Swimming

Swim Serpentine entries now open:-

https://www.swimserpentine.co.uk/how-enter/online-entry/

(May have accidentally signed up for the Super 6 event. Will train properly this year!)

its supposed to be your threshold pace, but personally i'd be amazed if i ever achieved an hour at that pace...

Wow, I'm in Tooting and had no idea that the Lido was open over the winter, cheap enough for membership too! Definitely looking into this. I've been over heating at indoor pools recently. Though I suppose I'd have the opposite problem switching to outdoors. Time to look into buying a wet suit...

Word to the wise - Tooting is the coldest lido in London because of its size, have swum there in 1 degree when the other lidos have been about 3.

I hate swimming, but my girlfriend loves it. I want to encourage her to go swimming more regularly so she feels even radder about herself. She's got a birthday coming up and has talked about building up to do the channel challenge(?) We're in Southwark so get free weekend swimming. I'm thinking something equivalent to my cycling Garmin 500 so she can do some basic tracking of her progress both in and out of the pool and see herself improve/show off to me when she's getting better. Can anyone recommend a starter swim watch tracker thing (closer to the £50 mark than the £100 mark, second hand will do) that got them going swimming a bit more regularly? Or maybe there's something else that helps motivate more when swimming? Preferably nothing novelty and plasticky that’s just a waste of planet destroying materials - hence second hand is good.

lots of people like the Garmin swim, should be available second hand for that kind of money, it only works indoors though.

https://buy.garmin.com/en-GB/GB/p/97287

Also, proper "swimmers" would never wear a watch, firstly as its just not cool, secondly as it creates drag and thirdly it might get caught in the lane ropes, but all god for the keen amateur!

the fancy tri watch's all have swim indoors and outdoors stuff, and some of the lifestyle ones do too, but I know the vivoactive is not good at outdoors swimming...

The Withings Activité Pop has basic swim logging and there are some bargains around, I picked one up about 6 weeks ago from Robert Dyas for £29.99.

The swim data is very basic though.

Thanks for the responses @Sainsburys_Ed and @jellybaby! Much appreciated. Turns out there's a jedi a page back selling a Garmin swim and they've still got it for sale. Seems to do the simple job of tracking lengths and setting up for each pool pretty quickly. Jellybaby, that Withings looks ace! Like, actually looks nice. Basic is good - it's for proudly proclaiming 'I've swum 5 miles this week!', or whatever is a pride enducing distance to swim in a week. Will keep it in mind for a runner up incase the Garmin falls through...

Looks like she's getting a Garmin and an evening and dinner at the Thames Lido. Thanks forum!

104 lengths tonight, in the countdown to my triple 5k swimathon challenge. It took 55 minutes, which wasn't too bad. Physically I felt fine, but I struggled to keep count, especially with the distraction of other people in the lane.

This was the 3rd swim of the year, 6th in the last 6 months. I've not been taking it as seriously as I should have been.

Any recommendations for an indoor swimming watch or length counter? I've got a TomTom multisport that isn't much cop.

I've got a Garmin Fenix 5 which counts lengths with very good, but not quite perfect, accuracy. I expect the cheaper and smaller Garmin's would also work if you don't want the other features.

I've got a Swimovate Poolmate Live which vibrates when I've done my required number of lengths so I can focus on technique rather than counting. It's good.

Have a look at the flowchart on this page, they've got several watches that have different features: https://www.swimovate.com/poolmates/

Not the cheapest though.

Compared to just about anything Garmin then that's pretty cheap.

Forerunner 935 is ace (Fenix 5 in a lighter case with WiFi).
735 would work fine too if you're not planning on >10hr races
Wouldn't be much point keeping the TomTom if you got either though.

Forerunner 920xt probably going cheap in places now as it's a few years old

935 works very well for me, as did my old 920xt.

Never tried a Garmin Swim but I heard the work well too.

My local pool has Swimtag for its members. That's just as accurate, see if your local pool has something similar.

Otherwise I'd embrace the simple option of just swimming for X amount of time, either timed by a poolside clock or a cheap (waterproof) digital watch. Knowing exactly how far you've swum (and how many individual strokes, and individual length times) is nice, but utterly unnecessary in the grand scheme of things.

Most of my training swims now are either "swim for Y minutes" or complicated bunches of nonsense (2 x 25m lengths of pull followed by 4 lengths of left arm only, followed by ...etc...) that are written down on a bit of laminated paper and are easy to count at the time.

thanks for the suggestions. Ridiculously, I've got a Garmin FR735 that I've never thought of using. I'll give that a go.

I had been running to the pool, swapping to TomTom, then back again and running home.

I've finished the third of the Swimathon 5k events.

1.50, 1.51 and 1.52. My shoulders are feeling weak and I have either broken or bruised a toe accidentally kicking someone. I've had enough of breaststroke for a while

......and this afternoon I took the kids to the pool.

^^ Good work (only just noticed this).

Back in the pool for the first time in too long although only did 800m as I'm so un-swim-fit.

Medium lane filled with dawdlers doing breaststroke (as is their want).

Fast lane had two ladies who looked quite speedy. I watched the clock to see how speedy they were, one was doing 28s 50m but luckily doing them at 1 minute repeats, so I could do my sluggish 1:40/100m and 20s rest without anyone getting in anyone's way.

Just under 4 months until Swim Serpentine 6 mile event. Easily enough time if I put in the pool time. Also bought a swim buoy which I'll take on family holiday to Lake Annecy in August and get some proper open water swims in.

had forgotten how nice open water swimming is until this weekend, up to this point this year its been a bit of case of getting in and focusing on not drowning, nearly 7.5k done over the two days and a big improvement in speed from Saturday to Sunday by focusing on technique.

less than 5 weeks to Ironman Austria, hopefully i can get round at Sundays pace with Saturday perceived effort.

amazing how much your mind can wonder in 4k of continuous swimming when you have no-one to avoid or turning to do!

https://openwaterswimathon.org/enter-now?utm_source=Swimathon&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10609103_OWS%20Full%20Launch%201%20%28London%29&dm_i=1ONZ,6BE1B,EBMGPT,OY6PH,1

Excuse the long link - £8.50 for a 5k Swimathon open air swim in case anyone is interested.

It was that sort of phishing email that got me signed up for the triple 5k swim - I'm not falling for it again. At least I don't think I am

Going to Wimbledon today reminded me of this petition:-

https://www.change.org/p/make-swimming-in-wimbledon-park-lake-a-reality

Sign it and spread it wide...

Will this attract @kl? :)

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2019/jul/12/wild-swimming-lake-to-open-in-beckenham

I'm going to be writing a stern letter to Lewisham Trading Standards. There is nothing 'wild' about having to swim anti-clockwise. The swimming times also don't allow for a post parkrun plunge which is an epic fail.

There is nothing 'wild' about having to swim anti-clockwise.

If you've ever clashed heads with an oncoming swimmer you'll understand why they're asking folks do this.

I swim at Highgate Pond which has no such rule and seems to manage. I don't recall any personal crashes there while I can think of a couple of others elsewhere (winter solstice in the dark at Parliament Hill Lido was too chaotic for example).

Call it Open Water Swimming if it needs a label other than plain Swimming, I'm just not convinced it sounds very wild.

It doesn't sound perfect but personally I'm just glad to see an open water swimming venue opening up, how often does that happen? So many good open water swimming locations ban swimming or it happens unofficially. Unfortunately the reality is that if Lewisham Council let it be more relaxed and someone had an accident they'd probably get sued to high heaven.

I do agree 'wild' is a stretch though.

Also, I love the frankness of Cllr McGeevor :)

"A lot of people didn’t realise the park was publicly accessible when it was a golf course. It was mostly used by old, white males."