No! You can swim anywhere you like: a pool, lido, lake, river or the sea. If you are swimming at an outdoor venue, please make sure that it is safe and that you are supervised.

Officially, the challenge runs from September to December. However we know people have busy lives, and that this timing might not suit. We also want swimmers to be able to enjoy outdoor swimming if that is their preference, in the warmer months. So please feel free to start the Challenge at any point - you will be able to log your lengths and start your fundraising from June. Please Register Your Interest so you will be the first to know when the pages are open.

Although taking part in the challenge is FREE, we ask you to raise as much money as you can through our fundraising pages, you will receive rewards when you hit certain fundraising targets.

You can track your distance as you swim the Channel on your profile page. Log in and scroll down until you see "log swim" on your profile. You can add the lengths you've swum, or the distance you've swum in km or miles. If for example you've swum 20 lengths of a 25m pool, add 0.5km distance, and any other details you like and you'll be on your way to virtual France!

Everyone who raises £20 or more will be sent an Aspire Channel Swim hat, with the first being posted out in July.

Our Aspire Channel Swim 2025 hats are made of latex, so if you have an allergy please let us know at swim@aspire.org.uk and we'll ensure one isn't sent to you. Unfortunately we don't have an alternative swim hat available.

Please raise as much as you can. Every two hours someone is paralysed by Spinal Cord Injury, and there is no cure. All the money you raise goes towards our essential work, so aim high! When you set up your page your fundraising target will automatically be set at £200 but you can change this to any amount your wish.

Everyone who raises over £40 will receive a medal or a badge when the challenge has finished.

Everyone is welcome to take part in the Aspire Channel Swim! There's no age minimum or maximum - we've had babies and people over 90 take part and would love for you to take part too!

If you've raised money offline using a sponsor form, there are several options to pay it in.

1. If your sponsor form doesn't have any gift aid, or you didn't use a sponsor form, you can add the funds directly to your Aspire Channel Swim profile.

2. If you'd like to pay by cheque, please make the cheque payable to "Aspire" and post it to:

Aspire Channel Swim
Wood Lane
Stanmore
Middlesex, HA7 4AP

3. If you'd like to pay by bank transfer, please email us at swim@aspire.org.uk

You can create a team on your profile once you've signed up for the Aspire Channel Swim. You can sign up as many people as you like - the more the merrier! You can download our handy "how to create a team" guide here.

The total you are trying to get to is 35,406 metres. This is 22 miles measured in metres. Divide this number, by the length of your pool (your pool will be able to tell you how many metres long it is) and this will give you the number of lengths. If you divide the answer you get by 12, you will see how many lengths you need to do each week of the challenge.

So if your pool is 25m: 35,406 divided by 25 is 1,416 lengths in total. Divide this by 12 weeks to give you an average of 118 lengths per week.

We have created a handy chart below for the most common pool lengths.

This depends on the distance of the lap. The total you are trying to get to is 35,406 metres. This is 22 miles measured in metres. Divide this number, by the distance of the lap (your venue will be able to tell you how many metres long a lap is) and this will give you the number of laps. If you divide the answer you get by 12, you will see how many laps you need to do each week of the challenge.

So if your lap is 500m: 35,406 divided by 500 is 71 laps in total. Divide this by 12 weeks to give you an average of 6 laps per week.

Strava is a great free app you can use to keep track of your swims. Please note it can take up to 24 hours for your miles to appear on your JustGiving page.

To connect Strava to your fundraising page got to edit page > fitness > connect to Strava. You will then need to authorise the connection between your JustGiving page and your Strava page through the pop-up.

Strava will only add swims to your distance tracker, it will not pull through any other activities such as walks or runs that you record on your Strava.

Thanks to our partnership with SWIMTAG, you can now track your Aspire Channel Swim without a fitness tracker. SWIMTAG wristbands are available at over 150 swimming pools across the UK. You can search for your nearest pool on the SWIMTAG website. Even if you don't have a pool close to you with a SWIMTAG system, you can still download the SWIMTAG app and track your swims either by entering them manually, or by linking a swim tracking smart watch such as an Apple watch or Garmin. Just search on the App Store or on Google Play and create your free account. You then just click on the "Challenge" tab, find the Aspire Channel swim and away you go!