Health: Roger Allsop World Record Holder - Living Younger

In the early hours of the morning, a man who is 70 years and 4 months old broke the world record to become the oldest man to swim the English Channel. The whole journey covering over 21 miles took him 17 hours and 51 minutes.

At 2.15 am this morning, while most of his fellow countrymen were nestled in their cosy beds, he dragged his beleaguered body out of the dark waters and into the record books. His historic swim has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for charity.

Roger Allsop, an unassuming Englishman become agitated when, four years ago, an American successfully swam the Channel and took the oldest swimmer record. Roger believed that as this was the English Channel so an English person should hold such a title.

He immediately set about training himself each day over four years regardless of the famous British weather. He says that he made himself swim rain, snow and ice until his body became ready for the hell that he would encounter in the Channel.

Yet, despite all this he still mentally suffered in the first hour of his swim when he thought of the distance and time yet to be covered. Then he found that at different parts of the gruelling route, always against the tides, there were moments of exquisite pain awaiting him.

Roger’s mentality is promoted by the Holy Quran. It teaches humanity:

And every one has a goal which dominates him;
vie, then, with one another in good works. [Holy Quran, 2:149]

Congratulations to Roger and all those with similar personalities, men or women. These are the people who go out and meet life head on. if needed they will stare death in the face. At age 70, they can just be sitting in their homes but they consiously challenge themselves with such good and noble deeds as make others marvel and jealous. It is these people that are descibed by Nike's - Just do it.


The Ahmadiyya Post, Health. By Zubair Ahmed. Aug 31st 2011