...Windermere: Part II - King Leonidas to Mr. Burns in 6½ hours

After my last blog, which was essentially about a car journey, this should be almost interesting.

The glassy surface of Windermere - it didn't last 

0544 and I’m wide awake waiting for the annoying sound of a phone alarm. I could have just turned it off beforehand but annoying as it is, it does a job – much like Bono, except for the job bit. I got up, thought about stretching, decided against it, and sat back down. It was my birthday and I was about to attempt my first major swim (apart from Rottnest). I waited for the nerves to kick in but they never did. This is a definite first, I usually get a little bit anxious on the walk to the pool.

After double-checking the swim box (no need to, it’s awesome), I went downstairs for some breakfast. As luck would have it a box of Cheerios was on the table. This has become my traditional pre-swim breakfast and I took this as a good sign, a bit desperate but I don’t care. I was joined shortly afterwards by Tom and Clare, all looked good and ready. Rachel failed to materialise for breakfast but was still ready to rock when it was time to depart.

The drive to Windermere was trouble free and we were soon back at Shepherds and loading up the boat. The lake looked like glass, unbelievably smooth. It was raining a little and pretty misty though, so the crew weren’t quite as excited as I was. To be fair I was pretty excited, jumping around the boat like a maniac. Tom started the beast up and we were on our way to Fell foot, the start point of my Windermere swim.

Getting lubed up

1 hour and 20 minutes later we arrived at the jetty where I would be covered in Vaseline and chucked into the water. The other swimmer was already there and looking pretty pumped up and ready to go. He had measured the water temperature on his way to the start point, and was pleased to tell me it was sitting at 16.4c. After the recent temperatures in Dover I would take that any day.

I stripped down and got Clare to put some Vaseline in my armpits, on my neck and between my legs. She asked how much to put on and I told her that you cannot possibly put on too much, she quickly proved me wrong and I now had massive lumps of the stuff all over me. I wasn’t too worried as these would fall off in the early stages of the swim.

Ahhh warm water!

The crew walked back over to the boat, maneuvered themselves so they were facing the right way and gave me the thumbs up. I walked into the water, gave a ridiculous grin and dived in. It felt absolutely lovely, it genuinely felt warmer than my local pool. I put my head down and went for it.

The plan was to feed every hour for the first 3 hours, then switch to 30 minute intervals. I was also to do a 3-5 minute sprint before my feeds when a white board with the word ‘SPRINT’ was held over the side of the boat (I stole this from Marcia Cleveland, of Dover Solo fame). I couldn’t believe it when I first saw the sign, an hour already? It was absolutely flying by, as was I.

Tom chucked me my bottle of Maxim and I got as much down me as I could. I turned down the Milky Way that was offered, before swimming off again at a good speed. I had covered just about 2 miles in the first hour and intended to keep the pace up. I was doing so, and feeling really good (I found out my distances after the swim, not during).

The second hour feed was much the same. Again I turned down the solid food, and again failed to get much of the drink in. I wasn’t worried as I was still swimming at the same pace. At my third feed I was back where we had picked the boat up from, but on the opposite side of the lake. I couldn’t believe I was already level with the islands. I was expecting to take at least 30 minutes longer to reach this point. Again I turned down the solid food and barely got any fluids into me, but I still wasn’t worried. This would catch up with me by the end.

Getting a good breath

My next 2 feeds were much the same but I was still swimming strong. The lake was no longer smooth, it hadn’t been for quite a while to be fair, and the rain had started to fall slightly. The only reason I knew this was because the roof was flipped up on the boat, as I couldn’t feel it. I was starting to notice myself moving up and down in the waves, although it wasn’t an issue.

Attempting to feed - fail

At my 4½ hour feed I was starting to notice a lack of energy, nothing too serious, but it was the first time any negative thoughts had entered my head in the entire swim. The water still felt warm and I was still going at a decent pace. I was slightly slower according to Clare’s excellent record keeping, but I was at 11.7km so just 300m short of 3km an hour which was my target. However this was the point I started to fade.

The next 2 hours were a struggle, purely due to lack of food, which was totally my fault. I was too bothered about having quick feeds, rather than effective feeds and it was costing me dear. I slowed to around 2 .4km an hour and was starting to think about the finish. This is a terrible thing to start thinking about with a couple of hours to go.

Slowly but surely the finish, Ambleside, came into view. Clare and Tom screamed at me to get to the boat and get a final feed for the last little push. I told them in a very pathetic voice that I would be sick and was just going to go for it, I then put my head down and powered on (after watching the video of this moment ‘powered on’ is a very generous expression, I barely moved). I kept stopping and lifting my head to look at the finish, this slowed me down massively. The final kilometre took me well over half an hour to complete, it involved a lot of swearing and angry looks at the boat, but I did it!!

Mr. Burns transformation complete

I have to apologise to Rachel and Clare for my language in this last stretch. When told where the finish was, my reply was “F$@K!! where? F$@KING F$@K!! F$@K! F$@K! F$@K! F$@K! I can’t F$@KING F$@KING see it? F$@KING where??? Oh there, ok…”.


Comically my voice sounded very similar to Moss from the ‘IT Crowd’, and I looked pretty similar to Roy from the same programme. Somehow during the swim I had managed to amalgamate the two characters into one, which was an unexpected side effect of long distance swimming…