Earlier this week I found out, via a pretty offiial looking e-mail, that I had been offered a place on the GB squad at the International Ice Swimming Association (IISA) 5TH WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS taking place in January in France (I must add, I had to qualify for this, and in some awfully cold water as well). My immediate jubilation and swiftly followed by feeling mostly overwhelmed, scared (actually more terrified than scared), apprehensive and completely out of my depth (no swim pun intended - but if one fits...). I have no-one to blame but myself, after all, when you enter something, whether it's the Wimbledon ballot (still waiting for lady luck to shine on me after several long years of trying) or the North American Wife Carrying Championships (not entered for several reasons, including a motion sickness issue), there is a chance (Wimbledon being the exception), that you could get in. And so here I am, completely and utterly delighted and terrified at the same time.
The realty did not take long to sink in, and I realised I felt ill prepared for such an important event and needed to immediately formulate a training plan, after all, if I had been picked, I really needed to prove I was worth the place, but first I needed to call The Swim Buddy for some words of wisdom and sage advice. After congratulating me, she told me to pull myself together and start (and this is a direct quote) "getting my sh*t together," adding that to ensure that I did this, despite declaring that she would not be swimming through the winter on account that the water was "a bit too nippy" for her, she would accompany me to the lake, and on the days she couldn't she would be enlisting the eyes and ears of Leon Fryer as a stand in...We both agreed that the former option was the lesser of the two evils, and agreed to meet at the lake the following day for a team talk, take a couple of photos to document my journey and some serious planning. I informed her this would be a more productive discussion if proper refreshments were available, by which I inferred her delicious, and legendary, lemon drizzle cake. By all accounts - well hers actually - to make this happen, she had spent the whole of the evening driving round 3 supermarkets hunting down a particular brand of Sicilian lemon oil...well worth it I felt, after I decided that only eating the finest ingredients from now on in would be an essential part of my training - I should add that I consider ALL chocolate to be in the 'finest ingredients' category.The swim buddy and I arrived at the lake all kitted out for a dip. Me with my hot water bottle, towel and CROCS (gws) and The Swim Buddy, meaning business, with massive note book, several coloured highlighters, clip board, cake tin and a Nikon Z9 round her neck. I was unsure whether David Bailey would miss this impressive, and I would have though essential, piece of kit, which The Swim Bud disguarded rather quickly, citing a severe neck strain, as well as the need to consult with her online camera instruction guru (Google) for ensuring she got the perfect shot... it was 25 minutes before she finally felt able to achieve this, during which time I had happily entertained myself with some extensive cake trials.
Finally, after much faffing whilst The Swim Buddy captured the moment, once in the water I realised that the milder autumn weather had also meant that the water would too be warmer than it would normally be. I was torn, on one hand it was lovely to get in for a refreshing, and dare I say long (well, 1,000 metre) swim, however this also meant that it was nowhere near the 2oc it would be in France in January. There was nothing I could do to change this. Once I was out I mentioned this concern to The Swim Buddy, imagine my surprise when she suggested I look at the notes she had made on several options for cold dips at home in case summer decided to extend into winter, including; an old bath, chest freezer (I hold Merthyr Mermaid responsible for this suggestion), a wheelie bin (cleaned) and several purpose built ice tubs. This much research lead me to suspect that The Swim Buddy had not spent as much time looking for lemon oil as she first said she had, however I was not complaining, she had a point. I needed as much cold exposure as I could get...
and in the interest of losing anyone's attention by the blog being too long, there'll be more in the next blog.
Always, there's more and frequent posts on Instagram if you care to follow... 🙏
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