Simon
Simon, an IT infrastructure engineer, lives in Reading and, as well as attempting three Great Swims, is getting married this year. While admitting that he’s not keen on running, he says he is something of a swimming beginner with a poor technique as well as other challenges to overcome – though he has managed to swim 40 lengths in the past. He plans on swimming once a week to start with but is prepared to “up it if things don’t improve”. Here’s his blog:
I have to admit that I have loved taking part in the British Gas Great Swim Series 2010.
It was disappointing to miss out on the Great North and Great Scottish events but I still managed to compete in the other three and it was a great experience.
I will have to wait until next year to have a crack at the Scottish and North swims.
I pretty much gave up pool training the first time I managed a mile back in March. After splitting up with my fiancée and watching my poor Astra get crushed because it was a useless lump of metal I started cycling to work, first via the train station and now all the way. This has meant I’ve lost several stone and a few inches off my waist and helped my general fitness.
It was really exciting to get the information pack for Salford. It was the first time I had seen the course and it looked really fun. I love that all the events have a slightly different feel with open loch and lake swimming as well as reservoir and inner city swimming experiences.
After managing a time of 58 minutes on a much shortened course in testing conditions at the East swim, I was delighted with a time of 55 minutes at London.
So after one year in which I became an open water swimmer, I now consider myself a keen cyclist and am keeping the wetsuit ready for next year. Not bad for the tubby bloke who got out of breath wandering from the car to his desk.
Ruth
Ruth is a speech and language therapist currently living in Portsmouth. She is using her Great Swim preparation to improve her general fitness. She is an intermediate swimmer with some past experience and is intending to swim at least twice a week, boosting her fitness with training at home. Here is Ruth’s blog:
As I couldn’t change my plans for the weekend of the British Gas Great North Swim, I decided to look for an alternative event and found one not too far away from Windermere at the Capernwray dive site at Carnforth.
It turned out to be a beautiful setting but as it was in use for divers during the day, we had to wait until 5pm to get in the water, which gave me plenty of time to get into my wetsuit! We didn’t actually need the wetsuits in the end as the water was 18 degrees but I am very glad I had it as 18 degrees is still pretty cold!
The course was just shy of the mile at 1500m although I was a little wide around one of the legs so maybe I did a mile after all!
We had to make three laps of the lake. The first lap was hard. The water was cold, I was in a wetsuit for the first time and I hadn’t appreciated how this would change my swimming. The suit made me more buoyant so I was higher in the water than usual. My feet kept kicking out of the water, which was annoying and meant my arms had to work harder.
I got it under control though and by the third lap I was cruising. I was actually pretty sad to get out and maybe could have gone around again.
I had three targets for the swim – the first was to just complete it and at times I was worried that I wouldn’t make it (I did it though); target two was not be last (I wasn’t); and target three was to complete the event in less than a hour (my official time was 52 minutes and 4 seconds, which I am very pleased with).
Next year, I’m thinking of trying the London Swim – if I can get over my fear of the Thames!
Big Dave
Big Dave lives in Gloucester is a digital media officer at the Meningitis Trust and has an illustrious career of charity fund-raising behind him – though none of it has involved swimming. In fact, Big Dave describes himself as more of a runner – he’s tackled the Bupa Great North Run as well as the Chicago Marathon – and admits to being a swimming novice with a poor technique, which he is trying to improve with the help of swimming lessons. Here’s Big Dave’s blog:
Sadly, I didn’t manage to get in a Great Swim in 2010 at all following the cancellations of both the Scottish and North events.
It was hugely disappointing as I had my wetsuit (and had even swum a mile in it in the open water of Cheltenham Lido) and was all ready to go after several months of quite serious training in my local pool, which went pretty well.
The canellations were both due to blue green algae, which, as I’m something of a biology geek, is more accurately called cyanobacteria. They get their energy through photosynthesis (like plants), produce nasty cyantoxins and, as a general rule of thumb, are just about evreywhwre on the planet. The problem comes from what’s called an algal bloom, when the water’s nice and still and the temperature is just right for an explosion in the numbers of cyanobacteria. Whilst normally, and cyanotoxins produced would be far too dilute in an open water swim to cause any health concerns, with an algal bloom on, the levels become dangerous.
It’s very frustrating for two of the swims to have been canceled, but no one wants to end up seriously ill or dead.
It would have been nice to have had a go at the Salford swim instead, but as I had other plans that weekend I simply couldn’t be there.
So, my plan for next year is to do two Great Swims (not sure which yet) but I’m aiming to do them both faster than Simon’s average overall time – and at least one will be faster than his fastest (not that we’re competitive or anything).
Charlotte
Charlotte is a Community Fundraiser for Barnardo’s in the North West. She is an experienced swimmer and trains several times each week with Manchester Triathlon Club and also swims alone (doing between 64 and 100 25m lengths each time), though she admits to using Great Swim to improve her overall fitness.
Great Swim cannot be held responsible for any loss or injury resulting from any information contained within this website or from any other websites linked to this site.