Safra Swim For Hope Archives

Safra Swim for Hope 2020 is virtual! Like many other “virtual” running events, Covid19 has placed a damper on events with mass participants.

It was challenging for us to complete our laps, unless we have access to a condominium pool. You should try to book a swim slot with MyActiveSg!

General lap swims are only available between 6.30pm to 9.30pm, and slots are snapped up quickly. The afternoon prime slots are taken up by classes.

Who knew swimming could be so tough in Singapore!

Back to Safra Swim For Hope 2020. Event is organised by Safra and sponsored by Liberty Insurance. As with previous editions, Swim For Hope still has the same mission.

You and your family swim, and the proceeds will go to the beneficiaries.
We find the collaboration meaningful, and kids get to enjoy their swims.

Swimmers would choose their own category. The only difference is you can have up to ‘almost” a month to complete the laps!

I had selected Resilience 1km category for two kids, since booking of swimming slots is so difficult. I thought 40 laps would be a stretch. As a reference, we did average 30 laps under 2 hours in 2018.

But their swimming coaches made them swim 30 laps in 1 hour haha! I should have registered No3 for 10 km 🙂

A pity I could not join them in the fun laps.

After completing the swim laps, just go online and register the records.
No rubberband per lap this time, we trust every swimmer’s integrity.

Daddy would like to shoutout for his favourite swim queen too. Joscelin Yeo ruled the pools from 1990 to early 2000! She was my generation’s idol.

I always remembered her leading the Gold medal charges, and her broad masculine shoulder! And she is now a happy mother of 4 kids 🙂

Swim For Hope event ends 15 Nov 2020, we hope all participants and families would enjoy swimming as much as us.

All proceeds and donations will go to ARC (care for autism) , SAF Care Fund (care for injured servicemen) and SSA One Team (enable aquatics exposure). More details on Swim for hope 2020 website.

Do pop by our previous Fun Safra Swim For hope experience from 2018 too (link).

ps All images above credit “Bubbles And Splashes”.
Our swim entries are sponsored by Swim For Hope.

Our family participated in Safra Swim For Hope last Saturday.
We have NEVER swan so much before!

I did not set any targets for the kids as I was clueless about swim efforts and expectations.
I only set a conservative gauge of between 30 to 50 laps for our family :p

No worry, just swim your best

Swim for Hope is an annual event, we can swim as many laps as possible (and comfortable) within two hours. The objective is to do our little bit for charity.

Experience

Two lanes each (to and fro) for different strokes, no butterfly and backstroke. Two swimmers per lane can be a bit tight, I was constantly worried that I would kick someone, or whether I am blocking anyone.

I still do not know whether slow swimmers should keep left or right. Apologies to the 50 swimmers whom I blocked on Saturday, would appreciate if someone can share some tips about swim discipline with me.

Freestyle strokes are more aggressive awesome due to speed and stride, we might not recommend young kids to go to this lane. The experienced swimmers were rushing the kiddos, a lot of PRESSURE haha.

There is a special parent-child lane for family, but our girl wanted to swim with her brothers.

Doing Good

At the end of very 50m lap, you get a rubber band. We heard regular swimmers can easily clocked 80 laps, but we got less lofty ambitions.

Four Safra pools (Toa Payoh, Yishun, Tampines and Jurong), the laps are accumulated over three days from 12 to 14 Oct 2018.

We are all swimming for charity, the more laps we clock, the more we donate 🙂

Safra Swim For hope donations (Image credit Swim For hope)

Thanks to coach Kian Hoe, our kids are now confident swimmers.
They all started as water babies from Bubbles N Splashes (blog post).

I am trying to encourage our kids to enjoy an active lifestyle.
Swimming helps them to relax, especially during exam periods.

During the weekly swim lessons, kids just need to enjoy their swim and forget about everything else.

Safra Swim For Hope offers 2 in 1 objective for us.
Enjoy our Swim and Contribute to charity at the same time 🙂

Remember to have Fun

Although every swim slot is two hours, swimmers can rest anytime.
We can replenish lost fluids and calories with isotonic drinks and banana too.

Some feedback from the kids:
-Wei enjoys swimming with a big group, swimming alone is boring
-Kang is happy that our efforts can help with charity
-Yee enjoys the slow relaxing laps, swim lessons are more tiring :p
-Xin is just happy to tag along and swim with siblings, bananas are a treat

Perfect weather, sky had threatened to pour over the weekend but we managed to swim under a cool weather.

We did not swim the entire two hours, we only lasted for 90 minutes. Perhaps kids endurance or concentration lacking, they keep finding excuse to leave the pool for rest and banana :p

Number 1 rule for first timers, swim at your own relax pace. No need to rush nor aim for personal best.

Motivation

Everyone is tired, but if I can swim extra laps, kids got no excuse not to step up.
They are all stronger swimmers than me!

I lost count of the laps after the fifth U-turn, I just concentrated on completing each lap.
Swimming with many others help us to relax, we are all in the pool for charity.

Different medals from different Safra pools, some folks actually pool-hop to score more finisher medals 🙂

Photo below, our 2 hour slot at Yishun lap-count is additional 2475 laps.
We hope we have contributed a little to the total, SengkangBabies laps tally is 180.

-Andy 38
-Wei 40
-Kang 32
-Yee 40
-Xin 30

Based on our first swim experience, 50 laps target is attainable for 2019 🙂

Swim for Hope was a meaningful and fun event for us, and we will definitely sign up for future editions .

We are not expert swimmers, but if we can do it, we hope more families and friends can join too.

Follow Safra Swim For Hope www.safra.sg/s4h and Fanpage for more activities. (Email swim4hope@safra.sg)

We are promoting more active lifestyles for families, do follow our Cycling, Hiking and Running posts too.

Ps. Our family was invited to Safra Swim For Hope event