67 days between swims felt just too long. The only saving grace was that my Channel Relay swim, scheduled for w/c 27th May, had been postponed until late September (all being well), which meant that for this swim there was no immediate pressure to get back in the lake for a swim, but training for a Channel relay wasn’t the reason I swam, I just loved it, and wanted to get back in as soon as I safely could.
I’d been doing various other exercises in the gap to try and keep my fitness up, but still knew that there was not real replacement, and so would be really, really rusty, that’s if I could remember how to swim at all when I got in, so when I finally heard the news I’d been waiting for, that the lake would be opening again, I almost cried I was so happy. I was just as excited to be seeing my swim famalam once again, even if it was from a distance, and there would be no catch up over coffee and cake afterwards, and so booked my place on the first swim slot available.
I spoke with the swim buddy before we left (usually we would have had this conversation in the car on the way to the lake accompanied by large coffee), the hot topic was deciding whether we should wear a wetsuit or not for the swim. Despite the lake being over 18oc, we mutually decided in favour of wearing them, partly for safety reasons, but also because we hadn’t been in the open water for so long and had wanted to enjoy the experience of being back in the water without cutting it short because we were cold, we would wear them, just this once to test the water as it were, but knowing that we really could have done with getting back into skins as soon as we could. Decision made I realised then that I hadn’t remembered to pack my Glide or even my rash vest. Talk about being disorganised, but could have been worse, it could have been my goggles, or my hat, or much worse, my post-swim slice of cake.
Thankfully, a fellow swimmer, who also happened to be a keen cyclist, came to my rescue and offered me, along with an antibacterial wipe, some of his ant-chafing cream. I’ll add here that it didn’t actually dawn on me until I got home that as a keen cyclist he probably didn’t have the cream for any chafing that may have occurred on his neck whilst riding his bike… On the plus side though, it worked a treat!
Since my 2 Way Windermere swim in August last year, knowing that we had a Channel Relay swim booked, Shark and I hadn’t worn our wetsuits much, and to be honest, I once I started to put it on I wasn’t one bit sure that I ever remember it being that tight, but decided that it must have been rather than to acknowledge it may have been the lack of exercise and the countless ‘bake off’ competitions that had occurred in my house whilst in lockdown had contributed to this.
A downside to social distancing was that I was unable to ask someone to zip me in, and after a struggle, found the best way was to (not very elegantly) lean over, breath out and jiggle the zip up. On the upside, social distancing meant that no-one was close enough to bear witness close up to the fiasco. I’d made my mind up there and then that if I had to go through the same rigmarole to get out of it after the swim, I would drive home wearing it and extract myself from it in the privacy of my own 4 walls – probably with a crowbar!
It became obvious very soon into the swim that this was not going to be groundbreakingly fast. Unfortunately, I was unable to measure my speed accurately, like on a watch for example, on the back of the fact that despite having one on, I had forgotten that you had to press the start button to make it actually work…I did press one, but clearly the wrong one, and so instead had to measure my level of slowness based on the many other swimmers that overtook me during the swim.
Our hour was up soon enough, and as I approached the shoreline, grinning, I turned to look back at the lake that I’d missed so much and reflected on my swim. The leisurely pace I swam at (not by choice obvs) meant I could see that the lake, thankfully, hadn’t been taken over a large flock of large and possessive lake dwelling birds deciding to take up residency in the absence of any swimmers. I was also noting how I’d not seen one fish during my swim. It was then, as the swim buddy and I neared the jetty a fish darted out towards us from under it. I was surprised to find that I wasn’t scared, but it did make me jump and stopped me in my tracks. The swim buddy swam on, and at first I thought she had been oblivious to the sighting, but I soon noted that her pace had increased by quite a lot, in fact she was pretty much wind sprinting back. It was great to be reminded that should I be involved in a fish collision that I would remain very much on my own and our ‘every swimmer for themselves’ rule was still in place. Yep, I’ve definitely missed this place, and the swim buddy. A lot!
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| So lovely to be back in the lake. |
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