Swimming

It's really a private sports club, with a little bit of public access, probably that they had to offer to get the licence.

Meh - a little bit of hypothermia's good for toughening you up.

£20 to go swimming in Reading.

Go to a charity shop, get 20 books.

Well if that doesn't convince you, nothing will.

Looking at your triathlon posts further up, they may not be amazing for an open water triathlon the level of vision they provide isn't that wide, also you have to kind of stick them to your face when dry (this is my method at least) and then pull the straps round. So if they get kicked off by someone else, they'd be a bugger to get back on. Fine for lengths in the pool, though.

Go to a charity shop, get 20 books.

And use them to build your own pool!

There is a council pool down the road that charges about a fiver if you just want a swim.

£20 for three hours at a spa isn't a bad price. Porchester Spa in Bayswater is £28.55 for similar.

I mostly swim in Aqua Sphere Vista masks - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Aqua-Sphere-Vista-Swimming-Goggle/dp/B006PDOJ12

For me they are more comfortable as they don't press into my eye sockets in the same way. At the moment I've got a clear set for indoors/at night and a tinted set for outdoors.

@Tonts Looks like I'm going to be swimming in a pool for a while anyway and considering they're £3 I can definitely afford to just buy another set for outdoor stuff at a later date. Perhaps when I have a better idea of what I like and don't like. Also I'm not keen on the insane starts in triathlons - if I'm at risk of getting kicked in the face I'll probably just hang back a bit and let the nutters outpace me. I'm not really interested in being competitive about it, more just interested in doing long distances at reasonable speeds.

@jellybaby looks good, might get some for outdoor stuff. Considering the Zoggs ones didn't fit it's possible I might have a weird-shaped head though, so may or may not fit me

Sound, they'll be fine for the pool. Can take a little while to get them sitting right, but I find them pretty comfortable. I used an aquasphere for a while, too until the seal broke. Good for triathlons, excellent visibility.

You don't get to use the spa for that though. I just thought it seemed quite expensive and would put people off from using a quite lovely pool.

yeah you do...

"To use the pool and facilities if you are not a swimming member ... come along for the non-members’ swim session Monday to Friday from 1pm to 4pm. Enjoy 3 hours’ full use of the pool, saunas and hot tub for £20."

I'd go now (well, a few hours ago) if it wasn't for the sitting at a desk not in Reading I do most weekdays.

Reading tho...

Huub Aegis II is £130 at the moment - bargain or not?

https://huubdesign.com/products/huub-aegis-2-triathlon-wetsuit-mens

Bought a dhb wetsuit instead at £60 from Wiggle, along with two pairs of cheapo spare dhb running shoes for £20 each, meaning I got the £15 off. Also 4% cashback at TopCashback. So the wetsuit works out at about £49. Thought it was wiser to buy something a bit cheaper and then upgrade if I need to.

Have also got a pair of Swedish goggles... quite difficult to get the fit right and I look like a fucking idiot wearing them, but oh well.

Now for the foolish questions. How do I actually swim in a pool? Do I leave my towel on the side? Do I bring a water bottle with me? Do I just hide in the corner if I want to rest? How can I avoid tiring myself out in about 2 lengths?

My local pool is only 25 yards. I'll probably pop in next week for my first actual swim since I was a child. Hoping there'll be no one else in there at 7 am so I'll suffer less embarrassment.

You generally leave your towel in the locker. You can bring a bottle, but that would be unusual if you're swimming for less than an hour. If you want to rest, just chill at the end of the pool - just leave the middle of the lane clear for people to turn. And if you don't want to tire yourself out, just go slow. Start in the slow lane, and make a judgement on when you should move up - assuming the pool is divided into lanes.

It's generally pretty intuitive, just copy others, unless they're douchebags. It's pretty easy to identify the douchebags.

When I was getting back in to swimming I couldn't do more than two consecutive lengths of front crawl (I found that slowing down too much screwed my technique) so I would just do a breaststroke length (or lengths) to recover. Over time the number of 'recovery' lengths I needed to do dropped down to zero, and I was able to do 1h+ long swims with no breaks.

Quiet in here! I re-read the thread recently so it was good to hear your update @Fatberg - I didn't realise who you used to be, or that you'd stopped. Glad to hear you're getting back into it.

I've been swimming more after getting sciatica which cycling was not helping - I needed to go away and strengthen my core and swimming is doing a good job of that and improving my fitness. I've really been enjoying it too. I swam two miles on Saturday - I'm not really sure why, it's not like I'm training for anything and I hadn't done more than about a mile recently. Over ambition I guess...

After doing this I got what I thought was cramp in my calf - the gastrocnemius, I think - which clearly wasn't cramped because it's still tender now two days later.

Talking to my friend on Saturday who swam for three years for a club when he was younger he thinks it might be because I point my feet too much when I do the crawl. I think he might be right because another side effect of doing that is foot cramp and I've always suffered with those on and off in the pool.

I'd been meaning to get some training anyway so the good thing is this will push me to do that, but I never knew it was possible to pull a muscle in the pool, so that's yet another learning point!

On the plus side, it's a good time of year to get in the pool - I had a lane to myself for the second half of my mile in the Olympic pool on Saturday. I am dreading January :(

Anyone else do the Crisis Midwinter Swim on Saturday? 5 degrees in Brockwell Lido, which was pretty bracing. The previous weekend was also good, Well-Next-the-Sea in Norfolk - thought the water was significantly colder than you'd expect in December, and it was 1.5 miles from the top of the beach to the sea, which made it a bit of a duathlon.

Not sure how many swimming events “swimskins” are legal for, but I have a blueseventy pointzero3 for sale here:

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/14024455/

Does anyone swim at Brixton Rec? Thinking of doing some swimming there, the website is pretty cumbersome to work out. Any advice?

Rapid:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-australia-43251125

Just signed up for the Marathon swim event at the Olympic pool. I bottled it though and opted for the 5k half marathon as the furthest I have swam up until now is 3.6km. For those experienced in these kind of events do I need to do anything especially different to get over that last 1.5k? The advantage of the format is you get out the pool every 1k and walk back to the start which will allow me to take on energy drinks which I have never done in the past.

That looks good (and expensive but I can see why it would cost that much). Will try and remember for 2019.

I've got a place for the 2 mile Swim Serpentine in a couple of weeks but I'm unlikely to swim it as I've done so little (literally a total of 1km in the last 3 months) and, more importantly, doubt I can even fit into my wetsuit right now.

5km is my max (in a pool), most of my long training swims were somewhere between 3km and 5km and the only variation was some chafing by my armpits/top-of-pecs as I start to go beyond 3km. But this really depends on my weight (I'm lardy at the moment so more likely to chafe). I'd probably dawb a bit of bodyglide where the top of the arm brushes the body to be on the safe side but then I keep saying I'll do this before a swim and never remember to.

Never bothered with energy drink during a 5k swim (1h36m seems to be my fastest, but 25m pool so "easier") but it wouldn't hurt. I'm guessing 10km would be a different story.

For those experienced in these kind of events do I need to do anything especially different to get over that last 1.5k?

tl;dr no

Enjoy it.

Bit pissed off as I've damaged my ribs and am meant to be doing Dart 10k next weekend. Did another Channel relay a few weeks ago, which was a bit of fun.

For longer swims, a bit more Vaseline around the pits and Sudacreme where the beard rubs against the shoulder. Otherwise, just htfu.

Sound advise thanks guys. 10k seems seriously far not sure I'd be able to swim that far!