On Our Own Tracks

GRETTA’S REAL JOURNEY BEHIND HER FIRST EVER OCEAN SWIM!!!  

It was just two months… just two months ago when I was sitting with my awesome family on Christmas Day. While I was having a wonderful day surrounded by my wonderful parents, siblings, in-laws and nieces I couldn’t help but to have in the back of my mind that I have been here before. Despite having a great year for my business, amazing support team and incredible family, I was again thinking about problems that I had thought about for years. Along with this I was also feeling that I wasn’t the weight and fittest I wanted to be a year before which was now increasingly  becoming a visible problem with my one legged transfers.  

On the way home I was thinking of all the other times our family got together. A good part of these times have consisted of us supporting my siblings taking part in marathons. A key part of these events were watching my siblings progress through the training prior to the accomplishment. This sparked a realisation in my mind that I always thrived whenever I had a goal to accomplish. Along with this, another thought came up, although I obviously couldn’t do hiking tracks or full marathons,  the one sport I could do and was really good at was swimming. Even though it took me several very terrifying years to find the perfect swimming aid, I grew up swimming, especially as my beloved grandparents had a swimming pool. As I grew into my mid adulthood I discovered that the number one sport that I could do as independently as possible especially in order to loose weight was swimming.

So at the predawn of 2025, 3 days before new year, I got googling. I decided to search for ‘ocean swims Sydney’ first and was almost surprised that the Sydney Splash came up immediately as being on the up coming Australia Day, which was a month away. Obviously, this time period along with the fact that I never officially completed a ocean swim before did give me and many people around me doubts. However, we started training almost immediately in Penrith Ripples and Windsor Oasis swimming pools, which are both completely accessible. Once we worked out how many laps added up to 1 kilometre in each pool it was time to start my training. Despite admittedly not always meeting my daily target we all agreed that I had improved on my swimming during my training period. As well as this we were able to notice that I was loosing weight and gaining strength which was my original goal.

What I also found and absolutely loved was how me and my community of support were bonding together. From my support workers and I swimming so many laps together and healthily joking around about my sunburn (I was absolutely responsible for as I was under the belief that I tan not burn, ooops) to making sure my sunburn was extremely well looked after and bonding over planning how we were going to approach my unique needs on the day of the swim. One of the steps that we did leading up to the swim was to contact the event manager to see what adjustments they were willing to supply us.

This bonding of my team and I was one of the highlights of this journey as I really love this community feel especially within my team. This community feeling increased as we arrived extremely early on the morning of the swim. Our team of four had so many laughs, conversations and positive moments getting to the harbour. When we arrived this amazing atmosphere continued as we met up with the event organisers and discovered that they had planned all kinds of adjustments to suit me perfectly. They planned to have people lift me in and out of the water, extra time for us to start and finish the swim, someone to paddle board with us and extra room for all of our stuff on shore.

This incredible support and complete inclusivity was a reflection of my amazing childhood, growing up in an abled bodied community. Thinking about it, it has been this feeling of inclusion, acceptance and community that has really shaped my life and really is the reason why I have created On Our Own Tracks, as I want to expand these connections between the abled and disabled community.

So I encourage you to challenge yourself this year and reach your dreams. I encourage you to find an issue that you want to solve, really consider your own true desires and strengths then find a way of merging them both. Enjoy the journey and have fun.

Stay tune for our next chapter in April…