Off to Toronto ’til a week Saturday. I’ll mostly be confined to the hotel’s small and warm pool, but…I have a date with the Toronto Winter Swimmers at noon on Sunday for an icy dip in Lake Ontario. I am looking forward to this immensely and hope to persuade some of them to come to the CWSC 2013. Meanwhile Mrs Ape will blog and bake for the SLSC cake aficionados this weekend. Enjoy the rising temperatures y’all.
Tags: ice swimming
Still going up. Still need good warm boots in the morning. At a shade under 4 degrees C, an aspirant for the ISA mile at 5 or less should be able to do a km at least. So clocked up 1200 yards (1097m). Could have done some more, but didn’t want to enter the zone of pain unless I had to. Spend a lot of time faffing about, but it meant I got to chat to Stephanie, Sangetta, Egg and Batch before my dreadful immersion. The sauna was packed afterward with those I had seen enter the pool and leave before myself. Alex sped past, Elizabeth did a cool two, Vince did his usual heads-down-no-nonsense-boogie and Chris clocked up 400 yards. Once warmed up I saw Pip and Nando do a few and then developed plans with Nando to create a SLSC Polar Bear Club. Not as stringent as the ISA – a km at 5 degrees C or less. Hats, as that’s going be the ‘prize’, are being designed as we go to press. Watch this space for more news. And had a chat with John B about Bury St Edmunds and Chelsea FC.
Ape – 1200 yards/1097 metres – 3.8 degrees C.
Tags: cold water swimming, endurance swimming, Tooting Bec Lido
another sunny day in Paradise
Temperature up to 3 degrees C in the deep end. Weather forecast looks like it’s going keep going up. I’m off to Toronto on Friday for a week and a bit, so hopefully it’ll be a balmy 5 or 6 degrees C by the time I get back and I can start doing miles again. An earlier start gave us the opportunity to catch up with the early crowd. Saw Egg on the way in and swam with Alex (of Quick Dip fame), who’s just a fast as ever.
Chats with Vince, Sue and Claire in the sauna about different styles of swimming. Chris has a lady vicar, straight out of the League of Gentlemen, on his lido pass; Sue told us about being papped and Nicky was building bridges with Charlotte, after she had asked for toast and then switched, when made a better offer, to croissant. And she was also disappointed that Mrs Ape hadn’t made a mid week cake. Margy was enthusiastic about using the lido for ISA qualifiers – phew! and Anthony and Karen were their usual cheerful selves. It was lovely to have a chat with Hilary, as we’ve not seen her for a few weeks. Found out that Angie and us have a mutual friend in Bridged – a Streatham quilting institution. John B meanwhile was in his usual floral swim trunks, looking a fine figure of a fella. And Pip did his inaugural weigh in, prior to his summer of training for a Channel relay – 17.5 stone. His target is to lose three.
Ape – 1000 yards, Mrs Ape – 600 yards, 3 degrees C.
Tags: 3 degrees C, cold water swimming, endurance swimming, Tooting Bec Lido
Back to the cold. Sign on the door says, “ice in pool”. We check the thermometer – a balmy 2.5 degrees C. We can’t swim in the shallow end as it has a fine coating of ice. Ice that would lacerate the unwary swimmer. Kate’s a little reluctant, but stays in for the best part of eight minutes and does 400 yards; I stay in about the same time and manage 633 yards. Then into the sauna for a warm up where we chat variously with Jenny and others unknown. Then we have it to ourselves before the surprising arrival of Gary and Fiona, gatecrashing from Brockwell Lido. They have a fun old time and intersperse widths and dunking with more sauna time. I join in and do another 200 yards; and then we wait, take pics and clean the sauna at 1pm.
Ape – 833 yards, Mrs Ape – 400 yards, 2.5 degrees C.
Tags: 2.5 degrees C, cold water swimming, ice swimming, Tooting Bec Lido
Mrs Ape's love cake
Another year has passed and we’re back in Befnal Green to celebrate a watery St Valentine’s Day swim (albeit a few days afterwards). The Ouse, Nene, Cam, Tooting, London Fields and other crews are present; all have cakes of some description and there is plenty of chit, chit, chatter. Firstly the wonderful bagel babes (aka Clara and Liz) present us with a long bagel menu – thank you – cups of tea and coffee; before we walk along the Regents Canal to London Fields Lido. Fifty metres long, plenty wide and heated to around 27 degrees C, or about 24 degrees C more than I am presently used to. And it’s rammed, being a sunny day and all. Sarah Playden fetches up with Harriet in tow and the esteemable Ted Fellow, Julie is with is too. Along with a happy Sam, grinning Bryn, top fella Tom, grizzly Gazza, jocular Juliet, lovely Linda, la la Lala, louche Lloyd and others too numerous to mention. We occupy the lanes, swim a bit, chat a lot and then head back for cake. A long and delicious tradition of the SE swimming crews – we bake good cake and we scoff it. And another couple of hours of chat with swim plans being hatched.
Thank you Gary for organising. And thank you Gaia for the sunshine in February.
Tags: cake
Finally Batch is there at the same time as us, so he got his b’day cake. This was version two, as the first one got scoffed by the SLSC cake vultures on Monday. He loved it, we loved it and there was none left by the time we left. Gave a congratulatory handshake to the amazing Bertie Portal – who’s just rowed across the Atlantic – and had chats a plenty with Batch, Elizabeth, Simon, Jenny, Hilary, Margy, Inez, Egg, Ian and Julie.
Meanwhile not knowing the temperature on entry, I swam six lengths and thought I was good for eight and then just carried on for another 300 yards to make the kilometre. Apparently I was a little incoherent on exit and I noticed a more severe after drop than usual, but it was accompanied by shivering, so I knew that I was on the right side of hypothermia. It makes me have deep respect for the ice swimmers and those that do a mile at these temps. Mrs Ape has also decided to go for the ISA membership, but thinks she needs to speed up first; as at this temperature it’s less about distance and more about time in the water – a mile in 30 minutes at 5 degrees, is less impressive than a mile in 45 minutes methinks.
Lots of pics of us today on Elizabeth Furth’s lovely blog – Unusual Love Affair in London.
Ape – 1km, Mrs Ape – 600 yards, 3 degrees C.
Tags: 3 degrees C, cake, cold water swimming, endurance swimming, ice swimming, Tooting Bec Lido
Up to 2.5 degrees C. I always have the same delusion that it’ll be therefore much warmer (it was 1.5 yesterday). But it feels just as damn cold. Thought I’d do 400 yards, but ended up doing 600. Meanwhile Mrs Ape did 400 yards. But she had been out to the Gorillaz Sound System last night and only got back in the wee small hours.
There is some comfort in the difference between 1.5 and 2.5 degrees C though. It takes a little while longer to lose sensation in the hands and feet. About 30 to 45 seconds or 50 metres of swimming. Talked to Mal in the sauna afterwards about how she’s doing her first winter – she wisely does a width (33 yards) for each degree C until it gets up to 10, then she does more. We were then joined by Jackie, who’s part of a relay across the Bering Straits, and talked more about how, when you have a target, you can do more. She clocked up 800 yards. Nodded to Simon as he set off on his long head up breaststroke routine, and I also managed to get my membership card off Doreen and send the one she’d sent me to Alex – I think she got ginger confusion.
Meanwhile my good friend Dan Start has the third of his Wild Swimming books coming out on April 4th. This time it’s places various in France. And I am looking forward to getting a copy of Susie Parr’s The Story of Swimming in the post before the weekend.
Ape – 600 yards, Mrs Ape – 400 yards, 2.5 degrees C.
Tags: cold water swimming, endurance swimming, ice swimming, Jackie Cobell, Tooting Bec Lido
Mrs Ape celebrapes
Da Dah. Mrs Ape does the endurance distance (500 yards) at 1.5 degrees C. Ain’t she marvellous. I thought I should also break a PB and did 600 yards, but was in the water for a couple of minutes less, so again she is the hardier ape. Had a chat with Chris (of Stanton Cross fame) about Brazil and the generosity and enthusiasm of Nando; Jenny about the grunge-y state of London’s public swimming pools (see here) and Julie and another in the sauna about Sri Lankan literature. And it was good to see Doon back doing a swift width – she’s been away since October.
Ape – 600 yards, Mrs Ape – 500 yards, 1.5 degrees C
pics by both Apes
Tags: cold water swimming, endurance swimming, ice swimming, Tooting Bec Lido
It’s amazing how water, that plainest of things, can be so magical. It’s one of the few liquids whose solid form is lighter than it’s liquid form – so wildlife can live underneath it when it freezes – it makes up 70% of the planet’s surface, and we’re made of a goodly amount of it. Kate and I had the lido and sauna to ourselves today. It was strange. The water was measured at 0.5 degrees C, I managed 300 yards, but the hardier sex of the species, Mrs Ape, clocked up 400 yards. We took it easy and played with different angles with the camera. I hope you like them.
Ape – 300 yards, Mrs Ape – 400 yards, 0.5 degrees C
Tags: cold water swimming, ice swimming, Panasonic Lumix FT10, Tooting Bec Lido
the Icebreaker
Mrs Ape reports:
Despite a much milder night, the ice is still present, thinner, but still there. Deep end swimming only but as the ice kept moving, so did where we could swim. One minute it was across, the next, down. I was warmly greeted this morning as I arrived with an Apple and Cinnamon cake (baked belatedly for Batch’s birthday but he wasn’t there) It was much appreciated, as was Clare’s Lemon Drizzle cake. Nando did a great job breaking up the ice in the shallow end, let’s hope it melts more rapidly as a result. Back home, I read an interesting piece by Lone Swimmer about the” Claw” – here. A phenomenon that cold water swimmers (including myself) suffer from. Like him, I don’t seem to suffer so much as the temperature gets colder. A topic for the sauna tomorrow I think.
Mrs Ape – Minus 1C, 200 yards.
