Cold water swimmers including sea, lakes and rivers

[TriSkiRun99]

After sea swimming regularly since May I’m hoping to carry on. Is anyone else hoping to carry on open water or sea swimming through the winter? If you fancy supporting each other and sharing hints n tips come join me. I’ve just bought some socks and neoprene hat, I’m hoping to to stay in my cossie as long as possible but I do have a wet suit if I cave.

Oh ffs 3 weeks until Bantham Swoosh and I’ve slipped a disc in my back. Anyone any experience of how quickly they heal. I’ve got 12 hours left of transfer window but I still intend to go ahead. I swam with it on Monday and it’s the only time I wasn’t in extreme pain.

Oh no!

The thought of a river dip had crossed my mind for some point this week, but we had torrential storms that overloaded the local drainage a few days ago so the water quality probably isn't the best atm.

I'll stick with where I know the water quality is monitored despite travel and cost.

@Billybagpuss it depends where the disc is - mine are lower and swimming aggravates it badly I can do head in F\C but no way could I do breastroke. Personally I’d transfer it if you can, I’m still dealing with a flare up from March and sleeping in the floor for last 3months 😞

“Sleeping On the floor” not in!

thank you @TriSkiRun99 I’m wondering if it might be muscular instead, nhs website advice is the same, ibrupofen and exercise. Sunday I could barely move and was hanging onto the walls to get from one room to the next, today is the first day I haven’t overdosed on nurofen and I did a slow 1km in the pool followed by sauna and jacuzzi, felt great but it started hurting again when I was getting dressed.

i’ll rest tomorrow then try the lake in Friday keeping fingers crossed, crawl was def easier than breaststroke but getting a wetsuit on might be hard.

Icing it for 5mins at a tIme helps me, disc pain feels like I’ve been kicked in the lower back like bruising feeling. Muscular for me responds better to heat. I’m not medically trained or a physio but had disc issues for 15yrs. Stretching in pigeon or piriformus lying on the floor can stretch the muscle than can cause sciatica pain. Good luck I hope you can ease it. Keeping moving does help me where possible

I did it, today I did swoosh.

my back is more or less ok now and I did it in just over 2 hours

Well done @Billybagpuss glad the back has been ok. Hope you enjoyed it

It was amazing. Thank you

oh hai swimmers! I'm a warm weather swimmer these days, swimming at my local beach from May to November. Last night I put my fancy wetsuit on and did my test swim for the upcoming cross Solent swim for charidee. I came in at 45 minutes, which I was very pleased about. I still have 3 weeks to train (+ 1 rest week) before the event, so I feel great about that.
I also just acquired an entry to the Pier-Pier swim (Sandown to Shanklin) in 2 weeks. It's 2 miles but we get pushed by the current. So probably more like 2k? Idk, fun idea though, there will be a lot of swimmers, with kayaks for safety.

3 lovely sea swims in N Wales again this week although the waves were wild and put me off some days!

@Billybagpuss do I know you from the ABRSM forum?

I went in this morning. I checked the webcam at the beach at 6.33

Water was like this

When I went in at 7am, /\/\////^^////\/

Nevermind, good practice to get fast breaths and use bigger arms to avoid hitting waves on recovery.

oh well, the characters for my 'flat' and 'lumpy' didn't work that well lol

Oh well done amazing!!! I did it last Friday!! 2.5hours for me - very choppy conditions but was amazing!!!!!

Billybagpuss we did stop for a cheeky snack and refuel break on the raft by the Lime Kiln! Can’t wait to do it again in the sunshine!!

I’d love to do it again @LazyDoll

You were lucky your back recovered!!! I’m also keen to do Burgh Island so that MAY be next actually but I’d defo do Swoosh again!!

Are we starting a new thread for winter 23/24 or carrying on this one?!

I've been mainly out of action since July with a shoulder injury, but it's getting better and I hope I'll be allowed to do front crawl by the end of October. I've been swimming a little bit here and there but trying to stick within my limits and not aggravate it. Went swimming with seals off Lundy Island at the end of August, and back at my local (lifeguarded, v well organised) lake a couple of weeks ago. Last night I joined a slightly madder gang for a wild dip down the gentle flow of the river, 16°, under the full moon (yes we "awoooo"-d!!) and this morning I did a stately 500m breaststroke at the lake, 17°.

I've signed up for penguin ninja and polar bear silver, ye gods, so I'm going to need all the encouragement anywhere I can find it!!

I plan on swimming on the Solent at least twice a week through the winter, pollution allowing. I'm not going for any badges this year.
I swam the Solent three weeks ago, wore my gofasta wettie, which kept my quite cosy actually. Didn't feel like cold water swimming at all!

I need to get my neoprene out, I've not done so much swimming this year, but the weather's not been the most inviting and I've had running training that's often prioritised the best days. I've covered my peak milage now so that frees up a bit more time.

I haven't done any river swims, again weather and avaluability haven't co-incided well and the warm phases have often been accompanied by torrential downpours.

yeah this summer has been bullshit for swimming, to be fair. One big downpour makes my local beaches inadvisable for about 3 days. And we had (at least) one big downpour every week in July and August. I've no idea how I got any training done, but it wasn't much!

It’s getting colder 😍😍😍😍
although I’ve not had the best of times recently and actually shivered yesterday. Still did 1k and felt great afterwards.

also I am an idiot - I’ve signed up for Coniston next year, anyone else?.

I did 2k three weeks ago and that's probably the limit of my patience. I could swim for a couple hours easy but would be vv bored!

People doing multi hour swims, respect!

Unfortunately at my speed it’s multi hour x 2

It takes me about an hour to swim a mile. Faster in a pool because of pushing off at the ends!