The swimmer adrift on the open seas measures his strength and strives with all his muscles to keep himself afloat. But what is he to do when there is no land on the horizon and none beyond it?

The newspapers loved pinup pictures of pretty young swimmers and as a national champion I got more than my share of space in the sports pages.

I always tell people I'm a better swimmer because I'm a mom and a better mom because I'm swimmer.

I feel akin to the Platypus. An orphan in a family. A swimmer a recluse. Part bird part fish part lizard.

I want to be able to look back and say 'I've done everything I can and I was successful.' I don't want to look back and say I should have done this or that. I'd like to change things for the younger generation of swimmers coming along.

I mean the beauty of being a writer is it's not like being a swimmer. When they were talking about our Olympic swimmers and they'd say 'Oh she's so old ' and she's all of 25 or something. So the beauty for a writer is that you can keep doing it right into your dotage and I hope to be able to keep doing it as long as I can get away with it yeah.