A long swim at Liquid Leisure

Laying down challenges, Chris, Heath and I decided to put ourselves to the test and hit Liquid Leisure http://www.openwaterswim.co.uk/ this morning for as long as we could. The lake just outside Datchet is open to swimmers for two hours between half 6 and half 8 and becomes a splash-fest for open water swimmers and triathletes. The water in the lake is hovering around high nineteen degrees, so the need for wetsuits is pretty low but regardless of that all but us and a couple of others are rubbered up in full suits. I shake my head.
Hitting the water just after half six we reckoned on completing as close to two hours as we could. It’s a reasonable test I think, swimming solidly for two hours, even if the water’s not as cold and this won’t cause the muscles to cramp up anywhere nearly as quickly, but if you think about it, it’s a test for the shoulders. Eighty strokes per 100m. Eight hundred strokes per kilometer. Four kilometers per hour, that’s 3,200 strokes an hour. I ended up completing about 6.5km in 1hr 40mins this morning, that’s 5,200 strokes. 2,600 rotations of each shoulder. Forgive me, I am an accountant.
After about 5.5km my right bicep started to tighten up, feeling a little torn, which is never a good feeling in anyone’s book so I’ll be looking after that for the next 36hrs. It could be worse, could be chaffing under my armpits, now that’s sore! Still, I’ll take it easy the next couple of days, don’t want anything letting go now.

Running through my head this morning, for the majority of the swim, was about four bars from the chorus of “The Whole World Reminds Me of You” by Thirsty Merc. I must learn more catchy songs to be able to hum along to. The ocean’s a quiet place.

I have an apology to make here. When I said we were swimming at “old-man-plod pace” on Friday morning, what I MEANT was “reasonable training pace”. It’s all relative really, depending on how you feel when you pitch up to the deck. Friday morning I felt pretty sore, this morning I felt really good and was able to test myself a little, pushing the pace on every alternate kilometer.
I reckon that ability to change pace for a good 15-30 minutes will be crucial when we come to the channel. The tides change so quickly and so dramatically that if you miss a positive tide and get hit by an adverse one it can add hours to your time as you battle against it. In particular we hear the tide that rushes along the French coastline is fierce and it would be the last thing you want to hit when you’re tired and sore. Regardless of what pace you swim at, I’m sitting and watching the world champs from Rome this arvo and the stunning results coming out of the pool are a marvel to watch. Really exciting stuff. And to finally hear the british national anthem at a swimming event, it’s a good thing!
While I have your attention, I wanted to say many thanks and the best for the future for my friend Jonny Loose who owns the Healthy Deli in Henley. He has had the store open for a couple of years now and built it up to be a well known and exclusive center in Henley for local cheeses, cured meats, condiments and chutneys, wines and beers and an assortment of wonderfully tasty goods. It is with great sadness that we walked into the Healthy Deli today to find Jonny in a shirt and tie for his last day of trading. Jonny will be moving onto different things after a period of R&R. I look forward to hearing about your new venture!

Happy trails and here's to the rest of the weekend!