My outdoor swimming experiences have been rather limited lately. My "swims" have amounted to nothing more than brief plunges in a friend's pool, and actually, those dips were more like prolonged standing sessions. The last time I truly ventured into open water was a casual dip in the Adriatic Sea back in October, and I won’t pretend I was battling icy waters because I wasn’t… Let me elaborate on my hiatus – it's been a 16-month long saga with a persistent (and until last month), undiagnosed neck issue which is finally (FINALLY!!!) sorted! And as if that weren't enough drama, in an epic disp ..read more

                                                  I’ve really done very little swimming (indoors or out) since the end of August. Just to clarify, my swimming hiatus wasn’t due to laziness but rather the aftermath of a “spectacular” encounter with gravity, which resulted in a pavement head-butt, a grazed knee, a broken elbow, a very shiny eye socket, and the tragic demise of a beloved pair of sunglasses (I’m truly devastated), and whilst I healed really well, it w ..read more

Earlier last month I was kindly invited by @roguemonkeypod to chat about my journey from that first open water swim, competing  at the  Ice Swimming  World Championships, and how my blog came about.  If you’ve a bit of spare time, can can bear to watch me talking for an hour of it about, here’s the link. ??  https://youtu.be/HtXEgaTR3-o ..read more

  First swim done! Celebrating drinking tea in the jacuzzi Where to start... It ought to be with the swimming part. Write about how amazing it was (and it was), how I glided through the water without making even a splash (I didn't), and how effortless and efficient I was in the water after several months of training (I wasn't), but I'm not. I'm instead starting with the swimming costume...mostly because it features heavily. I'll wager that all professional swimmers know that competition swimwear is designed to be tight. As a non-professional swimmer (although I still ha ..read more

Despite many practice sessions, and a notable improvement when it came to tolerating the cold temperatures, I was yet to become that swimmer that confidently glided into the cold water and literally bossed it from the off. I was/am working towards being that swimmer though, which I know will take time and great effort to achieve. To help I have purposefully surrounded myself with fellow swimmers that have a great mindset, along with coaches (Leon and Stu) who allow me to get away with absolutely nothing whatsoever if it was not serving me well. Included in this was faffing around, gener ..read more

At the Yorkshire GB Training grounds   Once I had told people I would be representing Team GB at the IISA World Championships it began to feel quite daunting. On the back of it though, I was blown away by the wonderful, endless tide of good advice and recommendations I received from so many experienced ice swimmers, as well as swimmers that prefer less cold conditions to swim in. One such piece of advice which really struck me was the importance of simulating race conditions - albeit minus the mountainous backdrop, opponents, adreneline or the crowd. Why? Because it would ..read more

  A snapshot of my IISA jumper (new)... With the excitement of beling selected to represent Great Britain in the World Championships still in the front of my mind, I immediately went out and bought new stationery because, well lists... and thanks to my lists, within the day I had all the essentials sorted: flights and accommodation booked, transfers organised, a medical booked, insurance sorted and signed off as complete with a big highlighted tick with my highlighter pen... also new.  In the interest of honesty, the above was achieved relatively quickly and seamless ..read more

  Earlier this week I found out, via a pretty offiial looking e-mail, that I had been offered a place on the GB squad at the International Ice Swimming Association (IISA) 5TH WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS taking place in January in France (I must add, I had to qualify for this, and in some awfully cold water as well). My immediate jubilation and swiftly followed by feeling mostly overwhelmed, scared (actually more terrified than scared), apprehensive and completely out of my depth (no swim pun intended - but if one fits...).  I have no-one to blame but myself, after all ..read more

'Santa's little helper' and I enjoying a post-swim hot chocolate in the baking heat at the lake...  Today's swim could most definitely probably be a strong contender by the Guinness book of Records as ‘the world record of slowest swims ever to have happened,' and included mostly heads up breaststroke with the odd front crawl stroke so the swim could be tracked via GPS, should it choose to actually be working (after all, if it's not on Garmin, questions are naturally asked as to whether it happened at all...).  Garmin's official confirmation that the pace of o ..read more

Finally, after three cancellations, I can say that I was part of a successful Channel relay crossing. Here’s my account of when was literally one of the best days ever.   We arrived at the jetty at 5:30am and getting my priorities in order, immediately began quizzing our pilot Andy about the recent ‘alleged’ orca whale sighting in the Channel. To be honest I was expecting him to laugh it off and tell me it was rumour and scaremongering. I was not expecting him to offer to show me real footage of them… I realised that the scenario of actually coming face to face with an orca had ..read more