I love swim. I'm happy in the water. But for a few years the mere thought of getting in a lake would be enough to give me a dull sense of dread in the pit of my stomach. I would find any excuse not to go, and typically I didn't venture into any water other than the local pool. I swam open water a handful of times in 2015, including my first ever sea swim and an ill-advised foray into middle distance triathlon. To be fair, the swim was probably the least of my worries on that day. Note to self, training helps.
This year has been fairly traumatic. Family stuff of epic proportions, and my beloved Daddy had a stroke in March. I stayed with my parents for several weeks afterwards, doing my best to support them through the early days of recovery. And thankfully the recovery has happened beyond what I could have hoped for. My Dad has been brilliant. Whilst I was at home, I started swimming more frequently - it was downtime, time to zone out, switch my head off and just swim. In April I swam 20 miles. The pool started to seem a bit dull, the chlorine started to kill my hair and my sinuses, and after the very real stress of recent events, open water swimming didn't seem so scary anymore.
I'd heard about the Cotswolds 10km swim from friends. It was run by the same team who hosted the 226 long distance triathlon Mr. Cake (him indoors) had done last year, and it was from all accounts a very well organised and friendly affair. I was only looking. Honestly I was. But then I seemed to have entered it.
Flash forwards several weeks - training had comprised of swimming 3-4 times per week (on a good week), with 1-2 open water sessions. For the first time in my life I'd dragged myself out of bed to swim before work (probably the busiest I've ever seen the local pool - and almost all of the swimmers were of the retired pensioner variety - who'd have thunk it!?), and I would swim a minimum of 1 mile per session. I did the 5km Big Swim in Nottingham, the day before the Outlaw triathlon (new marathon PB - whoop whoop!) and that was the longest OW swim I did in the lead up to the marathon swim (I like saying that :) ).
The day before the event Mr. Cake and I drove down to the Cotswolds. It was a gloriously sunny day, and far too sticky in the car to be comfortable. Arriving at the campsite was a relief, as was the mini milk lolly I had before putting the tent up. I say that as if I helped. I didn't. Mr. Cake assembled said tent whilst I ate crisps. I'd done the driving, so I think this was fair. Ish.
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| Helping with the tent. |
Once the tent was up and the crisps had been eaten, we had a wander down to Lake 62 which was where the swim would take place the next day. One of the organisers was there setting up for the next day, and we met his lovely dog Shadow, who was a) very excitable, b) very wet, and c) had the biggest 'ball' I've ever seen a dog playing with.
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| This is Shadow. Shadow has a buoy. There are many like it, but this one is Shadow's. |
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| All quiet the day before. |
The rest of the day was spent eating, hydrating (I say this rather than 'drinking' as no alcohol was involved and camping + drinking to me implies booze) and lounging around. We chatted with others on the campsite who would also be swimming the next day. No one I spoke to was doing the 10km swim. I was starting to get a bit nervous.
As tends to be the case when nerves strike, a disturbing thought occurred to me.
What happens if, mid-swim, you need the toilet? And not to pee. Peeing in a wetsuit is quite a well-known thing. I've never done it (I've never tried, my brain just doesn't compute with peeing in my clothing...) but I know people who do. Apparently it helps to keep you warm.
But what if you need to poop?
As the sun set over the campsite, the smell of campfires in the air and the light fading into inky darkness, Mr. Cake and I whiled away the hours discussing wetsuit poop flaps, floaters and other such delights. The phrase "Code Brown" was uttered. It was a magical night.
Sunday morning and I wasn't so much nervous as buzzing with excitement. The "Oh my god, what the hell am I doing?" nerves had been replaced with a "bring it on!" bounciness. We headed to the lake, me singing along to Smash Mouth's All Stars (The water's getting warm so you might as well swim!) and Mr. Cake admitting that he was "shitting it" about his 5km swim. I hoped not literally, as the previous night's conversation had offered no obvious solutions to the mid-swim poop dilemma.
The 10km swim was due to start at 8:45am. I was wearing a rash vest under my wetsuit, and had applied liberal amounts of Sports Shield ('For Her' - it comes in a pink bottle and contains aloe vera for lady skin, which is obviously very different to man skin). It was quite fortunate it wasn't too warm. The overcast sky was a welcome change from the blazing sun of the day before. The water was 20.3C, and overheating would have been a distinct possibility.
The Costwolds 10km swim is 10 laps of a 1km loop. On each lap, you swim to a pontoon and 'tap-in' on a timing mat, which registers the timing chip you wear around your right wrist. For the 10km and 5km swimmers, this pontoon also holds a feeding station - each swimmer has a designated place on a wooden frame where they could store 2 bottles (~750ml size) and gels/jelly babies/food, or whatever other hydration/fuel they wanted. I had one bottle of water and one of Lucozade (I like it, it doesn't upset my stomach, and it would rehydrate effectively), and also a packet of Nakd Berry Bits.
My plan to refuel and rehydrate was to stop after 3-4km, then again at 6km and 8km. Anything in addition to that would be based on feel. As it turned out, this worked well and I didn't need anything more.
Getting in the water is usually the hardest bit for me. I'm a wimp with the temperature change. Today though I didn't have much choice about easing myself in - there were a load of people queuing up behind me. The water was actually really nice - warm for open water, and the acclimatisation was barely needed.
The klaxon went. We swam. There was no washing machine start, which is usually the case with triathlon swims. This was something I had been worried about, but with less than 50 people in the water it was calm (the shorter distance swimmers had different start times - this did mean faster, fresher people were entering the water as the 10km swimmers were tiring, but looking at the positives this presented drafting opportunities!). The water was green, and weedy nearer the edges. The buoys were big and bright, and easy to sight.
I swam. And swam. And swam. I wear a Garmin 910xt, and my pace would usually see me complete a kilometre in about 18 minutes. I finished the first lap in 20 minutes, and I measured it nearer 1.1km. 10% over. Hmm. This might makes things a bit more interesting.
I was hoping for a 3 hours 30 minutes (ish) finish. I certainly wanted to be done within 4 hours. The first 5km took me 1hr 36, so allowing for some slowing I thought my 3:30 target was achievable.
Long distance swimming is very repetitive. This isn't new information. Having never swum beyond 2hrs before, I had been a bit concerned about the mental side of things. What would my brain do whilst I was swimming? Turns out it was able to entertain me fairly easily. A trick I often use when swimming, cycling or running is to do maths. What distance have I done? What would that be if I converted it between miles/kilometres? How many laps of a 25 metre pool does it equate to? What percentage of an Ironman swim is that? What pace do I need to achieve x/y/z finish time? It passes the time :)
I spent a good two laps listing as many Harry Potter characters as I could think of. I even split them into different categories - students. Ministry of Magic employees. Deatheaters. Members of the Order of the Phoenix. I got through a fair few. Then I listed all of the horcruxes and their locations/means of destruction. Those were quite an enjoyable few laps.
As I tired, my brain started to wander. I couldn't concentrate as well, and I spent what felt like forever trying to work out what 9x700 was. I was saying to myself "do 9x7" but then couldn't think how many zeros I needed. Seeing as I'm a go-to person when it comes to mental arithmetic, this was a good sign that I was flagging. I eventually worked out my maths and swapped instead to my A-Z game - working my way through the alphabet naming for each letter something on a specific category. I heard once that swearing helps to cope with pain and discomfort, so today was swear words and curses - all said in the voice of Brian Blessed. I was quite impressed with my creativity. I don't think my Mum would be though :)
I completed my ninth lap in a time of 3:27, with my Garmin measuring 6.2 miles - just over 10km. Unfortunately, I still had one lap to go. Still, I consoled myself as I set off on the last lap, I had achieved my target time for the distance.
As I swam that final lap, a thought occurred to me. When I finished I would have swum nearly 7 miles. Would it be silly to bring it up to the distance? I was already knackered, so it was a stupid thought. But when am I likely to swim 7 miles again? "Just get out" I told myself. Do the lap, get out, and get dry. As I neared the finish though... my swim OCD took over. I like neat numbers you see. Something needs to end in a zero (or a five), be it time or distance. And I'll swap between metric and imperial depending on what suits the neatness. My ideal pool swim is 4km. This is 160 laps of a 25m pool, and also happens to be 2.5 miles (I've made peace with the rouge few metres, and will swim them without including them in the lap count - it would throw it off. I am normal, honest).
So I swam to the pontoon and tapped in - 6.92 miles. I asked the marshal if I could just swim for a few more minutes - he waved his hand at me in disbelief, but he didn't say no. So off I went. A couple of minutes later, I had 7.02 miles as headed for the pontoon ramp and clambered onto my feet.
Standing at the side of the lake was my husband and my friends. Any congratulations that might have been coming were overshadowed by bewilderment at me having finished, then setting off again. "Are you insane?" greeted me as I stumbled out of the water, grinning like a loon. Yes, I think I might be.
Would I do it again? Definitely. I felt a huge sense of achievement from that swim. It wasn't something I'd have believed I was capable of, and I surprised myself. I also quite like the bragging rights of being a 'marathon swimmer' :)
