The cold water does phenomenal things to your body and I certainly felt it as my bottom lip went numb after around 60 metres of my 450 metre event. Trawling the lake with my bottom lip as I powered through the cold gave me time to not only taste the finest water in the Lake District but to think about how wonderful this event is.
The reason I was in the Lake, wearing far too little and at its coldest time of year, was because I was having a whale of a time at the second Chill Swim event, hosted by Low Wood Bay. The event doubled in size with this year attracting 570 swimmers including the Estonian ice swimming champion that I was competing against, the Lake District National Park relay team and people dressed as smurfs in a 30 metre “Penguin Dip”.
Of course, getting cold is only half the story and the reasons for jumping in differ greatly between competitors. Hundreds of people raised money for charity; swimming teams from across the UK and the world entered just for the friendly competition; and people like myself did it simply for the fun. Regardless of the reasons for entering I am certain everyone had a massive amount of enjoyment – the camaraderie, atmosphere, awesome venue and warmth of the day more than displaced any short lived cold.
Was doing an endurance race hard? Yes. Would I do it again? Without a doubt!
Chillswim Photos
Photo Highlights from Twitter
@chillswim pretty sure these give an unfair advantage in a swim race #flyboard #lakedistrict #placetobe pic.twitter.com/NtLZEVyUjh
— MOViEiT (@youinfilm) February 1, 2014
We have arrived safe in Barcelona after 3 days experience at the big ChillSwim event! Great organization! #openwater pic.twitter.com/tfy5Urt9yY
— Barcelona Swimmers (@SwimCostaBrava) February 3, 2014
Second wave of the bigchillswim 1000 underway with flyboard @englishlakes pic.twitter.com/pwgE62glAX
— Chillswim (@chillswim) February 2, 2014
@LakeDistrictPR @lakedistrictnpa @W_Reflections great if cold and wet day filming @chillswim #openwater #theplacetobe pic.twitter.com/9CsS3Git1x
— MOViEiT (@youinfilm) February 1, 2014
More Chillswim coverage
- Written by +Ben Berry
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