I signed up to swim the 10.5 miles of Windermere almost exactly a year before the event: you know, when the required training between “now” and “event day” seems doable. It always seems like a fun idea at the time, doesn’t it? And admittedly in the lead up I enjoyed the look of horror on people’s faces when I told them how far it was, without really letting myself acknowledge the distance. But come event day (I won’t call it a race – it’s very much a ‘complete not compete’ event for most entrants), I really had started to question why I get led into these things. However, the sun was shining, there wasn’t a breath of wind…we had really lucked out. As one of the commentators said at the start line, “summer is my favourite day of the year in the Lake District”. The water was officially said to be 15.5C, perhaps warming up to 17C in parts. There were both wetsuit and skins swimmers taking part and I’d toyed with the idea of skins, but as this was my first attempt at something like this, I didn’t want cold to be a reason I didn’t complete it!
A total of 600 swimmers were set off across 8 waves of increasing pace, spaced 20 minutes apart. Each wave was supported by kayaks / motor boats / SUPs, and there were enough of them that I don’t think I was ever further than 30m from the nearest support vessel. Windermere is a busy lake and we were there in peak season, so there were plenty of sailing boats, row boats, and ferries also using the water but at least that was something for me to look at for a few hours. I certainly kept an eye on the traffic around us, but we were very well looked after by the support crews.
The course started at Fell Foot at the southern end of the lake, moved up the eastern side for 3 miles, before crossing the lake to the western shore and continuing along up to Brathay Bay, finishing with a righthand turn to Waterhead. The course was well marked, and at each mile was a support boat with water/energy drinks/jelly babies. I knew I would want more than jelly babies, and since tow floats were mandatory for all swimmers, I had experimented with how many snacks I could pack into mine – turns out, plenty!! You just have to not mind your Soreen being a bit soggy as you eat while treading water. As we followed the edge of the lake, in some parts it was perfectly possible to go closer to shore and stand up for a pause but I didn’t want to deviate from the course and make it any longer than necessary…!
The water was really calm for most of the day (although I say that as a sea swimmer, and I did overhear someone else commenting on how choppy it was, so I guess it’s rather subjective!). There was a bit of wind in the last couple of hours, but it was behind us so no complaints here! Having started in wave 6, it was really lovely being able to see the flotilla of swimmers in front of me; we must have made quite a sight for unsuspecting tourists. I worked my way from feed station to feed station, not necessarily stopping at each one, but enjoying seeing another mile marker disappear behind me. When I did pause, it was a welcome relief to have a break from the sound of my own bubbles and water rushing past my ears, and it gave me a chance to appreciate the beautiful Cumbrian scenery – somewhat different from Whitlingham 🙂
From about mile 8, my shoulders and arms were tiring and it became a case of mind over matter. I could see that my pace was holding fairly steady, though, so told my muscles to get on with it – just one arm in front of the other until the next buoy….then the next…then the next…until finally the finishing buoy (a giant rubber duck!) was in sight. Never have I wanted to chase down a duck more. I had told myself I’d be over the moon with a time of 6hrs, and I came in at 6h08 so I think that’s all right for a first attempt 🙂
