Happy New Year (1/365?)

[white_hart]

Happy New Year, everyone. Let us hope it's an improvement on 2020.

I am thinking about trying to do the daily posts thing, in an effort to actually get back into writing/talking more about stuff and engage a bit more with the community here. It may well not stick.

My year started with the coldest swim yet (probably 4.something degrees; my thermometer said 4.9, L's said 4.0, various other people had something in between because apparently the number of different estimates is equal to the number of thermometers present). I have a new wetsuit jacket, which is thicker than the old one and has long sleeves instead of short, but I'm not sure I felt any warmer than I do in the old one. It was also really, really busy, hopefully because lots of people wanted a New Year's Day dip rather than because they're all planning to swim regularly, because it just felt like Too Many People. I'm glad we did it, though. (One of my three had persuaded another friend to swim with her, so we had two twos, mostly keeping separate other than brief exchanges of greetings in the water and baked goods out of it.)

Only two more days of holiday left and the prospect of work is starting to loom rather :-(

Comments

[angelofthenorth]

That sounds bracing

[white_hart]

It definitely was!

[callmemadam]

My daughter thinks a Neoprene swimming cap would keep her head warmer when swimming outdoors but she was complaining today that they're out of stock everywhere because so many people have taken up outdoor swimming. I admire you all!

[white_hart]

I wear a silicon swimming cap under a woolly hat, and have neoprene shorts, jacket, gloves and socks. It was still bloody cold today, though!

[mountainkiss]

I'm so pleased you are still getting to swim. It has been a magical silver lining of a horrible time.

[white_hart]

It has been the one completely uncomplicated delight of a fairly grim year. And the mental health benefits are really noticeable.

[caulkhead]

I wonder if perhaps you're not in long enough for the thicker neoprene to make much of a difference? Pure uninformed speculation, though; while I did go in the sea when I was visiting my parents last Christmas, I don't normally swim outside May-October.

[white_hart]

I think it was just incredibly cold! And I think that possibly because the new jacket is warmer before I get in the effect of the cold water soaking through it is more noticeable than with the short sleeves and thinner neoprene.

[oracne]

Ugh, work. Trying not to think about it too much.

[white_hart]

Likewise, but it will keep intruding :-(

[sfred]

Happy new year! If swimming in the indoor public pool isn't feeling safe by spring, I think I need to find an outdoor place that feels okay to me. (Ironically, I think this would have been easier in London!)

[white_hart]

The Outdoor Swimming Society Facebook group is very active and quite a good place to ask for suggestions, if you do decide you want to. (The water won't start warming up until April/May. so you may want to wait until then!)

I don't think I'd want to go back to pool swimming now, having the sky above you and nature all around is just the most amazing thing.

[sfred]

My main obstacle is a huge aversion to being told off or being naughty, so I need to find places/advisors that are calibrated for me in that regard.

There are places I can happily go for a splash; to go for an actual swim I'd need to drive much further or get over myself a bit.

(Actually that's another thing. The public swimming pool is on my way home from work, when I go to work, but any outdoor swimming places would need me to drive there first.)

[sfred]

In London I swam outdoors from May to September, but in Officially Approved places.

[white_hart]

We're lucky in Oxford to have two swimmable rivers, though neither is currently swimmable due to flooding and high currents. Technically swimming isn't allowed in the lake I swim in at the moment but I think that's (a) to cover the council against any liability and (b) to protect the revenue of the outdoor pool in the same park, which is normally only open in summer and didn't open at all in 2020 - possibly they'd be keener on enforcing no swimming if it was open!

You might be able to find official open water swimming venues near you - I know there's one not far from Oxford though I've never been there. And rivers are generally ok if there's access to the banks.

(I do have to drive to swim, which is the one downside compared to the pool, which was on my way to work!)

[sfred]

*nods* There's a swimming club that uses a reservoir outside Sheffield, when there isn't a pandemic on. The nearest place where you can just show up any time (when there isn't a pandemic on) is at least an hour away. I think outdoor swimming is an occasional luxury unless I get braver about risking being told off!

[norfolkian]

Back when I was swimming in a regular pool, there would always be one weekend early on in January when the pool was absolutely heaving. And then all the people would just disappear again. My conclusion is that people rarely stick to their New Year's resolutions for very long.

[white_hart]

I'm not sure this was even New Year's Resolution swimming, I think it was a symbolic New Year's Day dip. It's been back to normal the last couple of days which was much nicer!