English Channel swimmer uses hot tub for 40-mile swim

Wendy Oliver says the water is a bit on the warm side for training

An athlete who swam solo across the English Channel is aiming to swim 40 miles (65 km) in her hot tub.

Wendy Oliver, 59, is swimming diagonally in the tub with a belt attached to her waist for the children's charity Barnardo's.

"It's actually quite therapeutic, I don't have to think and I don't have to look where I'm going," she said.

Mrs Oliver, from Taunton, has so far clocked up 10 miles (16 km) in 10 days, completing a mile a day.

"When you're out in the sea you've got to keep checking you're going the right way, that you're not going to swim into anything but in there, it's just going into automatic mode," she said.

Mrs Oliver can only do the front crawl and has about 8ft (2.4m) of space.

She had been training for the Windermere One Way challenge in September, which is 11 miles (17.7 km) end to end.

However, with the lockdown she is unable to use the local pool or swim in the sea to train.

Wendy says the hot tub swimming is therapeutic

"We've actually changed the water so the temperature will drop considerably," Mrs Oliver said.

"It was quite warm but it's not really much of a training swim for an open water lake swim.

"It's going to be quite a bit chillier for the next time."

On Friday she will restart her challenge, which she is aiming to complete over the next 10 days.

Wendy's biggest achievement was swimming the English Channel in 2003.