I’ve been for my first few swims! After 8 weeks of no swimming. And it feels like freedom. I wasn’t sure how I would feel so I’ve just used it as an opportunity to get back in the water and enjoy it!
It feels glorious to be out of the city and at some pretty locations that are only about 30min drive away. And I’ve made a resolution to find some different spots to swim in each week while I have the time and swimming pools are closed. So here I’m introducing “Wild Swim Wednesdays“.
The water felt amazing on my body and having swam a little bit through winter I didn’t find it to cold even at a brisk 13 degrees.
At first my arms and shoulders felt pretty stiff but I soon loosened up. I could feel some weird wobbly things going on with my hands but for my first swim I didn’t bother too much about how it felt I just noticed these things to work through next time.
I could remember all the familiar focal points I’d been working on before the lock down came around and as soon as I put my mind on it my stroke felt better. Your body and brain will remember how to swim!
I was just so excited to be in the water that I couldn’t concentrate too hard. But I’ve also been making an effort to appreciate my surroundings and be more in the moment whether that’s swimming, running or cycling.
I did take some Video Analysis and you can see from the analysis that I have a little bit of work to do tidy up my stroke as some things have crept in. But nothing that I wasn’t working on before and in general I’m still looking super efficient.
I did take the time to appreciate my surroundings – I took time to say hello to the big fish that lives at the back and talk with the resident heron who is pretty spectacular close up.
I’ll be a back at the quarry again this week for more of a proper swim. But have lots of plans to visit places with Wild Swim Wednesdays and might even try a longer 5-10km river swim at some point.
Just a few words of safety before you go for a swim. Always go with someone and make sure you check out any wild swim spot with local people before you swim. If you’re new to open water swimming then only go to a supervised and life guarded facility. Please get in touch if you have any questions and do listen to my podcast where I talk about it in more depth.
If you can recommend a local spot, have a favourite place or want to take me for a swim let me know!