Training Tuesday #3

Three Moments That Changed My Outdoor Swimming Life:

1) Cold water is not a ticket for certain death.

I did my first ever real open water swim in May 2009 in the River Ouse with a friend of mine called Bryn. The water was cold and the mental process of trying to tell myself to get in was torturous. The get in point was just by a bridge and we were going to swim up stream for about ten minutes and then cruise back down. As I slid the first few inches of my leg into the water I could feel the panic coming on-there are no lifeguards! I can’t see the bottom! There are no lane ropes or line markings on the bottom! My brain cracked the whip and a few seconds later I was in and panic swimming for my life, I got under the bridge and all of a sudden realised that something strange had occured-I wasn’t dead. I felt my skin cool and my blood retreat back into my core but I also felt that I had this store of heat ready to help me out when I needed it. From that point on the swim was amazing, stunning scenery, so calm and relaxing. I was hooked. I got out and expected to be a mess, shivering and near death. I got out slowly and found out I was okay, I had lived! Mentally I tried to tell my body to warm up slowly and not to shiver and it worked. I drove back home with one demon laid to rest but with a couple more still nagging at me.

2) Humans float.

I know this sounds daft and I also know hundreds of people who insist they’re sinkers. The fact is, lying on your back with a full breath of air in your lungs and everyone floats. I was a step better off with some extra flotation pounds specially gained to help me float.

10days after my first outdoor swim I was in Jersey at an amazing swimming camp organised by Sally Minty-Gravett I’d stayed the night with a mate and got dropped off at the seafront in St Helier and saw a group of fellow loons getting ready to swim in the harbour. Now in the river I was okay, it was about 2-3metres deep and the side was only ever a few metres away. This was the sea, this is different-I’d filled my head with stories of being swept out to sea and dragged under, I’d never swam in water I couldn’t see the bottom of and was again in a bit of a panic. Annoyingly most of the people I was swimming with were young girls and they didn’t seem to have any problem-I forced myself in and swam out of my depth. Again something strange was happening-I was floating. The bottom was five metres down but could have been a hundred-it didn’t matter, I could float and I could survive the cold.

3) Waves don’t sink you like they do in the movies.

I’d had a great time in the harbours and bays around Jersey and really felt confident with my stroke and with the cold. I still struggled with sighting while I was swimming but was working on it. One thing I hadn’t done was swim in rough water or big waves. This is where swimming camp number 2 came in. I flew to Cork to join Ned Denisons Channel Swimming Camp. I met some amazing people all with solo channel swims in mind and one girl-Lisa Cummins, who’d planned to do a two way. We all trained pretty hard and Ned organised swims in loads of different places and locations. The favourite was Sandy Cove near Kinsale and it was here that Lisa was doing most of her swims. We all tried to make time to swim with her for a few hours while she was doing her 10-14hour training swims and it was during one of these a bit of a storm blew in. At Sandy Cove we swim round and round Goat Island, the near side is pretty sheltered and the far side more exposed. It was swimming on the far side when I first swam in relatively big waves and it was amazing. It took two or three strokes to climb up them, one or two on top and then one or two down the far side-it was a real joy to feel yourself being lifted up and down by these waves and not being pushed to the bottom of the ocean! Since then I’ve manage to swim in some 5-6metre waves-now that’s pretty scary but I float, I can handle the cold and the waves out at sea don’t push you under.

If this helped then have a look at these:

Training Tuesday: Training Swim
Training Tuesday: Background