Swim 1 complete!
Well the weather for the Swim the Cam even on Saturday couldn’t really have been better…calm water and warm sunshine 🙂
Distance 4,327 yd | Time 1:17:20 | Pace 1:47 min/100 yd
Source: Full Garmin trace details here…
I was aiming for my steady pace of 30min/mile which should have meant I completed the swim in 1hr 15mins but it was pretty clear from the outset that that wasn’t going to happen. The first half mile was very weedy and several fallen trees meant the river narrowed meaning a lot of sighting was required. That trend for much sighting continued for much of the swim, partially due to the width of the river in a lot of places, but mainly because of the number of canoes, punts and other river users (including several families of Ducks and Swans) we encountered.
I was therefore quite surprised when my final time was only slightly over my target. Talking about it with a couple of other swimmers afterwards I concluded that this was probably due to the, albeit fairly slow, current that was with us on the swim. One regular swimmer estimated it to be around 0.5mph.
My arms were starting to feel it a little towards the end but actually I didn’t feel too bad. The only real issues I had were with the Swim hat we were given (they always tend to be a tad small for me so I’ve got my own slightly larger one) meaning I had to stop and adjust it 2 or 3 times during the swim, and the small issue of being able to get out of the river at the end. Everyone managed it but the exit point was too deep to stand and had no steps, simply vertical concrete sticking 30cm or so out of the water. Nothing horrendous but maybe something to improve for next year!
For me the swim achieved its purpose in that I think I should be OK for Coniston Swim, but I’ve certainly got to keep the training up between now and then…and hope that by some miracle that Coniston Water doesn’t turn out to be quite as cold as I think it will be!
For anyone interested You can still add sponsorship to my Swim the Cam Justgiving page if you’d like to, but the push now is over on the Chill Swim Coniston Justgiving page 🙂
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