwell on that for the moment... Acting on good advice once you've identified it is a whole different story!). But everyone says that you shouldn't rush straight into making big "what's next?" decisions after your swim; that you should let it all percolate for a couple of months so that you don't end up biting off more than you can chew.

Of course, I'm thinking about what I might do next, but there's a lot to consider, so for now, I'm enjoying the fact that I completed my swim; that I'm not having to train; that I'll get to spend some time much-missed time with Peter at the weekends; that I can catch up on some long overdue reading, writing and research; and that the first thing I do when I wake up is no longer checking the wind forecast. These are all good things that, for now, are next.