It has to be said that 3am on a Sunday morning is not an optimum time to be rudely awoken, given that I’ve done my time of getting up to babies in the night.

After what seemed like years of middle-of-the-night feeds, I thought those days were gone.

And so it was to my surprise that I enthusiastically and rather rashly entered the Henley swim, 2.1km in the Thames upstream along the Henley regatta course. With my recently discovered seize the day attitude and a healthy degree of competitive spirit, I signed up at 6pm the night before, with the sum total of no preparation whatsoever but a bucket-load of enthusiasm and a wetsuit hanging somewhere in the garage.

Perhaps it’s being mum to just boys that makes me so keen to show them that girls can do stuff too.

No gender stereotyping is my mantra and I’ve nearly killed myself in pursuit of the proof that women can try anything and sport shouldn’t be a male-dominated pastime.

Saturday morning was living proof of this when we stumbled across an Army recruitment tent in a busy shopping mall. The opportunity to be the only female taking part in the sit-up challenge was too much of a lure for me to pass up and it was to the total embarrassment of my family, that I found myself in the thick of a crowded precinct pumping out sit-ups as if my life depended on it. I’d seen the leader board, my only competition was an 11-year-old boy and I didn’t let that stand in my way. A tick in the Army recruitment fitness test box and a slightly bemused soldier wondering quite why I’d bothered given I have a job already and that as of yet, the Army doesn’t provide childcare. I’ve always felt that embarrassing your children is a very overlooked asset of parenting.

And so, Sunday morning 3am arrived. My first hurdle was trying to find my swimming costume, last seen at some stage around February time. By the time I arrived at the river at 3.30am with shorts and T-shirt replacing the lost swimming costume the fear was beginning to mount.

Suddenly what had seemed an exciting challenge a mere nine hours before, suddenly felt like a death wish.

There is little more intimidating than a field full of whippet thin wetsuit-clad athletes warming up for what seemed to be an inconceivable distance to swim, in the dark (which did at least make the floating goose droppings harder to spot).

My only aim was to get to the end of the course without drowning. Thankfully the lady who signed me up had obviously spotted I was a total novice and I was put in the last group, otherwise known as the flayling idiots.

Positioning myself towards the back of even this group, I set off swimming what may be known as a medley of strokes. A bit of crawl, a bit of breast stroke, a bit of back stroke and quite a lot of chatting to the people swimming around me.

It’s fair to say I wasn’t challenging Rebecca Adlington but somehow I managed to keep going.

I swallowed more than a few mouthfuls of eau de Thames which seem to have had little effect my iron constitution thankfully. As I heaved myself out at the end with only a few people still going, I was fairly sure that my career choice of dentist over international swimmer had been a good one.

Taking the wetsuit off took nearly as long as the swim itself and I’m pretty sure I invented a few new yoga moves in the process but by the time I arrived back home at 6.30am, everyone was still sleeping soundly. There was a certain smugness to sitting with a cup of tea as the family rose slowly.

“You’re up early Mum, why is your hair wet?”

“Well son, that’ll be because I got up at 3am and just swam 2.1km in the river.” (trying to appear nonchalant).

“Nice one Mum. I’m proud of you.”

Leaving out the bit about the doggy paddle and the coming almost last, I proved my point. Do something every day that challenges you and NEVER tell a girl she can’t do something.