Membership Renewal - Club Sessions - Sunday Rides

Parliament Hill Ice Swim Hootenanny 2020

While most club members pack away their wetsuits in September and return to the pool for the winter, there are a couple of us that continue to swim outdoors all year round. Why? Well firstly, if you love swimming outdoors as much as I do, it seems a shame to limit it to just five months of the year. You’ll also hear cold water enthusiasts talking about the mental and physical health effects, or at the very least you’d never fail to notice the stupid big post-swim grins of groups of enthusiasts. For me, it is also about the challenge – how cold was the water, and how long can you swim for. That’s not true for everyone - perhaps even more so than in the summer, winter outdoor swimming is largely done by casual, non-competitive swimmers, but if you do have a competitive tendency (as most OxfordTri club members do) winter swimming allows you to test a physical boundary (just like a long-distance triathlon, except my thing is done within twenty minutes and then I can eat some cake).

And along with the growing numbers of year-round outdoor swimmers, there are also more and more events throughout the winter season, and on occasion there can be some serious racing in those chilly waters too. Last Saturday I went to Parliament Hill Lido on Hampstead Heath for the seventh annual Parliament Hill Ice Swim Hootenanny (or PHISH, for the sake of brevity). It’s a proper swim meet – timed heats with timekeepers, officials, starters, MCs providing commentary all day. The kit requirements are exacting – one pair of fabric trunks or a costume, one hat, one pair of googles, and absolutely no neoprene. And there are a range of races to enter. The pool is 61m long, so there is the two length 122m sprint, the four length 244m race, 4x61m relays and the endurance race – 10 lengths plus one length for every degree above zero. It’s been (and you’ll have to just take my word on this one) a mild winter so far, so this year the water measured 7 degrees, making the race 1047m long.

On a personal level, it was a successful day – three first places across the men’s solo events (two firsts and a second overall). The sprint was the toughest, not because of the conditions, but because I don’t really train for that sort of flat-out race any more. The 244m was a more sensibly paced affair, and the endurance swim was just beautiful – the sun was out, the silver bottom of the pool sparkled, and apart from vainly trying to claw back first place from the lady in the lane next to me with a last length sprint, I felt like I was able to swim at a good strong tempo for the 15 minutes it took to finish. Recovery after these longer cold swims is as much a part of winter swimming as the time in the water, but the PHISH team do a great job, keeping an eye on people in the sauna, bring hot drinks and sweets and layers when they are needed. In fact, the whole event was really well organised, which is especially appreciated for a sport with its own particular risks.

If you are ever interested in trying cold water swimming, give me a shout – it’s obviously easier to just carry on after the summer than to start now the water is mid single digits, but it’s not impossible. As the water temperature starts to rise again around March, it definitely is worth thinking about. When I did the BTF Open Water Activator course, the trainer on the course said there was a good argument for getting some cold water experience in for anyone with an early season race that has an open water swim, where many will be putting on their wetsuit for the first time that season for the race. There’s also the cake.