To be honest, I wasn't feeling all that optimistic driving to the lake that the water temperature would be all that warm. The thermometer in my car was reading the air temperature at just 7oc, and whilst swim buddy and I had made the joint decision, to swim skins this season for as long as we could endure, I had packed my wetsuit - just in case the new Beast from the East decided to make an unexpected early appearance.
As good fortune would have it, the Beast didn't arrive unseasonably early, but despite this, I decided that since I had taken the trouble to pack my wetsuit in the first place, that I would wear it anyway, and I felt that swim buddy would probably be cross if I were to miss our next swim together on account of me catching a bit of a chill. AND swim buddy was on holiday anyway, somewhere nearer the equator where the sun shone and the water was warm, and wetsuits were absolutely not needed... and as she wasn't there, she would never know I had broken our pinky promise quite so early into the winter season!
Although cold, it was a beautiful day. The sky was clear all bar the one solitary (small) cloud and what looked like a kettle of vultures swarming overhead. I was reliably informed by Mike that they were in fact just some fat geese that looked a little indecisive as to whether to land or not. I hoped not! I had no idea who was right, but as I suspected that Mike was probably more of an ornithologist than I was, decided it must be him.
Ready to go, I headed for the shoreline which unfortunately was shrouded in a bit of a sea fret, along with all of the lake. This did not phase me, in fact, I was delighted because I knew that this meant one thing - the temperature in the lake was warmer than the air temperature! And yet even though I knew that the water was actually not so cold at 16.5oc, I decided that taking my wetsuit off again after the onerous struggle it took to get the damn thing on in the first place, was asking a lot. The extra flexibility required to get in off again would no doubt sap me of any remaining energy I had left from putting it on in the first place. Energy that would be better spent swimming for example!
Despite being ready, by the time I had faffed about, caught up with my swim family, tried to (unsuccessfully) talk them into being part of a Channel Relay team and ate two slices of flapjack, the mist had lifted and the overweight geese had left. I entered the lake as carefully as I could, but still managed to trip over my own toe and being unable to style it out, scrambled to stay upright, and instead sank into the lake sideways, dislodging my goggles and making a complete twit of myself (and not for the first time).
I swam on without looking back (I was completely mortified, despite this being a very typical lake entry of mine), but after only 2 laps I was contemplating getting out, for no reason in particular other than my goggles just kept fogged up, and was fed up of stopping to decipher whether it was that the goggles needed sorting, or to check that it wasn't the sea fret returning. In fact, they were fogging so badly that the only reason I knew I had actually finished was when I hit the final buoy with my arm!
I looked at my watch, and despite the accurate finish on my last lap, my watch revealed that I had actually managed to swim 1,789 metres of a 1,600 metre course, and I still needed to swim 2 more laps. As luck would have it, as I finished my second lap, and de-fogged my goggles for the gazillionth time, I noticed Bake Off Chris was in the water, and by mutual agreement we decided to swim a 'steady' lap, and set off at a nice comfortable pace. 200 metres on, and Chris suddenly sprinted ahead. Confused, and because I couldn't rule out the fact that he could be sprinting away from a giant, leg eating fish, I followed him. I realised quite quickly that I would be unable to keep up, and decided that I would use the excuse of my fogged goggles to stop and catch my breath, despite the possibility of it meaning I could encounter whatever it was that he may have been swimming away from... As I rolled onto my back and lifted my goggles, it was then that I noticed a familiar sight swimming towards me... It was either BakeOff Chris's doppelgänger, or the real Bake Off Chris?!? Without the goggle fog, I realised that I hadn't been chasing after Chris as he wind sprinted round the lake, but an imposter, who, as it turned out, also happened to be one of the elite athletes that also swam in the lake. I was really relieved, and thought it appropriate to give myself a pat on the back for keeping up with him for all of 2 seconds (max). It was sometimes the little things (or short in this case)!
The final lap I decided that I would up my pace again, absolutely not the (very brief) olympic pace of the last one, but I did want to see what time I could get for a lap. All was going well, and I even managed to up my pace further after seeing something that I initially thought looked very crocodile shaped, but turned out to be a large twig. As I approached the far end of the lake and the buoy on the corner, I noticed a group of swimmers next to it. Because I was timing myself, and because based on the previous imprecise 2 laps which clearly highlighted that I clearly had accuracy problems, I decided that to go round the outside of them would probably add a lot of time, and so decided to go round the inside of the buoy, after all, this wasn't technically a race, and it also wasn't technically illegal, so couldn't be disqualified or arrested for it. I figured that the worst that could happen was that Leon would frown at me, and as it was at the far end of the lake full of other swimmers, the chances of me getting away with it, I felt, were extremely high.
Decision made, I made my (non-illegal) move, and just when I thought I'd got away with it, I heard a voice I would recognise anywhere (my Coach) yelling to me. I responded by waving mid stroke, but carried on, hoping that despite the many, many hours of coaching and stroke analysis, he had suddenly developed a bout of amnesia and wouldn't recognise it as me.
I swam on, thinking I'd managed it, but I could have been no more than 20 strokes on, when I felt something grab my ankle. This was the moment that I think it was safe to say, that in a surprise ambush/attack situation, despite all the multiple practice response runs I had ever done in my head, I discovered I would be 100% utterly useless!
I responded to the attack by calmly, but firmly kicking away my attacker, whilst calling for help at the top of my voice, alerting others to my plight and warning them all of the danger, after which I was hailed a hero and received many a pat on the back for my quick thinking and bravery - is what I would liked to have told you happened, but sadly that would be a big fat lie. What actually happened was that first of all I attempted to stop my watch (crucial survival stuff), and then yelling a lots of words that did not complete a sentence, but included lots of long sweary words, whilst going into complete panic mode and instead of kicking off my attacker, I decided to make a swim for it, hoping that it would either naturally dislodge or decide that I was not worth the effort, and instead choose to eat the several swimmers next to the buoy I had just passed, including Coach!
Several strokes on, and the vice like grip on my ankle was still there, and I wasn't actually moving. I realised that it was all pointless, and quite exhausting trying to resist it any longer, and so just stopped to face my aquatic assailant, bracing myself I turned to find Jane firmly attached to my ankle. Not the crocodile, or vulture, nemeses swan, lake shark, or worse - Coach, that I was expecting it to be. She had been swimming round with coach and wanted a chat. I was so relieved it was her rather than any of the aforementioned, that I almost hugged her, before realising that enthusiastic hugging in a lake could be dangerous, before remembering that she had actually frightened the living daylights out of me in the first place and didn't actually deserve one!
Once I had pulled myself together (stopped hyperventilating), and had a quick chat with Coach and Jane, I set off again. I went to restart my watch, only to find that in all the frenzy I hadn't turned it off after all, and my minutes/100m time was approaching the 4 minute mark, and there was also no recording of the first half of the swim at all, which incidentally, would probably have been the fastest one I had ever recorded - goes without saying, and so I made the decision to swim slowly back to the shoreline as nothing good had come so far from rushing.
Thankfully, apart from a leaf landing on me, the remainder of the last lap was event free. I got out to find Karen at the ready wanting a photo of us getting out of the lake. After a lot of minutes finding the perfect photo where we both didn't look either exhausted from the swim (me) or non-athletic (me again - because I was not, and never would be an athlete) I finally remembered that a photo of me in a wetsuit was rather incriminating, as I was supposed to be in skins... I wasn't entirely confident at that moment that I would get away with it after all!
Once again, thanks for reading, and for more regular updates on my swimming shenanigans, please follow me on social media. Just look for Open Water Woman.
Also, you can also find me on YouTube as Open Water Woman, where I do regular vlogs about my swims.
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