The February Swimmer

At last, the second Saturday of the month was upon us - time for the February edition of my raison d'etre: The Swimmer.

Weather forecasts had not been favourable, with Met office warnings deteriorating from "Be prepared" to "Panic". Yet arriving for the meet-up at Hampstead and 7am yesterday morning, I found conditions pleasantly light and mild, like a posh olive oil. The Swimmer clearly has friends in high places (maybe Swimmer regular Rev Graham?) as - once again - the sun did make itself to shine upon us.

This month we were about 20 in total and, while I've greeted the swelling attendances of recent months with pleasure and misplaced pride, it also felt good to be back to a more intimate gathering as in Swimmers past. Moreover we had 8 whole women, quite the coup for equality.

Fluoresting

Just time for John (of PHISH relay team fame) and me to show off our fancy new footwear...

... and then we were off to Hampstead ponds - women actually heading to the women's pond this time, my favourite of the three bathing spots.

The sense of peace and seclusion at this beautiful pond fringed by trees, with the winter sun gently breaking through and the occasional mallard sending a ripple across the surface, is certainly worth getting up for. Sorry boys, but the ladies pond is best.

Swimming selfie

I was out the water last and so for one glorious minute had the whole pond to myself. They say the best things in life are free: on this occasion it cost me £2 which I consider a bargain.

Note the contrast of social behaviours between our idyll of taste and tranquillity and the display of macho tomfoolery at the Men's pond, expertly photographed by our own correspondent, Peter:

Next we hoofed it over to Parliament Hill lido to catch up with the boys, Liz going for a great new look to save time on changing in and out of kit:

Just time for a quick and steely swim at PH lido, admiring the light shimmering off the metal lining.

 Oh and possibly the best selfie to date:

Peter by Peter

And a someone-elsie:

Me by Peter

Onwards and steeply upwards for the obligatory photo atop parliament hill:

Who guarantees Swimmer sunshine? Rev Graham of course!

Then a lovely run through Hampstead, Regent's park, Marylebone and Hyde Park, with me and John almost keeping up with the 'elite' runners of the group (see pic above), presumably thanks to our shiny new shoes.

Not in service

Jeopardy awaited us at the Serpentine in the form of five or six sturdy swans prowling and prowling about in the swimming area, no doubt dying to break all our arms at the first provocation.

John executes a flawless dive

My version slightly splashier

I gave the swans a wide berth and enjoyed a wonderful lap in the sun, the water refreshing but by no means too cold, probably a good degree or two up on last month I'd say.

Marcus makes a new friend

Al fresco changing

Dressed and mostly dry, we gathered in the serpentine carpark for a refuel - this time by what was practically a Swimmer bake-off, with gingerbread from Swimmer co-founder and today's support driver Jonathan, chocolate cake with a tequila glaze (no doubt inspired by last weekend's exploits) from Liz, and my attempt at Anzac biscuits (which seemed to have aspirations to become cakes, but still did the job), plus stacks of sweets and a suspicion of tea.

Liz with 'tequila glazed' expression

Our very own gingerbread man

An intimate moment

...And another

Will staves off the cold with some techno dance moves

Poolside Percy Pigs?

Our blood awash with sugar and our bellies afull with cake, we staggered on for the final 10k leg to Brockwell.

YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!!

I confess the sight of Harvey Nichols always makes me acutely aware of my dishevelled appearance and unique odour of sweat and duck poo I'm probably emitting, but that's half the fun of this part.

It wasn't until Battersea bridge that some dark thunderclouds drew portentously in and the first few spots of rain began to fall:

By the time we gained the south side of the river a proper deluge was battering down, visibility poor then very poor, all the way to Clapham.

Much more exhilarating than drizzle, and really the perfect time for the rain with the end relatively nigh. Putting on a final burst of speed we arrived triumphantly at Brockwell lido just before 11... only to discover that Health and Safety had reared its ugly, safety-hat-clad head and decreed that the pool would be closed until 11.15 owing to a thunder clap at 10.30.

Cue 15 mins of disgruntled muttering...

..then a jubilant release and stampede out to poolside:

  (Me: "It's like the sale at Harrods!" A lady: (pause) "No it's not")

Three delicious lengths for me, cold water perfectly soothing tired legs.

And yes, of course, hallowed poached eggs at The Lido Cafe, with prosecco and beer to show due respect to the occasion.

Thank you Will, Jonathan and The Universe for another wonderful and joyous morning of swimming-running heaven.

Pump malfunction

Last Tuesday, Tim, Peter and I were greeted by a disheartening sight upon arrival at Tooting bec lido - viz. waters green and soupy enough to give the Serpentine a run (swim?) for its money:

Bleugh

We were not happy:

Peter's not happy

Tim's not happy

Apparently the lido had experienced a case of sleep apnoea in the night, with the pump stopping and then coughing/sneezing out the gunge it had so dutifully been filtering out. We were all forced to cram into the marginally cleaner waters of the shallow end and swim widths, putting us on the spectrum with smokers desperately rooting around in ashtrays for dogends... "Gotta get my fix man."

Two days later we were back in the Tim Taxi for an apprehensive return to the scene, accompanied by the psychedelic sounds of Cerrone's "Supernature" to ward off the evil pump spirits...

Supernaaatuuure

Thanks goodness, waters back to (almost) blue and the, er green light was on for lengths!

 The water temperature, incidentally, was just under 5 degrees.

Margaritas, cold kilometres and charity dippers

There was also sorts going on in Brockwell lido and its environs last weekend. Perhaps we were all a bit giddy with excitement that January was out the way.

For one thing we had glorious sunshine on Saturday 1st Feb, which always makes the water look particularly inviting and shimmery. After customary dry dives, bracing swims and long hot showers, we sat on the cafe terrace soaking up some rays and cake in equal measure:

Next enter eager beavers and arch running rivals Marcus and Peter, late for swims after a hotly contested parkrun (a 5km dash twice round the park, if you're interested). Lucky for them they had the pool to themselves and barely a cloud in the sky - a rare treat indeed:

Later that day we all piled into the lovely home of Icicle Fran, for a party to celebrate the return of her husband Alfonso - who swims more elegantly than a fish and makes a mean margarita - from an extended trip to Mexico. With tequila coursing through our veins and not a non-swimmer in sight, it wasn't long before things descended into some gentle lido lunacy...

At some point during the evening, Noelene conceived of the Cold Kilometre as a lesser cousin of the well-established Ice Mile (swimming 1 mile under 5 degrees) which, as you may have guessed, involves swimming 1km (20 lengths) of the lido at c. 6 degrees. I concede that Cold Kilometre does have a certain ring to it (alarm bells?), but should probably not be attempted when recovering from a margarita party...

Come Sunday morning and one Cold Kilometre later, Noelene was white as a sheet and staggering about like... well like we all were the night before. Candy and I wasted no time in putting her on the radiator and getting two hairdryers going on her full-blast. She eventually regained her normal shape and colour, and vowed never to try that again (I'm recording this here so she doesn't renege on the promise). A valuable reminder to us all that however much fun we have larking about in the freezing blue familiar surroundings, we shouldn't push our luck (this does not apply to our conduct in the cafe).

On a more positive note, we were also visited by four most excellent and enthusiastic ladies raising money for dementia care and research by taking on 10 icy swims during February:

Remembering not to forget

On this day they were beginning at Brockwell before heading to Tooting, and thence to Brighton for a swim in the sea! Their charity is called Remembering Not To Forget (http://rememberingnottoforget.org.uk/) and they have some brilliant, inspiring pics of their swims on their Facebook page. Laura, Ali and compatriots, the Brockwell Icicles salute you!

General goings on

With recent posts dominated by the Swimmer and away games, I feel I have been neglecting our own dear Brockwell lido. So here is a small offering of some recent January happenings.

Water temp has been in the 6-degree bracket for a while - not too shabby for this time of year, and means I continue to forgo encumbrance of neoprene gloves and booties. Sara is now fully back into the Icicle swing of things after her recent voyage across the Atlantic, dry-diving and everything.

On Wednesday we were visited by the delightful Zoe Jewell from Brixton Blog, who made a lovely video about our little gang of winter swimmers that really captures something of what this whole antartic malarkey means to us:


Full post here: http://www.brixtonblog.com/brockwell-videos-icicles/19706

Thank you Zoe!

For this auspicious occasion, Marc finally succumbed to the call of the dry dive - huzzah! As we took up dive positions at the deep end, he attempted through outward nonchalance to fool the camera that he does this sort of thing all the time, and then somewhat gave the game away with his "EeeaarghIt'swonderful!!" reaction (which pretty much sums up the whole feeling of cold water swimming).

On Friday, for reasons known only to themselves, David and Guy decided to swim in their underpants. The mind boggles, it really does.

...which sent Tim into a photoshop phantasia:

 
Owing to an administrative error, Deb recently found herself in possession of about 1.2 tonnes of rhubarb, which she generously distributed amongst the Icicles.

Naturally I opted to present mine in cake format - viz some rhubarb crumble muffins, which we gobbled up yesterday.

Cake offerings in general have been most excellent of late (thank you to the wonderful Lido Cafe for not chucking us and our impertinent piles of tins and tupperware off the premises).

Special mention to Sara's rum cake, all the way from Barbados, which left me feeling a little giddy after two pieces:

Also Tim's amazing iced finger buns:

...complete with blue food colouring for that special Icicle/smurf look:

Thanks to Peter for capturing this classic scene:

We've also had a few surprise visitors. First this sighting by Tim:

And then Punky returns to the scene:

So there you have it - water temps and sanity teetering on the brink of acceptable for the time being.

Parliament Hill Icy Swim Hootenanny

On Saturday I took part in the Parliament Hill Icy Swim Hootenanny (PHISH), a winter swimming gala at Parliament Hill Lido new for 2014! I was signed up for a 1-length leg of a four-person relay, representing The Swimmer with organiser Jonathan and two Swimmer regulars Simon and John.

It was a lovely event with not too many people and an atmosphere akin to a village fete, complete with cheesy tunes and compere making dad jokes. What's more the sun put in a pretty good showing throughout the afternoon, reflecting off the amazing stainless steel lining of the lido and making the crisp 7-degree waters a wonderful iridescent turquoise.

Ever the keen athlete, Jonathan had also signed up for the individual event of 4 lengths freestyle, and was just completing his pre-race preparations as I arrived...

Duffle coat = original Dry Robe?

Warming up

Jon plays his trump card

I was joined by relay team-mate (relaytion?) Simon and little daughter Ruby, ready to cheer ourselves hoarse for Jonathan as he took to the water...

Hooray for Jon and his trusty togs - they're grrrreat!!

With arrival of John, team Swimmer was complete and ready to strike fear into the heart of the opposition:

The formidable Team Swimmer

Grrr we're mean we are

And who should we find poolside but another Swimmer regular and super runner Elspeth, bearing a glorious medium format camera which apparently contained a 12-photo film - yikes.

Just time to get psyched before the off...

John opts for supercool sunnies

...while Simon goes for the erudite look

Ruby's banner of encouragement

Our race order was to be Simon, John, me, Jonathan, and we were up against four other teams in our heat. We all shook hands and the two Js dutifully beetled off down to the shallow end to await the theoretical baton. Then in sploshed Simon and the other starters for take-your-marks... GO!!

Simon put in a solid first leg (of the race I mean) and John followed up with a lusty stroke. The other teams were fast though, and whilst my length went off without a hitch and at my top speed, one of the teams had pulled ahead and Jonathan had his work cut out for the home straight. And blimey can he go - roaring up the lane, he was gaining rapidly on the leading team, all the while Simon, John and I cheering our very heads off from both ends of the pool. Alas, we lost out by the merest whisker, but were still delighted with a respectable second place and generally ecstatic over the whole glorious race.

Post-race high

We wasted no time in piling into the little porta-sauna they'd provided for the event - a cylindrical wooden affair like an old-fashioned caravan, full of warm air and giggling.

We stuck around for <hushed, respectful voice> The Endurance Swim, which is calculated as "10 lengths of the lido (610m) plus one length for each degree centigrade above freezing up to a maximum of 1,220m". The temp being about 7 degrees, this came out as 1,068 m, or six circuits round the edge of the pool. Lord knows how they do it - at this temp I'm generally doing 350 m and even an extra 100 m feels a bit ropey.

They set off in waves, with about 30-40 participants, the nutters, who seemed to go round and round forever (to the extent that John apparently tired of cheering and descended into some unexpected heckling). The event was accompanied by some super tunes on the sound system, which has the added bonus of saving me time on the post-production of film...

Still, nice to feel like I'm not the most bonkers person in the vicinity for a change.

Living the dream

I swam a bit, I laughed a lot, I got cold - then warm again. This is what good days are made of. Thanks for having us, Parliament Hill Lido!

Sara Returns!

Back in November we bid a sad farewell to Icicle Sara, and now - after an epic 3-week crossing of the Atlantic in force 8-9 gales followed by a jolly long rest in Barbados - our chief mischief-maker is back, looking for all the world like Polly Pocket with her new hairdo:

From Barbados to Brockwell in the blink of an Icicle

Over the past 6 weeks we've had to endure communications from Sara containing pics such as this:

And this:

While only being able to respond with material such as this:

Jack of all trades

For her first swim back, Sara looked slightly startled come end of length two, but soon mastered the situation for a respectable swim in 7-degree waters. Wot a gal.

To celebrate her safe return I made a pistachio cake, of which I was rather proud:

We scarfed it down in the cafe while Sara regaled us with tales of whales, night watches and cabin boys.

Cheers cheers cheers for Sara - the naughtiest Icicle was bound to be naughticle.