Kent woman begins training for marathon sea swim

A swimmer who plans to become the first woman to swim between two decommissioned World War Two forts and the Kent shore has begun cold water training.

Rebekah Kefford, from Birchington, plans to take on the eight mile (12.8km) challenge from the Red Sands forts in August, raising money for the spinal injury charity Aspire.

Dan Brown, from Whitstable, became the first person to swim from the forts to the Kent coast in August 2024, in a time of five hours and six minutes, according to Aspire.

Having spent the winter building up her strength in an indoor pool, Rebekah is now taking to the sea.

"I'm up to about 45 to 50 minutes in the sea now, the temperature at the moment is about 10 degrees," she said.

"Those are going to increase as the time goes on, so I'll keep doing the pool swimming alongside the sea, and the sea will just build, it'll be one hour, then an hour and a half, two hours.

"I'll build myself up to a maximum of probably five, because we're estimating this will take me no more than six hours.

"I'm doing it without a wetsuit, it's Channel Swim rules, no wetsuit, so flotation device."

She said taking to the open water was "a shock to the system".

"You get brain freeze, you can feel your heart go, but once you break through that barrier within a few minutes you really start to feel an energy about yourself, this endorphin that just rushes round your body, it's absolutely amazing.

"You get a sense of being really in control, but then the cold will start to come in, you start to feel your hands go, your feet go.

"You need to listen to yourself and know when it's time to get out."

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