{"id":2,"date":"2016-05-10T03:48:21","date_gmt":"2016-05-10T03:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/claraschannelswim.co.uk\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2025-01-30T16:11:27","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T16:11:27","slug":"sample-page","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/claraschannelswim.co.uk\/?page_id=2","title":{"rendered":"Biography"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by Clara’s Parents – Kirstie & Ian<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clara was an unexpected gift, especially as we had been told we might face difficulty having children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her arrival was far from easy\u2014she was born via an emergency c-section after a high-risk pregnancy. The early days came with their own challenges: Clara struggled with severe jaundice and was petrified of the dark, screaming through the night unless we kept the lights on. But after that rocky start, we enjoyed a blissful six months with her\u2014sleeping through the night from six weeks old and being the perfect baby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything changed after weaning. Clara failed to thrive, becoming emaciated and frail. Countless visits to hospitals and many, many tests for life-limiting conditions and repeated hospital admissions followed. At one point, we were even sent home with the devastating news that there was nothing more the doctors could do! Due to hospital-acquired infections, they believed she would be safer at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, thank goodness, a private referral revealed the cause: Clara couldn\u2019t properly digest food. With the right treatment, she began to recover slowly. However, her journey wasn\u2019t over. Clara has faced other health challenges since, including further tests for serious conditions and a traumatic incident at school where she was impaled on a tree, leaving her with lasting physical and emotional scars. Today, she humorously refers to it as a \u201cshark attack,\u201d fitting for someone who now spends so much time swimming in open water!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though she continues to manage some medical issues, Clara is aware that they are not life-limiting. Visits to specialist hospitals have humbled us, reminding us of the courage of others who face even greater challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clara has always been passionate about sports, especially netball and swimming. When she joined Roedean in 2019 at the age of 11, she fell in love with the sea. This newfound passion led her to begin training for a Channel Relay, initially planned for 2020. But like so many plans, it was delayed due to Covid and eventually took place in June 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That summer, Clara and five other Roedean girls swam in rotation from Dover to France, each completing one-hour shifts through the night across the busiest shipping lane in the world. They reached France after 13 hours and 13 minutes. The experience left Clara inspired, and she immediately set her sights on a new goal: swimming the English Channel SOLO!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The training for a solo swim is intense and gruelling. It involves cold water acclimatisation, countless hours of pool training through the winter, and longer open-water swims as the temperature climbs to just 10 degrees Celsius. A crucial milestone is the qualifying swim\u2014at least six hours in water below 16 degrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although this will be a solo swim, Clara has an entire team supporting her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When deciding which charity to raise funds for, she searched for one that truly resonated with her. By chance, she met someone during a training swim who worked with Taylor Made Dreams. After learning about the TMD organisation, Clara knew it was the perfect fit of her. She could relate deeply to the children they support, given her own life experiences, and saw it as an opportunity to help others while pursuing her own dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never a person to take it easy Clara has another Channel Relay planned for mid-June, with her solo swim set for the beginning of July. So that will be amazing training for THE BIG ONE!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are currently having a website built and dedicated social media pages created to document this entire journey . . . so PLEASE, help if you are able.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Clara’s Parents – Kirstie & Ian Clara was an unexpected gift, especially as we had been told we might face difficulty having children. Her arrival was far from easy\u2014she was born via an emergency c-section after a high-risk pregnancy. The early days came with their own challenges: Clara struggled with severe jaundice and
+ Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/claraschannelswim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/claraschannelswim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/claraschannelswim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/claraschannelswim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/claraschannelswim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/claraschannelswim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130,"href":"https:\/\/claraschannelswim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/claraschannelswim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}