Open Water Swimming

135 watchers

Little Nemo Jul 2018 7:55pm, 21 Jul 2018 8,666 posts	0 Little Nemo Have you got time to do a practice swim, FergusG? It is different without a wetsuit but it might not be as bad as you fear.
LindsD Jul 2018 12:26pm, 22 Jul 2018 23,951 posts	0 LindsD Lovely 2k in the lake this morning. The water was warmer than the air at 7.30. Tired now.
KatieB Jul 2018 1:23pm, 22 Jul 2018 7,280 posts	0 KatieB Just over km for me in the lake today, very warm. Nice to be back in fresh water.
JulesR Jul 2018 10:19pm, 23 Jul 2018 25,316 posts	0 JulesR Down in Central London this weekend. Has anyone goy any good ideas for an outdoor splash vaguely near Victoria please? Entered this Welsh river 10k swim in Sept on KatieB's recommendation: outdoorswimmingsociety.com
njosmith Jul 2018 1:06am, 24 Jul 2018 208 posts	0 njosmith You could walk to the serpentine in Hyde Park from London Victoria. I guess about 30 minutes walk or take the tube to Knightsbridge and walk from there. It that vaguely near enough?
GordonG Aug 2018 12:47pm, 1 Aug 2018 7,551 posts	0 GordonG Anyone here got any expertise on water temperatures? Due to do a Half Iron Man on 11 Aug. Don’t have the confidence to swim 1.9K in a lake without a wetsuit and current water temperature is above the race limit by a couple of degrees (rules limit is 23 deg and currently the lake is 25 degrees.) Forecast for next week is air temperatures of 26/27 til Weds, then dropping to 23 Thurs to Sun (tri is on Saturday, evening start). Anyone able to give an educated guess as to the likelihood of the water being below 23, given the forecast? How quickly/slowly does lake water lose its heat? Thanks!
LindsD Aug 2018 12:55pm, 1 Aug 2018 24,048 posts	0 LindsD By no means an expert, but pretty slowly in my experience. 'My' lake has only dropped 1 degree with the drop in temperatures and will probably have gone back up again now. Can you do some non-wetsuit swims to get more confidence?
Oranj Aug 2018 1:02pm, 1 Aug 2018 972 posts	0 Oranj My local lake seems to have lost temperature by about 1°C per day over the past week (it went back to wetsuit temperature for me on Monday, after +4 weeks of swimming pool temperatures), but that's likely to go back up with the coming warm spell starting today, maybe not as much as last month though when we had those very hot days. It would be difficult to predict what it's going to do in 10 days time yet. Can you get into a lake between now and then to practice a little without a wetsuit?
GordonG Aug 2018 8:00pm, 1 Aug 2018 7,552 posts	0 GordonG Thanks for the replies. Yeah gonna try to give it a go this weekend. Sink or swim, I guess!!!
Oranj Aug 2018 8:18pm, 1 Aug 2018 974 posts	0 Oranj Good! You don't have to commit to a "proper" swim. Just 10 minutes to give you an idea of what it feels like. You might surprise yourself