Alton Water is a pretty big reservoir near Ipswich, which is usually out of bounds to swimmers but this September hosted the Great East Swim – part of the Great Swim series which started last year in Lake Windermere.
All these swims are just 1 mile, not such a great distance perhaps, but it was well organized, lots of family stuff to do (Brendan made a bird box) and it felt good to be part of a genuinely mass participation swimming event. The Outdoor Swimming Society were there in sky blue with a nice hot tub – though the weather was so summery that it was hardly needed.
Most people were in full wetsuits, with a water temp of about 18. There were about 10 waves of 100-150 swimmers each, plus elite men and women. The men’s was won by a tiny young Brit called Tom in 16:24 (that’s fast – the world 1500m indoor record is 14:35), the women’s by a German in 18:08, ahead of the Beijing Olympic 10k gold, silver and bronze medalists – a really elite field down in rural Suffolk!
It was Kerry Ann Payne, 2nd in Beijing, who started my wave off. The water was murky, but seemed warmer than the sea. I decided to swim on the left as I breath to the right, but as the course was a clockwise loop this meant that I swam quite wide, so maybe an extra 50-100m. But it was quite civilized, with little triathlon-like thrashing.
I tried to increase speed through the swim, aiming for sub-30 mins, which I just managed, at 29:42, timed via a chip on the ankle. So a very satisfying climax to a fine summer’s swimming and I’ll certainly do it again next year.
All these swims are just 1 mile, not such a great distance perhaps, but it was well organized, lots of family stuff to do (Brendan made a bird box) and it felt good to be part of a genuinely mass participation swimming event. The Outdoor Swimming Society were there in sky blue with a nice hot tub – though the weather was so summery that it was hardly needed.
Most people were in full wetsuits, with a water temp of about 18. There were about 10 waves of 100-150 swimmers each, plus elite men and women. The men’s was won by a tiny young Brit called Tom in 16:24 (that’s fast – the world 1500m indoor record is 14:35), the women’s by a German in 18:08, ahead of the Beijing Olympic 10k gold, silver and bronze medalists – a really elite field down in rural Suffolk!
It was Kerry Ann Payne, 2nd in Beijing, who started my wave off. The water was murky, but seemed warmer than the sea. I decided to swim on the left as I breath to the right, but as the course was a clockwise loop this meant that I swam quite wide, so maybe an extra 50-100m. But it was quite civilized, with little triathlon-like thrashing.
I tried to increase speed through the swim, aiming for sub-30 mins, which I just managed, at 29:42, timed via a chip on the ankle. So a very satisfying climax to a fine summer’s swimming and I’ll certainly do it again next year.
