pier to pier swim update – sea swim #1

Posted by Luke Williams on June 20, 2007 in general thoughts | 1 comment

FSM* on a bike – swimming in the sea was hard work!!

Thanks mainly to the biggest waves I’ve EVER seen in Bournemouth, without a storm, Doh!!

Slightly scared I entered the sea with Mike as a safety (on waveski) swam for about 45mins and although I didn’t cover the traget distance at all, I’m very pleased with the swim. Swimming with the current was ok (as per the actual swim) back against it was 5x harder, I feel like I’ve had a good workout. 🙂

Learnt a load of useful (ish) things:

1) with a wetsuit its a lot easier to float/tread water – one of my worries for doing the swim was getting cramp or stitch and having to float for a bit vs swimming in to shore and not actually doing it all in 1 go. No longer worried about that.

2) My wetsuit rocks. Kept me warm, didn’t impair my swimming at all.

3) The key pocket thing kept my keys safe! Wooo!

4) I can swim in amongst big waves out of my depth, comfortably for a long time – nice to know if I’m ever in some sort of boat accident! hahaha

5) Mike’s well out of practice on a waveski 😀 I think I was more of a safety for him! (Call that a roll? Looked more like a “capsize wriggle splash aaaaah glug now-I’m-off-the-board-crap” to me!)

6) I’m going to be thirsty when I finish the swim.

7) Its harder to judge distance in the sea than I expected, I felt like I was getting nowhere for ages because all the landmarks and reference points are a LOT further away compared to a pool.

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*Luke is a confirmed pastafarian.