Be Excellent To Each Other

I thought I'd create a thread to catalogue my wild swims this year.

A couple of years ago I managed at least 1 wild swim a month. Last year, injury prevented me from doing any wild swims for half the year.

I want to try and make 52 swims this year, and at least one each month.

So, looking at the forecast for the rest of January, I decided that today was the best day to have a swim.

As such:

1) Long Timber Woods - quick swim after work, cut short as it was cloudy and the sun set at 5, so it was pretty dark, however, surprisingly not too cold. I only managed 2 lengths, as it was getting really dark!

This is a good idea Malc, and I hope you are able to complete it!

However, I shall not be joining in.

Heh, i think I might have managed it in 2022, but I didn't really keep proper count. so I can't say for sure.

Yesterday, I walked passed the spot I went swimming on Monday at approx the same time, the difference was, it was mostly clear, rather than cloudy, I took this picture:



Obviously it wasn't quite as dark as my phone made out (eyes are generally better than standard cameras) but it's still quite remarkable how much difference cloud cover makes

2) Long Timber Woods again. Another after work walk and swim rushed to get in before the end of the month. Not too dark this time, but the water was flowing too fast for safe swimming.

I managed to swim on the spot (upstream) for about a minute before resigning myself that I could not make progress.

No photos of me in the water as I could barely stand up straight.

3) Piles Copse



A swim from the other day (March 30th) Once again, sneaking in, just before the end of the month.

A bit more of a proper swim this time, the water was freezing, the river is still flowing far too fast for sensible swimming, but I managed to make it 50m. I am hoping to get more done in April, as the late light will allow me to swim after work.

4) Piles Copse

There are probably going to be a lot of entries with me swimming at Piles Copse, it's my favourite swimming spot.

A much warmer (but by no means warm) swim, and the first proper swim of the year (I managed 300m) despite the water still flowing really fast. I could have gone longer, but my shoulder was feeling tight in the water, so thought it best not to push it (the cold water probably made it feel worse)

No pictures of me in the water (the water is still flowing too fast for me to trust myself holding my phone in the water) but here's one of me in my changing robe straight after

[quote="Malc"
1) Long Timber Woods
2) Long Timber Woods
3) Piles Copse
4) Piles Copse
[/quote]

5) Piles Copse

Hmm, bit of a disaster this one, not the swim mind, the swim was wonderful, if a little cold. I managed 500m, which is probably where the issue lay, my arms were stiff, and I was probably in the water too long.

I felt fine initially afterwards, and quickly dried, changed, and then ate some Jaffa cakes for a quick energy boost. At this point I suddenly felt very cold, and to make matters worse it got cloudier, cooler and windier.

Now, this has happened to me before, I know it's reasonably normal, and I often start my walk home feeling cold, but I quickly warm up (especially as I have a warm hoodie for exactly this purpose). My feet felt like ice blocks, but this too is normalish. I get to my first uphill section and am really struggling up it, it's not too steep, but I often feel out of breath here, and I just felt that perhaps I hadn't fully recovered from Friday, was still a bit unfitter than I thought and struggled onwards.

When I got to the top, I thought that would be the worst over as it's mostly downhill from there, however, 15 minutes later, I noticed I had a bit of a headache and as I concentrated on it, I could feel myself starting to pass out (I am aware of the symptoms as I do occasionally get light headed - as a teenager I passed out maybe a dozen times and had about ten times that number of near misses, - pins and needles around head, metallic taste in mouth, tunnel vision with the blackness increasing). Over the years I've managed to observe these and prevent a full on passing out, and that's what I did here, luckily it was right next to a memorial bench (Thanks Ken Watkin's family) and I took full advantage of it.

After about 10 minutes I carried on, feeling physically exhausted, and with a couple more almost passings out, I got nearly home, and was on my home street, which is steep old hill. Here I had my fourth and most serious nearly passing out, and tbh I'm not sure how I didn't, as it lasted for about 10 seconds.

When I got home, I rested on the sofa and told my wife and youngest sons who proceeded to take the piss out of me, I asked my middle son to cook dinner for me, as I just wanted to rest. I went through to get it and suddenly felt quite nauseous, so I sat down for a couple of minutes.

Once that passed I got up and went to look for some mint sauce, but I must have finally succumbed to a passing out, as I was about to open the fridge next thing I heard was myself collapsing to the floor and feeling pain in my left elbow and knee and finding myself on the floor.

I think this must have scared the shit out of my son, who then guided me back to the living room, and bought my dinner through (chops, boiled new potatoes, cauliflower, cabbage and tinned garden peas) with mint sauce.

Wife and youngest son are suddenly concerned about me and are no longer taking the piss.

I eat the dinner and we watched The Grand Budapest Hotel (we're on a bit of a Wes Anderson kick at the moment)

Both were very enjoyable.

I have decided that four things caused this shit show of an afternoon/evening.

1) low core body temperature
2) low blood sugar
3) not fully recovered from Friday
4) general state of unfitness

Needless to say I will be calling the doctors surgery tomorrow to get a professional opinion on this.

Sorry, most of this probably doesn't belong in this thread, but the swim is probably the primary cause.

Here's a picture of me just after I got out the water, which I will spoiler for those that don't want to see that:




[/quote]

Bloody hell. That is far too eventful for a sunday!

I hope it isn't anything serious and instead just as you describe.

Take care.

Yeah that doesn't sound fun at all Malc! Hope you're ok now. I guess the cold can do pretty crazy things to you!

yeah, I appear totally fine today, other than I have blisters on my left foot that are pretty painful.

I am currently on hold with the doctors though, just in case

After filling in an e-consult on my doctor's surgery's website, they are going to call me back on the 24th of April.

So, they can't think it's that serious.

Please don’t go out swimming alone until you’ve had that appointment, Malc.

I have no desire to repeat Sunday, I will be proceeding with extreme caution for my next swims, and bullying my son's to come with me...

OR, and here’s an idea, just hold out on any more wild swims for the foreseeable, until you’ve been given the all clear by the docs, and *then* get someone to accompany you. You can go for a nice, managed swim at a pool or leisure facility in the meantime, knowing that there are people there to help should you need it. 52 is an arbitrary number, you don’t need to meet a goal, and your new goal should be looking after your health and staying safe. With the best will in the world I don’t want to be arranging any more collections anytime soon. x

You have a lot more faith in my doctor than I do Mimi.

I can't see much coming out of this phone call almost two weeks after the event. I wondered if they would want a blood sample to test for something, or even take my blood pressure. But what good is that so far away?

If they were worried I would have got a call back yesterday or maybe today. (Recently my wife had a rash, they got back to her same day, so it's less serious than a rash in their eyes)

However, saying all that, I have no intention of risking my life over a target. I had a walking target last year and I abandoned it due to calf/knee/foot pain.

I've done some reading up on the affects of low core body temp, and they pretty much match with what happened to me.

However, at no point was I gasping for air, or was my heating beating erratically.

Exhaustion and light headedness were what I had, now I'm not trivialising this, and 10 years ago I would have just shaken it off, but I am a certain age, so I do take more precautions than I used to.

I certainly won't be going for a long swim in water that is that cold. And I'm going to let my blisters heal before going up there again anyway (although my kids are dragging me out for a walk this evening, I think it's mostly flat even ground)

I don’t know who triages the calls at a GP surgery now, but they are in dire straits. Maybe the doctors worried the rash was measles, so it was treated as a possible transmissible emergency? Either way, if you feel your doctor isn’t treating you with the level of attention you need and deserve, ask for a second opinion, or to be referred. If that had happened whilst you were out you could have passed out, hit your head on a rock, been uncontactable and all sorts. Hopefully they’ll get you in for a thorough health check.