Channel Swim 13: Can I survive a long cold swim?

Saturday, 9:27am, Guildford Lido

I’ve not been to Guildford Lido since I was 11. It looks a lot smaller than I remembered; the sun is shining and the sky is blue so the water looks very inviting. I’ve been told that the lido is partially heated over the winter and it’s hovering at about 11 degrees. There’s one other guy ready to go on the poolside, I spot his PHISH hat and feel instant kinship. As the lifeguards climb their umpires chairs, I pick an empty lane and we both drop into the water.

Now that I know that my body is happily reacting to a 6 degree swim the way it was to 11 degrees back in October, I’m guessing that it’s going to react to an 11 degree lido the way it was to 20 degree water back before I started acclimatisation. Its simple maths, right?

WHHHHHOOOOOOHHHHFFFF. Fractions of a second later, my toes, feet and calves slide under the surface. Before I get any further and without any conscious input from my brain, the upper part of my spinal cord has already decided I’m making a horrible mistake and is grabbing for the side of the pool to stop any more of me being immersed in what, I am rapidly discovering, is water that still feels very much like 11 degrees.

Fortunately I’m down the shallow end, so I’m able to arrest my drop before I go all the way in…

Things are coming together. Not only are my distances are going up, my stroke rate per length is dropping. It was 26 strokes per length in December and is down to 22 without any loss in speed. My heart rate is settling squarely at a sensible pace as I swim – with the time I’m spending in zone 2 from 65% back in December to 99% now. Basically, the training is paying off, and looking at data I can see myself getting more efficient.

All the indicators are looking good, but as the calendar ticks over, I’m increasingly aware that there’s still a huge difference between what I’m training for and how I’m training.

I need to start putting everything to the test in ways I’ve not been able to do over winter, and although I’ve been able to tough out 30-40 minute swims in 5-6 degree water that’s a long way from what I’ll have to survive on swim day. I needed to do a longer cold swim and Guildford was a golden opportunity to test myself.

The proof is in the pudding, as they say. I need to know – can I survive a long cold swim?

Saturday, 9:30am, Guildford Lido

I spot the professional cold water swimmer I saw earlier. He’s waist deep in the water and splashing water on his top half while hissing at the temperature. After some time, he ducks his head under the water, curses, ducks his head again then finally swims off. I was the only witness to his ‘faffing’

Not just me then. That’s a real relief, to be honest.

In what appears to be a trend, I really don’t want to put my head under the water. I force myself to start swimming; I do the first length breaststroke, the second half crawl, half breaststroke, then the third crawl, the fourth half breaststroke before finally settling down to a crawl.

This has come as a bit of a blow. The channel in my window could be 12 degrees – I might be swimming for nineteen hours and I was expecting this to be easy.

The temperature is still a concern for me.

Julian Critchlow has a brilliant blog where he has been able to drill into the real numbers around channel swimming. He was able to show that in 2019 the early season success rate was 54% compared to 73% only a short few weeks later. This is a big swing and although I’m built to be a successful cold water swimmer I have not built up the years of experience that many of the OW community have.

This is something I have seen makes a real difference.

I want to do what I can to push those odds back up towards the 73%.

Even the year could make a huge difference. I can see from the CS&PF Sandettie buoy data (this is the one slap bang in the middle of the channel) that in 2019 at the start of my window the sea temp was 14 degrees. That would be toasty, but in 2016 it was 11.9.

If I can’t get through ninety minutes at potential channel swim temperatures now, I might as well pack up my toys and go home.

Saturday, 10:30am, Guildford Lido

After a shaky start, things quickly settled down. I’ve been loping up and down the lane at a consistent, if slightly slower than expected, pace and am feeling fine with the temperature. I can feel my fingers and toes, my mental recall is unaffected and although I’m aware of the cold water around me it’s not causing me any issues.

For the first few minutes I was genuinely worried I wouldn’t able to see out the ninety minutes. I’m now confident I’ll make that – It will be fascinating to see how hard I am hit by the aftereffects.

This was a eye opening revelation for me – the hardcore cold water swimmers I’ve been infiltrating are genuinely tough. My body might be better adapted and my cold reflex suppressed but getting in is still horrifically unpleasant.

Saturday, 11:40am, Guildford Lido

Second person in, and second last person out. All the early swimmers had completed their sets and left, and I continued to power up and down as a fresh group entered the water. Eventually the lifeguard wandered over, pointed to the clock and asked me to climb out as the session was over. I scrambled out and rushed to dry myself and dress in layers before the afterdrop hit. Having quickly completed this I sipped my tea and waited for the shivering to start.

And waited.

And waited.

So the lesson for the day was that although initially still deeply unpleasant, I can at least comfortably survive ninety minutes in eleven degrees.

In March (In two weeks in fact) I’ll be trying to extend that to six hours. That still feels like a big jump.

So I made the ninety minute session. Once I got through the first three or four minutes it didn’t pose a problem at all. I’ve taken a huge lift from this as this is one of those big unknowns now chalked off the worry list.

However, I’ve decided that until I can get in the lakes and the sea and do this sort of time I need to make a lido swim part of the weekly routine.

Everything I can do to improve my odds, I’m going to keep doing.

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