First dip in the cold North Sea

Yesterday morning I swan in the warm, calm and only slightly congested water of Loftus pool. It's a great pool and, if you pick your slot right, excellent for putting in a good few lengths without jinking around other swimmers.

I've been going regularily since the end of January and having built up the number of continuous lengths I've been trying to work out a few different routines to break up the mundane and ease the counting of lengths. (For some unknown reason I seem unable to count beyond the number 8 when swimming). I've become bored of my 4 sets of 4x100 frontcrawl/pull/kick/frontcrawl now, and the 10x100s with 30 seconds rest inbetween. So today I had a go at using the swim schedules they have at hand on the pool side. It was good. Think I swam faster and the time seemed to pass quicker. All good. I swam a mile and a half in sub 50 minutes so I was pleased.

But on to better things. Yesterday evening Ruth and I visited Cattersty Sands, Skinningrove for a reccy and maiden dip in the sea with our wetsuits.

That's my freezer thermometer you can see there dangling. The cunning plan was to measure the water temperature and stay in for a minute for each degree. Air temperature was 14 degrees, the water was 9 degrees. So our intention was 9 minutes.

After about 30 seconds my feet were so painfully cold I thought I'd have to get out. What a disappointment that would have been. But after a bit of grinning and bearing it and hopping from foot to foot, they miraculously felt bearable. Next step jumping over the waves.

That mastered onto the swimming - a bit of doggy paddling, breaststroke, frontcrawl and backstroke. It was great fun.

After the initial few minutes we began to warm up. 9 minutes done and we certainly weren't ready for getting out. We stayed in for the water for 20 minutes, and as we got out we were definitely not freezing.

I think this picture of Ruth says it all - it was great fun.

So all in all, a good first time. Not frozen to death, and a nice post swim coffee sat in the car boot. I think this could become addictive.

In a moment of New Year madness I completed my online entry for the 1 mile, Great North Swim in Windermere, 24th June. I blame that Mrs Thompson - these mad cap schemes are usually her crazy, enthusiastic idea.

My mental preparation for the event has entailed reading Lynne Cox's 'Swimming to Antartica' - surely Windermere in June can't be as cold as the waters she endured?? When my hands and feet feel painfully cold I will be inspired by her words and her magnificent achievements and swim faster and harder to generate my own heat to warm up. (For those seeking inspiration see http://www.lynnecox.org/)

I have to confess to having swum a mile in cold water before - but many, many years ago, when I swam with Whitby Seals. Whitby Seals used to hold a mile swim in the River Esk at Ruswarp as part of the Whitby Regatta weekend. I think I swam this twice. That was back in the days when we wore our normal swimming cozzies and were smothered in stinking lard to help keep us warm. Here's the embarrasing photos. I guess they were taken pre-swim, as I don't look blue with cold.

Thankfully entry for the Great North Swim is conditional on wearing a wetsuit. Having hung in my cupboard for the past few weeks, today could be the day my wetsuit finally gets wet!