Swoosh!

The Bantham Swoosh was a new event organised by the Outdoor Swimming Society for the first time in 2015. I heard about it too late to enter the OSS event.

However, this sounded like a lot of fun so I checked out the tide tables and earmarked a few dates which looked suitable. All that it needs is a big spring tide really.

On 30th August there was such a tide and all my swimming buddies were busy doing other stuff. Ian and I managed to drag ourselves out of bed – despite the dreary bank holiday weather – and drove down to Aveton Gifford where the River Avon is accessible from the car park.

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Swim

My main event this year is Challenge Weymouth. This is a long distance triathlon and will be the official European Triathlon Union Long Distance Championships. The event takes place on Sunday September 13.

In its most common form, the modern triathlon consists of swimming, cycling, and running in consecutive order. The participants’ times also include the “transition” times between each event. The multisport race format is designed to test the endurance of its participants, much more so than swimming, cycling, or running alone.

The distances involved in the long distance triathlon are: Swim 2.4 miles (3.8km) bike 112 miles (180km ) and run a full marathon of 26.2 miles (42.195km). The term ironman is commonly used to describe an event of this length. Strictly speaking an Ironman is produced, owned, or licensed by the World Triathlon Corporation. There are races of the same distance which aren’t produced by the WTC.  However all long distance triathlons are often referred to as an ironman.

I swam competitively as a child so my basic front crawl technique was sound when I started training in September 2014. I received some technique coaching at ‘swimfit’ classes at Bridport Leisure Centre.

Over the winter I built up my endurance in the pool until I could slog out 160 lengths or 4 km. This is mind blowingly boring so I found some ironman training sessions online to build up swim strength stamina and technique through drills.

I am fortunate to live a few hundred yards from the sea. I do not relish cold water so it wasn’t until the end of May that I actually got into the sea.

In the sea at last

Broadchurch Blue Moon

The last night in July 2015 had a rare occurrence of a blue moon. When one of the astronomical seasons has four full moons, instead of the normal three, the third full moon is called a Blue Moon.

Blue Moon
(Courtesy of Cathy Warne dorsetflickr.wordpress.com)

The weather was nice so we decided to take the opportunity to paddle our sea kayaks along to West Bay. Then take them for a short walk to be able to paddle up the River Brit as far as possible.