After the 60m Big Chill Swim in Lake Windermere on Saturday it’s all I can think about is the next swim, what it will be like, what the temperature will be, fresh or sea water, through and above water views, how long will it last? It’s clear to anyone I’m hooked, but the short swim at the weekend left me feeling a bit short changed and thirsty for much more mermaid time.
Windermere water is a heavy turquoise in the deep and crystal clear at the shore where you can see the beach of rocks slope gently off into the blue. The clouds were low and bulky, threatening to meet the surface of the lake. The weather cutting off the distant mountains brought the rippled Windermere in to focus. I was delighted to be swimming there.
My only trepidation was about one minute before the race when my lane neighbour said that she had been swimming there all winter, well apart from December when the Environment Agency advised against it. But apparently whatever had been washed in to the lake from the floods had ‘settled’ now so it was fine. Right. It was a bit late for cold feet and knowing how paranoid these authorities are about being sued by sick swimmers I figured it probably really was ok anyway.
Someone asked me once how you stay warm in cold water and replied ‘you swim.’ Usually there’s no hanging about at first but I do allow myself some pottering time a few minutes in just to soak up the scenery. I hadn’t really given this much thought until the race context meant zero pottering time.
Some savvy swimmers stuck around at the lakes for longer and went in the water again at their own pace outside of the gala (there are couple more races on the Sunday including the 1k.) I’m not one to look this far ahead usually but I have a bit of a plan for next year: spend longer at the lakes, enter more than one swim, make one of those swims the 120 meters so I have a much-needed higher endurance target.
Getting into chilly water is enough of a buzz for most wild swimmers, when you add in the race factor it gets added adrenaline going. I had enough of that coursing through me to make it from 0 – 30 meters pretty fast, and the following 30… well, less fast.
If I haven’t waived my right to be fussy about things not being hot enough, I would say to the organisers that the Cumbrian air was enjoying a bit too much of the heat from the sauna and not enough was lingering inside the barrel-shaped walls. But overall, from 9am to 5pm races between 30m to 450m ran like clockwork and the atmosphere was so cheery and chilled that I don’t think I’ll wait until 2017 before going to another such event.
mermaid lifestyle 