The Wales Swim

On September 24th I took part in The Wales Swim, a 1.5km/3km open water event that a friend had suggested I enter. I had known about it a few months in advance, and had practiced a few fairly long (up to 1 hour) swims while in Crete (on my first holiday abroad in around 8 years - convenient timing!). Unsurprisingly the sea in Crete was quite different to the UK, being warmer and calmer... but the Wales Swim would be in a wet suit (manditory if you wanted to do the full 3km course). I've been wanting to work towards entering a triathlon and had already bought a swimming wet suit, so this would to be a good step towards the swim section of that kind of event.



I had used the wet suit for a brief time before buying it at TriUK in Yeovil (using the on site 'Endless Pool'), but also got to test it in a lake outside Bristol a week before the event. The water was very cold, but the main difficulty was adjusting to swimming in water that was basically opaque - in the lake you couldn't see more than a couple of inches underwater because of sediment. And I kept finding myself going off course and having to constantly readjust. The other main difference from swimming in a pool was the way the suit gave excellent bouyancy, reducing drag but changing the swim stroke quite significantly from what I had been practicing at the leisure centre. But it was clearly faster.


The conditions on the day were fairly reasonable although the air temperature seemed very cold waiting to enter the sea. It was a mass start from the beach which made for some pretty crowded swimming in the early sections despite how I had decided to start near the back to avoid this (a triathlon will doubtless be even worse in this respect). The water was clear enough to be able to see your outstretched hand underwater... which also meant clear enough to see the feet of someone swimming close in front of you, so that was quite sufficient.


The first 1.5km lap went pretty well, however towards the end of this people following the 3km route needed to turn towards a set of buoys that looked identical to those that marked the course finish. The sun was very low in the sky and in the direction of these buoys at this time which caused a great deal of glare, and I ended up blundering towards the wrong set of bouys for a time. This added a couple of minutes to my time and left me feeling quite angry at myself for the second lap, also fearing that I was going to finish last (this not helped by a rescue boat tailing me for several minutes like a vulture sensing weakness).

In the end I finished with a time of 1.05.32 which was quicker than my target. And I wasn't last, or even next to last! Over all it was a good day and a fun event, though I'd certainly have enjoyed the actual swimming part a lot more if I had stayed on course.