Low Wood Bay is hosting the Big Chill Swim Windermere which will take place over the weekend of 30th January - 1st February. It would seem that open water swimming is the new hot (or should I say cold!) trend.
The Outdoor Swimming Society reports a 77% increase in membership since 2006 and growing by around 9 members daily. They list details of 940 outdoor places to swim in England – the fact that it’s a long list is probably not surprising since it is said that wherever you are in the UK you are not more than 70 miles from the sea, not to mention the many and varied lakes and rivers! (more…)
Ben Berry after his 450m swim
The cold water does phenomenal things to your body and I certainly felt it as my bottom lip went numb after around 60 metres of my 450 metre event. Trawling the lake with my bottom lip as I powered through the cold gave me time to not only taste the finest water in the Lake District but to think about how wonderful this event is.
The reason I was in the Lake, wearing far too little and at its coldest time of year, was because I was having a whale of a time at the second Chill Swim event, hosted by Low Wood Bay. The event doubled in size with this year attracting 570 swimmers including the Estonian ice swimming champion that I was competing against, the Lake District National Park relay team and people dressed as smurfs in a 30 metre “Penguin Dip”.
Of course, getting cold is only half the story and the reasons for jumping in differ greatly between competitors. Hundreds of people raised money for charity; swimming teams from across the UK and the world entered just for the friendly competition; and people like myself did it simply for the fun. Regardless of the reasons for entering I am certain everyone had a massive amount of enjoyment - the camaraderie, atmosphere, awesome venue and warmth of the day more than displaced any short lived cold.
Was doing an endurance race hard? Yes. Would I do it again? Without a doubt! (more…)
Over 570 hardy swimmers from around the world will be braving the icy waters of Low Wood Bay Marina, Windermere this weekend for the 2014 Big Chill Swim.
Diving in to the chilly waters of Windermere
The swimmers are not allowed to wear wetsuits and will race over distances of 30, 50 and 450 metres, enduring water temperatures of below 5 degrees. There will also be relay races, and a 1000 metre extreme event for very experienced cold water swimmers. (more…)
