19th August 2021, Swim Around Torbay with friends.

(before and after photos)

(Rocky coastline)

A year and a day ago, on 18 August 2020 I did my longest sea swim so far, 4.5km from Paignton to Torquay, a distance I didn’t surpass until earlier this month, with a 5km swoosh on 7th August 2021 and a 7km adventure swim (LINK) last Sunday 15th. I barely had time to revel in these though before I found myself swimming 11km all the way round the bay today, from Brixham harbour to Torquay harbour! There is a nice symmetry in that I swam the direct route across the bay on Sunday, then the longer way hugging the coastline 4 days later – past Elberry cove, Broadsands, Goodrington, Paignton Sands, Preston Sands, Hollicombe, Livermead and Torre Abbey Sands. This swim came about quite unexpectedly. I met a lovely bunch of swim/runners when I went to the Scilly isles in June, who were both welcoming and adventurous, and I liked them straight away. We have carried on the adventures since we got back, and I found myself invited on an annual swim-round-the-bay by Sue and Pauline – I didn’t need asking twice! In terms of physical effort I have been capable of swimming these distances for some time, I enjoyed distance swimming at a young age and I had kept up my stamina, but the sea has taken me a long time to get used to, and finding people to include me in their adventures is the eternal elusive element, so I was overjoyed to be partaking in this. It was billed as a fun day with café and chip stops, although not without a risk element, given the harbours and jet ski lanes. We would stop at Broadsands and Paignton Sands, breaking the swim into three roughly equal segments. The night beforehand I didn’t feel nervous at all, just excited to have the day off work doing something so epic, although a few nerves crept in once we were sitting in our wetsuits on the 10am ferry from Torquay to Brixham, with unknown sea wildlife imminent. We had an enjoyable wildlife moment on the ferry, with a pod of dolphins right off the bow.

(Dead man's rope)

We walked together round Brixham harbour to the final slipway that is clear of all the boats. This was a slipway that really lived up to its name, and we had to be careful walking down the carpet of bladderwrack and gutweek. The tide was fully out, with the aim that the incoming tide would help push us across to Torbay. The water was much calmer today than Sunday, both on the surface and underneath, and much clearer too, with the potential for seeing all sorts down below, and I was wary at first, but that quite quickly turned to enjoyment of the challenge, in fact it was such an apparent transition that I even clocked the time: 13 minutes! This is the life or wild adventures that I want to be living, 5 years ago I didn't even know it was possible. We were swimming close to the shore but it is all towering cliffs here and the sea is deep even close in, so there was an occasional glimpse of some yellowy rocks but mostly the water was a gorgeous, calm, deep blue. A wildlife cruise boat went pass, giving us a wide berth, and we paused for a moment to be tourist attractions and wave at the passengers as we heard the tannoy announce ‘and here you can see a paddleboard, and a pod of swimmers…’

(Checking for boats at Elberry)

I was still feeling the after effects of Sunday, with a widely chafed neck and a sore left shoulder, so I had decided to swim breaststroke today, thankfully that is my strongest stroke and I can keep up with others doing crawl. I was keeping time with Pete and Sue, swimming behind them to utilise a draft effect and save my energy, but Pauline in her new wetsuit was super speedy and kept having to wait for us. We joked that she had channelled the spirit of Karen, another friend who had been due to join us but unfortunately couldn’t come. We would pause often to re-group, and every time we did I had another pee. There is something about open water swimmers that it seems to be a mark of honour to not only pee, but to announce it too. I managed 15 pees on that first leg, the winner by far.

(Relative safety)

The water intrigued us. The tidal flow was meant to be heading NNE, the wind was heading NE, the tide was coming in so should be pushing towards Torquay, so we expected the water to be heading across the bay the same as us (for the most part we would be heading NNE), yet if we paused it was evident we were getting pushed gently back the way we had come, and the occasional strands of seaweed were bending towards us too. On this first leg we were actually heading West, with the cliffs to our south against which the flood tide would be pushing, so it is understandable that here we wouldn’t get a full assist, but even further out the cruise ships were facing to the West.

(Urban coastline at Paignton)

Approaching Elberry there were some large patches of Dead man’s rope seaweed. I was really pleased that during my week on the Scilly isles my new companions had spent some time providing me with aversion therapy for my fear of seaweek. Namely taking me on a swim/run tour of an island where the only option was to swim through many forests of it! I took the opportunity to look for seahorses hiding within it, as I know this is a known habitat for them, but they were too elusive. We stayed close to the shore, not cutting across Elberry cove until the last minute, as this is one of the two places locally with a jetski lane enabling them to come all the way into the shore with unrestricted speed, and we didn’t want to meet one of those. From there it was only about 1km round the rocks to Broadsands, where we had our first stop at the café, we’d swum roughly 3.5km on the first leg.

(Big buoy!)

Typically the clouds lowered just as we arrived, bringing mist and rain, but we found a large umbrella to sit under, and enjoyed homemade lamb and pistachios patties along with shop-bought hot drinks, and laughed and joked and shivered. Where was the bright sunshine that the forecast had promised for today? It seemed that all the predictions had been wrong. We had all felt quite cold on the last stretch. The mist lifted a little and we watched the cruise ships re-appear out in the bay, and somebody noticed that they had now swung round and were now facing the way we expected. That boded well for speeding us along but didn’t make us any warmer. We walked along the stretch of beach to warm up before re-entering, but I was really struggling with the motivation to get back in. The thing that drove me on was that I hadn’t swum the next section before, whereas I had previously swum the third leg. Plus the fact that the other were neck deep now and about to swim off, so I swum on to follow them, but kept my head out until the warm blood started pumping again. My neck had started to ache from swimming breaststroke so I invented a hybrid leg kick where I could do the breaststroke kick followed by a bit of a futter kick, to keep my head in for longer. This section was really pretty. There was a low, rocky coastline to our left, and interesting seaweed in the shallows below us. There was a rock fin with a notch that we swum through, gliding over rocks and weed that were just inches below our faces. Somehow Pete managed to miss the gap and swim headfirst into the rock to the left, but maybe hopefully some sense back in!

(Drippy in the chippy)

So far I hadn’t seen a single jellyfish, but on the second leg I counted 5 compasses and 3 crystals. And had 5 more pees. And a steam train chugging out of Paignton. We spotted the marker than identified the exit of Paignton harbour, then from there it was another careful, speedy dash over to the large red buoy for a photo opportunity. Then it was just a short distance in to Paignton pier. I had actually been warm enough for this whole leg, right up to now, but the chill was starting to set in again and I was keen to exit the water and enjoy some chips. Peter, never having swum this far, was ready for another break too, forgetting about his sighting and deviating off in leftwards zig before a returning zag. In the chippy on the pier we sat straight down at a conveniently empty table, then got prompty evicted to an outdoor table as we were dripping on the seats.

(Secret door at the Redcliff)

It was easier to get back in for the last leg. We were tired but our spirits were still high. We passed a cool little door set into the sea wall at the top of some steps, under the Redcliffe hotel. Something weird had happened to the sea though! It was calm still until after Paignton sands, then all of a sudden we passed some caves and two sizable waves came past in quick succession, like the wake of a boat, or splashback off a cliff. There was no boat in sight though. There was a brief pause, then suddenly the whole sea was like it, waves coming from the open bay, and coming back at us off the cliffs, at least a foot high with a 1 second repeat. I’ve swum in waves plenty of times but these were quite unusual, a wake-without-a-cause, rather than surf or swell. There were a lot more jellyfish here too, on this section I counted 18 compasses, 9 crystals. And I had 4 more pees. Front crawl was more effective in this sea, so I tried a bit of that. I could avoid chafing my neck by doing a whole body roll, which can be an effective stroke anyway. I could only go so far though before my left shoulder would twinge, and I would have to switch back to breaststroke, then I would do that until my knees or neck hurt, and switch back. It got to the point I was in pain on every stroke, but the neck was worst, it felt like my spinal discs were about to pop. Here it might sound like I wasn’t enjoying myself, but it was still feeling great. This was always going to be a big swim, but we were doing it, and it was manageable.

(Compass jelly)

We were taking a direct line to Torquay harbour here rather than following the coast, being tossed and turned by the sea, we hadn't bothered stopping to explore the caves either. A high performance rib went pass, fast and noisy, and jet black, and we kept our ears keenly turned to the air inbetween strokes to listen for its return. We figured it was probably on a 30 minute tourist trip so we should have time to reach the 5 knot buoy and be safe beyond it, but just in case we stuck close together ready to raise out towfloats to increase our visibility, and we made it without mishap.

(Finished!)

Then it was all over! We had made it, all four of us as a wonderful unit, 11km total, although my strava had to go one better and say 14km. 6:38 elapsed time, and 5 hours of that in the water. There was only time for a quick hug before we had to rush off, as three of us had committed to be in Plymouth for the firework championships. This would mean yet another swim to watch the fireworks from a prime spot in Tinside East bay, with about 40 other swimmers and a floating bar, for which Peter was one of the two barman. I definitely won’t have another day like this in a hurry, one for the memory banks!

(GPS track)

(The floating bar at the fireworks)

Across Torbay, Pete Wilby adventure swim

My alarm went at 6:30 after 5 hours sleep, so I could get down to Meadfoot to meet the boat to Churston Cove for the start of a 6.5km adventure swim (see photo showing Churston from Meadfoot, way across the bay beyond the cruise liners). Thankfully, despite a couple of snoozes, I arrived in good time to make somehow pay for the toilets three times, systematically work through all my swim kit to check I had everything I needed, and change. I needn’t have worried as the boats were running late… an hour late as it turned out, an inauspicious start, given that we assumed the timings had been carefully chosen so we could swim on the slack tide. Then the motor of the first boat cut out three times inbetween its approach to the slipway and actually reaching it, also concerning. The boat journey across the bay was an event in itself – this was a small rib (see photo), with a skipper and 5 people crammed into it, in a feisty sea and force 4 wind, heading directly into all the face of the choppy waves which came thick and fast. There was a lot of spray, and I was repeatedly soaked. I didn’t really expect this, and in my shortie wetsuit I got quite cold. The pre-event briefing we had been sent said not to bring any clothes into the boat, just swim kit, so I had followed this although everybody else had brought warmer layers on with them. About half way over I idly asked the skipper how rough a sea he could take the boat out in. He replied with “shouldn’t even be out in this”, to which I clung onto the ropes a bit tighter and my hands got frozen into claws.

Standing on the beach at Churston cove I was shivering, everyone else had full length suits and I was the only one in a shortie. We had to wait a bit longer as the other boat had broken down again and my boat had to go out and pick up the other swimmers. Before we began the swim, Pete briefed us on the safety – there would be one rib leading the way with a flag; two prone rescue boards flanking the swimmers; one boarder bringing up the rear; one spare boarder for general support; and the other rib moving between everyone overseeing it all and bringing our nutrition. This was different to the impression that I got from the original brief, which was that there would be a craft with each swim pod of similar speed swimmers, rather than the crew surrounding the whole group which could possibly get very spread out if the swimmers were of different speeds. I like to know and fully understand what I am getting into, especially with new and intense situations, and what with the safety system and the clothing on the boats already being different to expected my levels of distress were rising. To some of us that is how our brains work, we think a lot and gather information so it’s hard to then change tack, and that’s a perfectly valid way to be, but often not understood by others. The distress coupled with already being cold meant I wasn’t in the mood to even start. I wasn't worried about the distance - I hadn't trained much as I'd been out of the water between March and July but I've put plenty of time into swim and stamina training over the years - this was all about the mental side which for me is the biggie. And my brain was struggling. But I had paid and I had got that far, so I begun.

Most swimmers surged off straight away, I needed to acclimatise and a friend hung back for me as we’d agreed to swim together. I was concerned that I wouldn’t make the whole swim and she’d end up on her own far from anyone else, which was a good incentive to get going. As we started to swim I was actually moving a little faster and having to switch to breaststroke to stay with her, which meant I wasn’t warming up, so we agreed to separate. I could just see a bunch of towfloats in the distance, thankfully in a group making them easier to spot (and alarmingly off route a bit to the left) so I struck out for them. At this point I was totally on my own, and crossing a bit of sea that while on the boat had had a string of jetskis passing at high speed in quick succession. Thankfully they didn’t come back past then, I don’t think they would have seen me in time. There were a couple of yachts though, keeling over impressively. I passed one of our support crew on a board, he was going the other way but paused for me to say that my friend was also swimming alone and he checked that he could see her which made me feel less guilty about splitting up. After a while I realised I wasn’t going to catch the group up, they were swimming at the same speed. I kept thinking I was, but it’s just that I had crested a wave so they looked closer. I didn’t feel too bad about swimming alone behind the pod. I normally freak out when I swim in the sea as the ocean is always changing – dark one minute, light the next, here a sudden patch of weed, there a jellyfish that appeared out of nowhere, but today it was reassuringly consistent. With the sea being so choppy the sediment was disturbed so I could only see down a little way, and it was a bright day despite being overcast so the water was yellow all round, hiding the fact that it is up to 17m deep across the bay at high tide. But my calm didn’t last as my neoprene sleeve popped out of the shoulder of my wetsuit (the sleeves are separate items that you tuck in), and I started to think I wouldn’t be able to attract the attention of any staff, and what if something more serious went wrong? I waved a few times with a quiet call but nobody saw. Thankfully when I shouted louder somebody heard and came back to help – unfortunately I couldn’t do it myself as I was wearing neoprene gloves, rendering me helpless.

A little while later the group ahead paused to re-group and I caught them up. I said “thank god I caught you, I thought there would be a boat”, meaning a craft of some sort near me while I was my own pod. The other crew said “so did we”. “Wait”, I said, “is there no boat at all?” “There’s meant to be, but we don’t know where it is”. This was alarming, the main safety boat has gone AWOL and the other crew aren’t in communication with it? I was surprised they didn’t have radios, I had done a relay race in Budleigh the Sunday before and there were three kayaks out all with their own radios, and that was just a 400m course. My distress levels were topped back up, but I carried on as the swimming itself was going just fine, and sometimes you just need waves smashing in your face to being you back to life, and other general life worries began to dissolve away. Whilst in the pod my friend re-materialised having got into her pace, caught me up and continued on ahead faster than I could keep up with along with the others, I was pleased she wasn’t alone, even though she is an extremely competent swimmer and has done may of these events before.

After an hour I started to feel the first hint that I was cooling down. For the second time today I thought I wouldn’t finish the swim, since it was due to be 3 to 3 ½ hours in total. Thankfully, very soon after that, the rib appeared – hoorah! And a little while later came back bringing our nutrition supplies for a mid-way feed. Eating mid-swim was a strange feeling but I think it helped give my body an energy boost. For liquid I was using a bottle attached to my tow float, and I was convinced that the level in it was actually going up, but it still tasted of lush squash, so if any salt water had seeped in it was still less salty than the sea, which was shockingly salty when I put my face back in.

I just continued pressing on, in a flow now. A toot from Marella Discovery, one of the cruise ships in the bay (see photo), seeped into my consciousness as the main pod of swimmers went past it. ‘Ooh that’s a nice gesture’ I thought, shortly followed by ‘unless it’s warning us of a shark’. It occurred to me that while I was cold and shivering (and it was my core rather than my legs), I wasn’t getting any worse and I wasn’t in any trouble, unlike my experiences over the recent winter. I had been wet and cold up on mountains but wasn’t worried then, so this was no different, and I started chanting to myself “just got to get off this mountain”. The waves had picked up a bit. Occasionally one broke over me and when I swung my arm forward it never breached the surface, but I actually really enjoy swimming in a proper sea. There is a limit of course, when you can’t rise and fall with the swell and are unable to breathe, but with a lower level of swell or chop it actually feels like the sea is doing what it’s meant to be doing, and it’s nice to be at one with that rhythm. I was looking straight down and not seeing anything, which pleased me. There was the odd scrap of weed that whizzed past on one stroke and was entirely gone the next, and the same with some compass jellyfish – one near Churston and a few more nearer Meadfoot, but there were so few that they didn’t faze me, even though I had to dodge a particularly large one. Although there was nothing notable beneath me, at the same time there was everything – a swirling, shifting mass of one-dimensional colour. It occurred to me that it was like blinking inside a whirlwind, everything churning around and different on each stroke.

Slowly Meadfoot crept closer. The sun came out a little too, which lightened the lively waters beneath me and warmed my arms and shoulders, and I knew I would finish then. At this point I had dropped so far behind the main pod that I had my own prone board as support, she was getting blown by the wind so we were never side by side but I was pleased to have a companion. I had to make a couple of stops to adjust my kit. My sleeves popped out a couple of times, and also my suit sometimes started flushing water which cooled me down too much. I was wearing a buff to prevent chafing, and somehow, despite the gloves, I managed to push it down the back of the suit just pulling a little bit back up to minimise the chafe, which worked well to stop the water invading, and I managed to maintain my remaining warmth. Inbetween those pauses I had a really good stroke going. I was breathing every fourth stroke which was really unlike me, I’m usually every two when there are waves, and bilateral otherwise, but that was too much oxygen today so I dropped the frequency. It was easy to relax here as I no longer needed constant mental awareness, sighting was easy as the cliff was closer and much more prominent up ahead, and oceanic wildlife was reassuringly absent. I did a mental assessment at this point: sea conditions – perfect; fear - none; energy levels – fine, both shoulders starting to ache but otherwise good; distress and unhappiness – high. But the reasons for the distress were behind me and suddenly I realised the rest was great and I was enjoying myself for the first time

My support pointed out the main pod way ahead, barely visible from my low position in the water, and said to aim for them, this was a little off my original track so I picked a suitable tree on the cliff above them and struck for that. But some time later she said that they weren’t in the right place after all so gave me a new heading to Meadfoot slipway, which was actually where I had been heading in the first place. Now though we had moved in line with it and I had to swim across the current to get to it, and it was hard work. In fact, after a bit of strong pulling I was suddenly alarmed that I might have been swimming in the same spot for quite some time so I looked around me for some features to take reference off. I wondered if I would have to be picked up tantalisingly close to the finish line. I spotted a buoy nearby, and although I was, thankfully, progressing past it toward the shore, I was also getting swept north east. My crew and I hatched a plan where she would go and hang on to the buoy, then the next one, and I would aim west and gradually creep closer to her, and that worked. With this greater effort I was definitely warmer, and it didn’t matter that the sun had gone again and it had started to rain. I heard a strange unidentified tinkling noise in the water that I have heard before, and thought my tinnitus was playing up, but a moment later a boat appeared from my rear flank and cut across me so close I was instantly bouncing in its wake. My support had tried to attract their attention to tell them to be careful to no avail. Thankfully though I was one buoy away from the shore now, and this one was the 5 knot buoy (see photo) beyond which no boats can go faster than this. My slow creep forward against the current eventually paid off and I was at the slipway, crawling up on all fours as I couldn’t seem to find my feet and operate my land legs. I was given a chocolate muffin which I practically inhaled, then went to the car to get dry and warm, before returning to the slip to soak up the atmosphere of the finish. A little stock check revealed some chafed patches on my neck despite k-tape, luub AND the buff; my tongue was sore and I looked really strange (see photo); I couldn't lift my arms very high; and the contents of my dry bag that had my nutrition in had been stood on and the satsuma obliterated leaving a juicy orange coating over all the other items, but apart from that all was good and I had made it! It had been just the right level of challenge to feel like I was doing something quite special. I’d swum the distance – 7370m in the end with the course adjustments - total time in water 3:19 (see strava track), I actually wasn’t shivering, and it was time to celebrate in the café with a hot chocolate. And a halloumi salad. And a chocolate bar. And a cider. Well, that’s what we do all this for, isn’t it? 😊

PureTrail Tsunami

I love it when a race *feels* good. That's why I train, it feels awful if your body is sluggish and your muscles are undertrained and you're in pain on the way round. I used to feel that for a 6 mile cross country race 13 years ago, I've come a long way since then! Not that all the prep went well for this. I badly sprained my ankle at the end of January, taking me out of full training for 12 weeks which left 5 weeks to train and 2 weeks to taper, and I picked up another 3 calf strains in that time. Then the night before the race I was in a strange town packed full of football supporters making queues outside each eatery and I couldn't find anywhere to get a substantial meal, I eventually had to go for a tandoori (which I'd been trying to avoid). I also couldn't sleep that night - my usually comfortable car was roasting hot and seemed shorter than usual and at a funny angle. On race day morning I couldn't poop, and in running round the registration field to try to expedite that I found I'd wrenched my knee from an uncomfortable sleeping position. Thankfully a combination of ibuprofen and light wiggles on the race bus to the start line sorted that out, and the poo would have to wait!!

In anticipating the race, I knew I could do the distance, but there were four cutoffs which worried me, especially the first - 11 miles to Clovelly in 3.5 hours. It doesn't sound too bad, but this a notoriously hilly route, 7,800 feet of ascent over the whole thing, and over a long run without even that much ascent I am often close to that speed so I felt like it would be a tight thing. I also heard that it may be closer to 12 miles to Clovelly in reality, which threw my calculated needed-pace out of the window so I did a quick recalculation. I set off trying to maintain 16 minute miles and settled at about 15:30 which gave me a good buffer against any steep hills. I was actually running to heart rate - with a cap of 158... if it went over this (which was anything above a light uphill) I switched to speed-hiking until it came down again. This cap stopped me going crazy at the start on the flats, as my legs felt full of beans for the first few miles.

The route to Clovelly was mostly in woodland and it was so pretty with the dappled lights and the foxgloves nicely complementing the pink PureTrail route marking flags. A couple of other runners commented how you could see the town of Clovelly in the distance round the sweep of the bay but it never seemed to get any closer, but that didn't bother me, I wasn't think of the race as a series of points that I needed to reach, just an amazing stretch of coast path to enjoy along the way. The first few miles were up and down and then it levelled off after about 8 miles. I reached Clovelly after 2:37, 38 minutes before the cutoff, and the panic was over then. In fact, I felt really good so I carried on at the same pace.

I started to get a rub on my left heel - I was wearing Injinji socks with the individual toe compartments to try and stop my toes running together which usually causes me big problems with blisters, but I haven't used these socks much and it turns out there is a ridge where the material goes from thin to thick, which sat right where the back of the shoe meets my heel. Thankfully I had brought a change of socks, my beloved low cut balegas, so I changed the left one which felt great so a couple of miles later I changed the other one. Thankfully that did the job and the blister that had already been appearing settled down and I had very few other foot problems, they started rubbing towards the end but much less than I am used to - that's down to a recent change to 361 Taroki 2 shoes which are very soft.

Once I'd found my rhythm I used my usual motivational tactic - to spot the next runner ahead of me and try to slowly catch up with them. In a race I usually start slow and gradually speed up once I get an idea of how I'm feeling (I don't find I get caught up in the vibe too much and start too fast), but I thought that wouldn't happen this time with the faster start due to the harder first cutoff, however I still managed to find a bit of extra oomph and actually I was feeling thankful of that faster start to get me going as obviously I was capable of it after all.

All the other runners I met before the race were talking about the hills - there are certainly a lot of hills, with steep ups and steep downs, but I've got to admit I didn't mind them one bit. I spend a lot of time on the South West Coast path, and I have now completed 70% of it, and hills are just par for the course. There was no one hill where I started to think 'blimey this one goes on a bit', unlike when hiking up mountains in Scotland, I guess the time I have spent ticking relentless mountain summits has helped me here.

The second aid stop came at 21 miles at Hartland Quay, there were lots of marathon runners here which was a shock after the quiet trails so far, they'd even drunk all the coke 😉 The aid stations after this came more frequently, every 4-5 miles instead of every 10-11, which was really great as it was a warm day and I could have coke in one bottle and squash in the other without having to worry about running out. The aid stop staff were all wonderful too, all making you feel like you were doing great. All the snacks were individually wrapped due to covid regulations, so after I'd filled up my bottles I pocketed a pack of crisps and two sweet items and ate on the move. I was so hungry around lunchtime I was craving sandwiches (and beer and gin!) but between aid stations and my own snacks I managed to get enough down me to stave off the hunger. Speaking of food.. and thinking of the tandoori the night before... I still hadn't had my morning poo! At some point I squatted down for my third wee and I realised that it was ready, but I was in an exposed spot so couldn't go there. I ran on trying to find somewhere to stop but it was a narrow path fully all hemmed in by prickly undergrowth. Finally at 26.6 miles we ran past a quarry and just after there was the perfect spot to be out of sight and go. Ooh that was a relief!

The views kept coming and were all amazing. I have't run any of this stretch previously as I was saving it for this race, but I had been rock climbing at a few points along the coast in 2006, and there were certainly a few areas that looked familar - Backchurch rock, Vicarage cliff and Dyers Lookout among them. I took lots of photos but my phone was easy to get in and out and each only required a split second pause for the photo itself.

One of the other runners doing the ultra is somebody I know from wednesday night runs - they were near to me for the first few miles, then went ahead at Clovelly. For motivation, I had been trying to catch back up with them since then, but as I came into each aid station they were just leaving - I finally managed it at Morwenstow but was sad to hear they were having knee pain, it's always a struggle completing a race if you're suffering in pain. I was thankful that my own legs were still feeling amazingly good - three years ago I had done as similar length hilly ultra and a series of stiles near the end had nearly killed me, here there were stiles too but although my muscles were tight everything was still working. So just before Morwenstow I hatched a new plan. At some point my average pace has slipped from 17:30 to 17:45 to 16:20 minutes per mile. I worked out that if I picked things up a bit back to 16 minute miles I could finish in 10 hours. I tried my best to keep pushing, not being too strict on my heart rate cap now I had just 7 miles to go. But there was then a series of steep hills and my average pace slipped further, to 16:29. I was still running the flats and the downhills and now the light uphills, but with the steeper uphills only a plodding hike was possible. There was a glimmer of hope though - the Morwenstow aid station was listed as being at 30.5 miles but on my watch it had appeared at 28.5. That could mean that my watch gps had gone a little strange and maybe I didn't have as far to go as I thought. I checked the map track I had saved, and sure enough it said I had 1.3 miles less to go than I thought, which meant I only needed an average of 16:29 minute miles, so I was dead on! I just had to push on and hope. Nearer to Bude, there were more downhills and some flat bits, then suddenly I could see all the way to the finish line. My pace came down and down until I had 20 minutes to travel 1.2 miles, I would definitely do it now unless I hurt something. I picked up as much as I could, trying to spot the flags through the town, and was reassured to spot some marshalls in high vis waving me on towards the line. I crossed the line in 9:47:32, I couldn't believe it! What a race, I was jumping with joy!

I really, genuinely, loved the whole day. The course was perfect, the setup was great, and we were incredibly lucky with the weather - dry and warm with mixed sunshine and cloud just when you needed it. I am writing this the next day - I am very stiff, particularly glutes, lower back and abs, but no injuries and only one blister, I'd say that was a success.

Official results - 30th place out of 52 (including 4 DNF). 6th woman out of 7.

My 2020 in review

I meant to write a summary of my 2020 for New Year but didn’t reserve the time to sit down and turn my notes into sentences. Then I thought I could finish it for my birthday in February – but that still didn’t happen. So the anniversary of lockdown will have to do instead, before the whole thing is out of date.

This probably won’t be what you expect to hear, but I actually had a really good year, one of my best years in a long time. It had its fair share of stress but in general the pandemic didn’t cause me any noticeable upheaval, if anything it was good for me. So why was that? I’ve thought about it and identified four reasons. Firstly – the areas where other people struggled, aside from financial impacts, seemed to be mainly because they couldn’t see their friends and if they could they weren’t allowed to go anywhere with them. This is my life on a normal day, pandemic or not! I don’t have friends that I meet up with, and I rarely go out socially. So my life was poo anyway in that sense! This causes me anxiety and stress and unhappiness and has done for about 10 years, so the pandemic didn’t introduce anything new there, it’s tough but it’s also what I’m used to, and for once everyone else was in the same boat so my issues seemed less dramatic and I was less isolated. The second reason, is that I applied the same approach to the pandemic that I apply to when things are poo anyway, and that is to try and live the best life I can. I consciously decided to live out my life in spite of the changes, rather than to wait until things were back to ‘normal’, because I had heard knowledgeable talk early on that we were in this for the long haul. Thirdly, I never expect things to be a certain way (or perhaps the only way that I expect never happens so I'm used to expecting the unexpected), so even if something really unusual happens I tend to just accept that and get on with it. Finally the fact that our lives suddenly shrunk, was actually beneficial to me. I finally realised that the on-edge feeling that I’ve been experiencing for many years was anxiety, and it came from not having an anchor (for me that would be a family or a best friend or some close friends) and without this I didn’t know how to focus my time, and I would spend all my time searching for that missing link, and my search would take me further and longer and wider each time to maximise every opportunity available. When the pandemic hit, you may think that my anxiety would increase as I could no longer go in search of this missing link, but actually the fact that all options were entirely taken away meant that I was forced to relax and slow down. To simplify my life. To sit in the garden. To run the same running route as yesterday. To meet the neighbours and talk to passers by in the park, and develop friendships from this. To get fish and chips from the van every Friday. To do all the normal, local, sedentary things that I once did but had become so detached from when instead I started responding to each and every stimulus the world offered me. I wouldn’t have been able to make a conscious decision to stop, but when the world’s stimuluses were taken away, that decision was made for me. And my anxiety completely went away.

It sounds fairly blissful and in terms of a reassuring and limited routine and lack of anxiety it was, but there were still large periods of extreme unhappiness. I started a career change on the 30th March, one week into lockdown, and I was really out of my depth. And there were personal difficulties too, so it wasn’t all rosy. But actually, these also taught me more about myself as a person, I learnt a lot there.

But back to the good stuff. What did I do that made it such a great year, what was it that I did regardless of the restrictions? Exercise was a large part of it. I started training again in March after a break over the winter, and set myself a challenge to run at least 100 miles a month which I met (at least until I borked my ankle on 24th January 2021), totalling 1190 miles over the year. I took on some big personal challenges too - a multi-day self-supported trip on the north Cornish coast in September totalling 100 miles in a week when I slept half of the nights in B&Bs and half in a bivvy bag on the trail. In October I also ran 35 miles coast to coast across Cornwall to get an FKT (‘Fastest Known Time’ – all the rage for runners with events being cancelled, and good for me as I prefer challenges to races anyway). I gave myself full potential to enjoy the value of the outdoors by cutting out digital time sinks – I gave up Hollyoaks and Pokemon Go for lent and didn’t take them up again, and in June when I moved houses to rent a little space mostly to myself, I stopped watching TV for the rest of the summer.

As well as the running there was much swimming too, 54.4 miles swum in total over the year, up 12 miles on 2019, and every stroke of it was in open water. The mileage was less of note than the swims themselves – I thankfully realised quite early on that swimming was something that could still be done inside the restrictions, and I could enact my mental wishlist of particular swims that I wanted to do. I did a linear 4km swim from Paignton to Torbay, swum through the arch of London Bridge, circumnavigated Burgh Island, and much more. A lot of that was with a wonderful, fun, friendly group of 4 other swimmers, who are my mermaid pod and became good friends. It has been 10 years since I had a regular group of people that I met up with for activities. From 2004 to 2009 I went rock climbing every weekend, met hundreds of climbers many of whom knew each other in overlapping circles, and ended up part of a close knit group of like-minded friends. When I stopped climbing I lost that feeling of belonging and nothing has ever filled its place – until now, and I am very thankful for the development.

There were a few notable other things that passed the time. One was bird watching, and thanks to living in a new part of the country I ticked off some more firsts there, with my first sightings of Dartford warblers, avocets, cirl buntings, lesser spotted woodpeckers and crossbills. There was also Topsham folk club, I participated in this before lockdown but sometimes I found it hard to leave the house and go there – with it moving online it was much easier to engage reliably, and my guitar playing has improved when I was forced to accompany myself rather than co-opting others in. I also got to try new things such as sailing, and paddleboarding on the sea.

All of these achievements alone don’t account for my happiness, I know that in the past when I have posted about my runs and swims on facebook people believe that I am happy and fulfilled but that’s far from the truth, filling my time with achievements is something I do as focus to keep my head straight, and a distraction from not having what I really want. So the big thing that made 2020 special was having a companion. In addition to my new found mermaid swim pod, I gained a valuable friend - for 4 months of the summer as a boyfriend, but when that wasn’t quite the right option I gained a best friend instead. Someone who understood the value of a shared experience and how it surpasses two individual ones. We ran various stretches of coast path in Cornwall, slept out in the car, had parties in the garden, went on various wildlife trips, some more successful than others, cut each other’s hair, had a tomato growing competition, made wine and cider, and I even got to try my hand at giving swimming lessons. We even established ourselves as locals at the nearby woodland cafe, it's decades since I was a regular at a pub, and is quite a special pub in the woods, with with an outdoor kitchen and seating and half price cocktails. This companionship has brought me a contentedness that I have been lost without, and helped prevent my anxiety from coming back as the restrictions eased in the summer and our worlds expanded.

There was an element of luck too. I got to celebrate my 40th birthday with a group of friends in February, I was lucky to see my parents in March just before lockdown started, and in June before further restrictions. The timing of my September running trip was also spot on, thanks to a prudent punt by my aunt which I would have missed otherwise.

I was conscious of this luck, and also that I was in a great position with a good job and good health, and I tried my best to not take anything for granted, and to be aware of the situations of others. It was important to make the most of things for my own health and wellbeing, but this didn’t mean I couldn’t think of others so I tried to help wherever I could. I started donating regularly to a charity in Laos, as well one-off donations to local charities and I started putting an item into the food bank every time I went to the supermarket. I made an effort to support local shops and quiet pubs. I bought things for friends where I could, and put out intermittent offers to help in any way feasible, whether that be a phone-call or a purchase or support of a business. I hope my friends know that this offer of help still stands, any time. And I hope my story of having a good year doesn’t make anybody feel sad that they didn’t, we all have different stories to tell and they're all valid.

Smugglers Way

I was inspired to look into an FKT due some friends submitting FKTs, which is how I found the website for it. I’m not fast, probably never will be, but I can run long. I had a look at the routes on the page and found one that really appealed to me – the Smuggler’s Way – and it didn’t have any submissions either. I later read that you can submit your own route, but it couldn’t get better than this: a) it’s in Cornwall, where I have spent so much of my summer, b) it’s a Coast to Coast, which makes a change to the Coast Path, c) it’s not a waymarked route and requires navigation, d) there is a variety of terrain, e) it summits Brown Willy, the highest point in Cornwall.

I wanted to attempt it Saturday 3rd October before the days got too short, but I wasn’t very well and there were very strong winds forecast so I postponed it a week. That gave me a change to do more prep too, as I’ve never felt so under-prepared for a route. I was following the route as given in the gpx on the FKT website, but I found a detailed trip report by a guy who had walked it following the instructions in the original Smugglers’ Way booklet, so I used this to re-plot the route in more detail, and to familiarise myself with all the sections. I decided to go unsupported, carrying all my food and drink in my pack. My pack was 6.3kg starting weight, and 3kg finishing weight by the time I had drunk all my water and eaten my snacks. I wouldn’t say all my prep went perfectly – my printer ran out of ink and yellow/pink OS maps aren’t so easy to see on route. I printed a mixture of 1:25k maps for the moorland sections and 1:50 for the road section, but I missed a section of moor so navigated off my phone for that. I also forgot to take chlorine tablets but it turned out I had enough water. I also wasn’t 100% fit and well yet, I had constipation after a week of diarrhoea – that sorted itself out on route though!!

The route itself was fantastic, if tough. I ate my first sweet chestnuts of the year, picking a couple of up before I squashed them underfoot. I surprised a deer on a quiet, overgrown footpath, and later a buzzard. I saw the lake where King Arthur was supposedly given Excalibur by the Lady of the Lake. I went the wrong way through a field, following the perimeter rather than cutting straight across, and walked past a bull I could have avoided. There were a lot more cows after that, but I used my 2020-learnt cow whispering skills and all was fine there. I was glad I thought to pack gloves, I wore them for most of the first half, but the weather was pretty kind, there were several patches of light rain but nothing that made me hide my phone in my dry bag. I initially tried to keep a heart rate cap of 153, but it kept creeping up to 160 and later on I could only go at one speed so I didn’t bother looking.

I’m not sure why the route takes such a convoluted zig zag path between the disused Davidstow airport and Rough Tor, there didn’t seem to be any point for the zig zags down to the plantation but I followed the route, not wanting to cut corners. I hadn’t been looking forward to the moorland bit since this was the one part of the route I had been to before – we’d set off for Brown Willy and given up at Rough Tor, and now I had to do both, but the sun came out for that bit and lifted my spirits. Only for a moment though – on the way down Rough Tor I twisted my knee on one of the loose boulders and wrench a tendon at the top of my calf which was excruciating. Gutted – just over 21km into a 58 k route (I usually work in miles but I had my watch set on km still from a recent 5k). I took ibuprofen and stretched it out. I had to walk all the steep descents but thankfully it was fine on most other terrain, and got better the further I went. It still caught me out unexpectedly on some later descents leaving me hopping around and yelling in agony, but there was no way I was giving up, and mostly it behaved.

What didn’t behave was my watch. Firstly, it gave me the ‘one hour to go’ warning twice as quicky as usual, so I plugged it in, and it took a full 10km to charge. Then - I had a lift arranged at the other end and I used my quarter times to work out what time to ask them to collect me. I then realised that when my watch said I was 3/4 of the way (43.5km) I’d actually only run 38km. It’s because I had my watch on medium gps accuracy (and the FKT website says powersave gps mode is fine), but I forgot how unrealiable it is then, it’s been a while since I ran an ultra distance). It’s supposed to only sample less often, but it seems to lose the gps too. In the Kilminorth woods towards Looe there were huge stretches where it lost GPS, although this has the silver lining that it offset against the longer mileage from before, and when I finished the total distance exactly correlated to that from the route that I had plotted.

My watch issues and my knee pain made me quite dejected for the second half of the route, but I still enjoyed the scenery. My favourite part was the West Looe river higher up, around Herodsfoot I think, but I was still using my phone to navigate from here and it didn’t show me the town names and it all passed in a bit of a blur. There were all sorts of interesting steps and staircases taking you up to a higher path whenever the lower one was about to run out in the water. I also enjoyed the road sections – I am not normally a road runner, but it was so much easier on my knee. There were so many sections of this route that were rough underfoot, usually with an obvious route along a channel between two walls, but through grass with no track, usually I’d relish this but today it was just painful. The final hill was a killer and quite unexpected too – why doesn’t the path take the lower route by the river?? It would be more consistent, and flatter! That part really dragged. I was thankful when I came out of the trees and could see Looe ahead and the concrete walkway. The section through town down to the Pier was familiar as I’d done that on a coast path run. And there it was – the pier. I couldn’t believe I had done it, harbour to harbour all the way across Cornwall from coast to coast! When I reached the first quarter point in 2:25 I hoped I could finished in under 10 hours, a nice round number. Due to my knee and the terrain this gradually slipped and my final time was 10:37:03 (strava elapsed time. My watch said 10:34:48 but I am not sure this is genuine elapsed time, as I paused and (very quickly) resumed twice to try and force is to look for the gps again when I came out of the woods)). The time didn’t matter though – that was just an secondary aim set as I run to keep my motivation up – the main challenge was just to complete it, and I had!

4 years as an open water swimmer

Early swim awards. 3km and 5km age 9, 8.8km age 15

Synchro squad 1990

(Click on the photos to enlarge them)
I did my first open water swim on 18^th August 2016, at Astbury Mere in Cheshire. That’s not to say I hadn’t thought about it before – I have always been a bit of a waterbaby, first synchronised swimming ages 9 to 12, then lifesaving. In 1994 aged 14 I went to lifesaving classes every week and almost went to an open water swim in Poole harbour but it never came off. I also looked at swimming in local gravel pits but that never happened either. So, now 36, I was standing in a borrowed wetsuit on the shore of the mere as a guest of the local tri club NTC who I later joined. On entry I was encouraged to take a few moments to get water down my wetsuit to acclimatise, then I was off, with some companions to guide me round. The lap was marked out by buoys and was 400m, and I was surprised by how hard it was. Until then I’ve never found it a struggle to swim, I get bored way before I get tired (and I once swam 5.5 miles in 4.5 hours as a child for a sponsored pool swim), but here I was constricted by a the too-small wetsuit and my goggles steamed up. I managed three individual laps then I was knackered, but at the same time I really relished the experience of swimming without touching anything but water, with no walls to turnaround at.

Astbury Mere with Newcastle Tri Club

Due to other commitments I only went once that summer, and just twice the next year as I still didn’t have my own wetsuit and didn’t get on with the loan suits, but that year at least I got to go to the beginner sessions where I benefited from the entry and familiarisation techniques taught by the tri club.

In early 2018 I bought my own wetsuit and made one session at the mere with the tri club where it all finally started to click (see separate article here: https://newcastletriclub.co.uk/?p=4732), but shortly after, I fairly unexpectedly moved across the country for work and started again in Pembrokeshire. I joined a new tri club but they didn’t do regular open water sessions, so it was just down to individual inspiration to arrange get-togethers. Keen to make the most of the sea being on my doorstep, one day I met up with one of the club members at Broadhaven West. We swam out into the bay then turned parallel to the shore to swim to a rock at the far side. It was quite the experience. There was a sizeable swell with accompanying surf, which I wasn’t used to at all. I was too alarmed to swim crawl and breathe facing the shore, as then I wouldn’t be able to see the waves coming towards me, so I swam breaststroke to start, in order to be aware of the surf before it hit me. The trouble with breaststroke though is that you don’t go up and down with the swell like you do with crawl, and every wave hit me in the face, making it pretty hard to breathe. I eventually talked myself into swimming crawl, facing away from the waves and going with the swell and trying not to panic that I would get engulged by an early-breaking wave, and we swam about 1 mile, but it was quite the eye-opener, and a useful baseline to refer back to later. It was also the first time I had seen a tow float, although I didn’t get my own for a few more months.

Abereiddy Blue Lagoon

That summer I came across a group called the Bluetits who swim all year round in skins (swimsuit only, no wetsuit), and in Sept 2018 I did my first skins swim in the beautiful Blue Lagoon at Abereiddy, an old quarry pool connected to the sea by a slit between two rocks. My summary of the swim was: “First I was like ice then I was on fire!”, the stages of my body and skin reacting to the temperature. I remember one moment just after swimming out, where one of the experienced swimmers swimming nearby asked me if I wanted warming up. I said that would be good, thinking she would come and give me a hug. She moved towards me, smirking gleefully, saying “I’m peeing!!”

Later that month we swam in Solva harbour by the light of the full moon, my first introduction to full moon swimming (an interest I have continued since), and the Bluetits used the emotive Turkisk word Yakamoz (moonlight on water) to title the swims. The cold was a massive obstacle for me that evening, I already felt cold and getting into icy water was a hurdle my brain just wouldn’t surmount in any particularly useful way. The entry to the harbour was down a slipway, and I walked at a constant yet glacially slow snail’s pace into the water, getting gradually deeper over the course of maybe 15 minutes, while the rest of the group swam out and round one of the boats two or three times. If you filmed it as a timelapse and sped it up so I was walking normal speed, the rest of the swimmers would have been flitting around the harbour in jerky high-speed motion. I finally got my shoulders under and swam round the boat, keen to see the bioluminescence that many swimmers mentioned as they passed me on their way back in, but I just couldn’t seem to see it.

The Bluetits host a chill swim challenge over the winter months, to swim in skins for 10 minutes twice a month from November to March, and on 1^st November I was at Tenby beach with them, at night, ready for my first chill swim tick. Stood on the beach I couldn’t visualise getting into the water and swimming, how can you do something if you can’t even picture it? All I could do was walk forward into the unknown and see what happened. It’s a flat, shallow beach, meaning the entry was nearly as slow as at Solva as we waded out, and I screamed at the cold on each part of me. Really screamed. It took me more than 10 minutes to get my shoulders under and by then everybody else was heading back in, I had only just begun swimming. As we left, a boat arrived with a searchlight blaring – drawn by my screams, how embarrassing.

First sea swim of 2019

I didn’t complete the chill swim that year, not even close. In December I moved to Devon, which brought many of its own challenges, and the cold water wasn’t really something I handled well, so open water swimming took a back seat entirely, and I went pool training with a new tri club. The moment the clocks changed though I was there on the beach, 8^th April 2019 at Jacobs Ladder, Sidmouth, with a group called the TEDs (Team East Devon). My new tri club hosted organised weekly sea swims too, which started up their sessions in June. I was still struggling with the cold, and the jellies, and my wetsuit (chafing and coming undone and getting holes in), but I was determined, and I was swimming at least once a week. I was also in the perfect location for it – Pembrokeshire, while peppered with sheltered coves good for swimming, often has a large swell and is even better for surfing. South Devon, on the other hand, is largely calm in its entirety and is an open-water swimmer’s heaven. I was so taken with the challenge of open water swimming that I haven’t swum in a pool since the middle of May 2019.

On the 24^th June with TEDs, encouraged by some of the other swimmers, I did my first skins swim of the year. The screaming was back! It took me 12 full minutes to get my shoulders in even though the water was 15 degrees, and then I swam for 12 minutes. But looking back, this was the proper start of my progression to skins and was probably the making of me. In July, the main Devon Wild Swimming group was hosting a Unicorn challenge to swim for so many hours in skins, and on the 14^th I earnt my 1 hour Unicorn badge, repeating it the week after.

The tri club only ran their open water sessions until September, and there are so many swim and run groups in the South West providing opportunities to partake in the individual disciplines that I gave up the triathlons as I don’t particularly enjoy cycling anyway. I do, however, prefer to swim for distance rather than just for the experience and the feeling of the water, which is why for me I call it “open water swimming”, rather than the currently popular term “wild swimming”, although that’s not to say I don’t value the environment I am swimming in. In Devon there are a mix of swimmers, some who dip for the cold-water immersive benefits, and others who swim for distance. I found two groups of swimmers in my area that do longer swims – the TEDs, and a group of mermaid friends that are an offshoot of the Torbay Shoal group.

Breakwater swim, leaving the boats

Throughout 2019 I swam in a variety of different locations with these groups, and encountered many jellyfish, there seemed to be at least one every time I went in! In July I swam on 13 different days, although I dropped off in August and September as I had a couple of large running events that I had been training for all year, as running is still my main activity. With the swimming I engaged in a niche sub-activity of drawing shapes in the sea – I swam in the shape of a jellyfish, a shark, an octopus, a hedgehog, and wrote various phrases such as “Happy Birthday”. There were events too: in August, just before flying to the states to run a marathon, I swam with the Chestnut Appeal, 3.5km from Plymouth breakwater into Tinside beach. It was quite fantastic - boated out to the centre of the Plymouth sound and jumping into a bit of open water far from land with a bunch of other keen entrants, barely able to see the finish point at that time.

Polar Bear
December solstice swim

Winter brought a new challenge, or at least a second bash at a familiar one. Mama Bear, the lady that runs the Devon Wild Swimming group, runs a Polar Bear challenge which is similar to the chill swim challenge that the Bluetits ran, but has a massive uptake nationally and beyond. There are different levels, but I ended up entering gold: swim 250m twice a month from November to march, and a total of 5km over that time period, with just a swimming costume and standard swim hat - no wetsuit, no neoprene, no woolly hat, no gloves. I thought it would be really hard due to my persistent inability to get into the water. Well what do you know, it wasn’t! Firstly I was very lucky and we had a mild winter, but the rivers and lidos did go down to about 6-7 degrees at times. Secondly, I still got in gradually, but it wasn’t all that much harder to get in than any other day throughout the summer, and I’d had enough practise at that by now. My lovely mermaid friends and I met regularly at Torbay and occasionally elsewhere and enjoyed the camaraderie of the challenge.

Sometimes got the old fire in my body that I felt that first time back in the Blue Lagoon in Pembrokeshire. I found that for me there were stages of a cold swim – for the first couple of minutes you’re cold and it feels insane to be doing what you’re doing); then you’re in and swimming around and you know that at the very least you can do what you came to do (if the fire is to come, it precedes this stage); then after 10-15 minutes (depending on how cold it really is) you feel warm, honest to god genuine warmth, and it’s lovely - to have defeated that miserable day to be able to experience something incredible, with all the walkers in their woolly hats and duffel coats looking at you from the promenade as if you’re mad. The stage after that is that you get cold again, and that’s when you get out, because nobody wants to find out what the stage is after that! I really did love this challenge, despite it being hard and me questioning my sanity at times. I’ve suffered from winter blues all my life in various intensities, and tried various things to fight it, but most of the time you just feel like you’re doing something that would be much more fun if the weather was sunny. This was different, this was an experience that was solely for the cold days, embracing them rather than fighting them, and I was living it. The shivers afterwards and inability to speak due to a frozen jaw quickly became normal and each time I went I seemed to have a new piece of kit in my after-swim arsenal to be better prepared – woolly hat, snowboarding trousers, flask of hot squash, mesh to stand on, knitted foot wraps to wear until I could get my feet dry.

"BIG5", Leap-day Hares

I even revolved my Christmas plans around partaking in the Lyme Regis New Year's Day dip, that I'd been disapponited to miss the year before. Another great event in the winter months was the Buckfastleigh Ice Gala (BIG), where we got to swim in a frosty, unheated lido, with other swimmers, AND dress up in fancy dress, wonderful. Then the next event was the coronavirus lockdown! Okay this was an event of a totally different type, but it definitely impacted all our swimming, although we had just completed our Polar Bear challenge before being confined to our own neighbourhoods. I don’t live near enough to the sea to visit during the most restrictive part of lockdown, but I managed to get out for a dip in the local river every Sunday to keep my acclimatisation up, swimming in the shallows against the current for just 15 minutes, keeping my head out to avoid risk of Weil’s disease. Towards the end of May I was back at my local swim spot, Torquay steps, for a half hour swim which I kept up at least once a week. Seeing my first jellyfish of the year was a bit of a shock, it takes a while to get used to those again!

As the restrictions eased swimming opportunities started to increase, before I knew it I was accidentally achieving my aims for the year despite the pandemic, so once I realised this I started to focus on them consciously and swam more often. I swam at many different bays that I had not previous visited – Meadfoot, the salmon leaps on the Teign, the Exe in the city, the Dart at Totnes and Dartmoor, at Budleigh, the London Bridge arch near Torquay, and other places beyond. I also swam over a school of dogfish which count as sharks and wasn’t freaked out by those either – mostly because I didn’t realise what they are until afterwards! I made my peace with crystal jellyfish and compasses, after an initially freak-out when I saw my first of the former and didn’t know what it was. I touched my first ever jellyfish in July (accidentally of course), followed by 2 more in the dark on a full moon swim, which actually helped loads and they’re surprisingly firm and I stopped thinking of them as the slugs of the sea. I still haven’t been stung though, at least not knowingly, but my hands are so numb when I swim and my skin so prickly I’m not sure I’d ever notice. For some time I was feeling the cold, and only lasting 35 minutes before my hands went numb, but on a swoosh (one way with the current) down the Dart at Totnes, I went past 35 minutes, then 45, then pushed on to pass the hour mark, equalling last year’s best effort.

Compass jellyfish

Something started to niggle me though, and that was my speed of entry. My usual approach was to creep in, allowing each sensitive body part to warm up before introducing the next - feet, groin, boobs, armpits, shoulders. It was usually 3-5 minutes to complete this process before I could lift my feet up to swim, which was starting to hinder me on group swims. People had proffered all sorts of tips - blowing bubbles, splashing the back of the neck - but nothing helped, it was a mental block from the sensory overload of the cold. I had only managed an immediate entry 5 times - once in large waves breaking on a beach shelf where you couldn’t hang about or you’d get tumbled, twice in the lido training for the ice gala, and twice for the gala itself, but without these rare motivators it was the usual slow creep. However, one day it dawned on me that I was no better at getting in water of 16 degrees than I had been of 6 degrees, when all round me there were non-acclimatised holiday makers splashing around like it was a heated pool. And what’s more I had once been one of those holidaymakers. So I started to work on some visualisation - a powerful tool employed in coaching for various sports, and I had a hunch it would be helpful as even when imagining it in my mind I could never get in the water fast. I also identified that as my brain couldn’t visualise me getting in the water, the expectation of the future stopped at that point and my brain therefore no longer knew that I actually enjoy being in the water when I am in, so I fed it that information consciously, to bypass the block. On 28th July, standing 

Synchro memories in Torbay

at Torquay steps for the second time that day after having failed to get in at all that morning, I stood with my toes clear of the water, psyching myself up. Having the toes out was important, as I had to break the chain reaction cycle of needing to pause for each part to warm up, and that meant no parts getting cold on their own. Then bang I went for it - one step, two steps, and launch off up to my shoulders before the cold sensors sent the information back to the brain. I was in! And I was happy! Amazingly it wasn’t 5 times as challenging due to 5 sensitive body parts hitting the cold in one go, it was only the same as one. What a feeling, to be in the water and afloat, without all that faff. You may think that I was a changed woman after that, but there’s a reason it took me over a year of skims swimming to get to that point, and that’s because I find the initial cold shock supremely hard to handle. I could, however, see that it was a better way of getting in, and once I had done it once I knew I could do it again, so it has been my method of entry ever since. I even stopped screaming so much. Lately I have even managed to get my legs in first and pause before the rest of me goes in, without allowing my brain a matching pause, which would be fateful.

With this new entry method, and surpassing an hour in the water, I felt much happier planning distance swims with mermaid friends as they no longer need to wait for me at the start, and I have, with relish, completed some of my other objectives for this year - a swim round Burgh island, a 4km linear coastline swim, and swimming for over an hour in skins.

Endurance badges with mermaid friends

The journey is far from over, I have way more I want to achieve. Running is still my main activity but open water swimming is a very close second.  Now it’s nearly polar bear season again, and this year I have my sights set on Jedi, where you actively have to seek out water down to 5 degrees in addition to the other requirements. Will I manage it? I don’t mind if I don’t, because my target is not the achievement I get at the end, but the learning I experience along the way. I do this because it’s hard and it challenges me, not because it’s easy. Open-water swimming, to me, is way more than just swimming.