Thames swims

I got an email today about open water swims held in the Thames – a series of events over the summer. Quite interested, I must say.

Are they the HRace ones?

I though about the series last year as I have down Windsor Tri many times. But the Thames is pretty manky. I looked at Marlow and then at Kingston where one of the HR races finished. Did not look appealing!!

Has that comedian fella David Walliams got over his weils disease yet?

Can you forward it to me please?

CAn you post it on here instead? Or e-mail it to me I’d be interested! although not sure I fancy weil’s disease!

http://www.f3events.co.uk/index.php?option=com_jevents&task=icalrepeat.detail&evid=110&Itemid=15

Yeti, are you on facebook btw?

M_C – It’s generally only when water levels rise suddenly that it’s a problem… as this is when rat holes in the banks get washed out.

Yep … my profile pic is a black & white one of me in full DH storm trooper mode…

Is it your full first name or shortened one? I couldn’t find you easily…

Oh I found you, got your last name mixed up.

Cool

molgrips – ok that’s clear. F3 must be a thorn in John Lunt/H Race’s side as they copy everything he does. Still competition is good for us consumers. This is the same area as the Windsor tri swim, so the water if not great but not too bad either. But it has notorious currents and in high flow can be difficult to swim.

The course has two wide bends at the start and you will probably have to cross the river on the outleg and come back closer to the RHS (looking downstream) to finish. There are important tactics to swimming the Thames at windsor well. I am happy to follow this and may even swim it myself, although of all the tri’s I have done/do now this is my least favourite swim – hard to sight, current and crappy water. Apart from that its great!!! Happy to help closer to the event (despite my -ve comments!!)

teamhurtmore – can you suggest a good early season swim in the south?

I’ve never done an open water swim event, although I’ve swam in rivers, lakes and the sea of course.. but something about currents and bends appeals to me somehow. Maybe the same way steep rocky climbs do I dunno!

Me neither, but I bought a wet suit just before xmas and I’m swimming over a mile a day during the week at the minute. Aiming for some tri’s and some swims like this have got to be good training.

They used to pipe nuclear waste material from Aldermaston Weapons Establishment to the Thames at Pangbourne (many moons ago) kind of put me off ever going swimming in the Thames!

Thames is pretty clean nowadays isn’t it?

I never caught anything from swimming and canoeing in it around Oxfordshire.

I think Walliams got ill because of the pressure of high water levels on the London sewage system.

TSY – I haven’t checked the timing on any of these events but Human Race (www.humanrace.co.uk) do swim events. Plus their early season super sprint/sprint tris at Dorney Lake – the Eton College/Olympic rowing centre is perfect for first try out – hint if you are crap at sighting merely follow the underwater ropes used to secure the rowing lane markers!!!

Plus there are several lakes where you can train – Datchett (Liquid Leisure), Princes, Heron Lake and Mytchett to name a few. Well done putting in a mile a day – that’s very impressive, what distance tri are you doing.

I would love to be more optimistic about Thames but better to be straight – I HATE the Windsor swim, but maybe that’s just because I never swim it well!!! But the water is pretty gungy!!

TSY – if you need any further info then just say. When are your tris and I can have a think, but sounds like you are covered pretty well training.

Molgrips – I am overdoing the bad bit. The bends are gradual – that’s not the problem. Its the current from time to time – you need to cross river immediately and then swim as close to the bank as possible to avoid the current. Most people head to the other side and the apex of the bend on a diagonal and spend too long struggling with the current. Coming back downstream is much better although low sun always makes sighting tricky. The roads/rail overhead are not that scenic either!!

You can tell I love it really!!

Has that comedian fella David Walliams got over his weils disease yet?

He never had it.

Depends where

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/09/fish-thames-sewage

This happens every single year, mogdan is allowed to dump where it rains heavy.

Hmm.. I can swim breast-stroke almost as fast as I can do crawl.. I wonder if that would help in tricky sighting situations…

Sighting just takes practice – stick to the crawl. I will post some links on this

Was going to kick off with the Blenheim sprint, as it’s local, on the 9th of June. Sprint seems a bit of a cop out though so I need to sit down with a calander and find an olympic or 2.

Once Jan is out the way there is a local tri club I hope to join (Oxford Tri). Probably need to shift my focus to running, but I’ve been making some real gains with my swimming the last couple of months.

TSY – Blenheim is an excellent first choice and don’t worry about it being a sprint. I did the very first one and enjoyed it a lot. The swim is relatively short, so you will fly through that. Sighting quite easy (boat house?) as long as you don’t miss the sharp turn after about 300m. When I did it, I was the only one who spotted the turn and that was a little disconcerting. Then the sting in the tail – a nasty 400m run UP to the Palace and T1. Bike is best done on a road rather than TT bike as lots of bends and ups and downs. Run is straightforward albeit it with a hill (2x).

Must be the most beautiful transition area in the UK!! You will love it. Helvellyn tri is (IMHO) the most scenic at least in England!

Have a look here:- http://www.henleyswim.com/ I’ve done windsor tri many times and have also swum henley quite a bit (Inc IM Tri last year). I’d say the water quality at henley is loads better than at windsor. The guys above lay on some great events. The one starting at 4:30am on midsummer is excellent, but unfortunately sold out for this year. Other events in the year will be pretty good. I’ve 2 mates doing the 14km bridge-2-bridge event……not for me tho!

I swim in the Thames at Molesey regularly in the summer as do my kids, no worries. Perfectly safe. Have to watch out for water caravanners though.

Thames is safe just full of bird droppings and slime and grungy water

teamhurtmore – I know the palace and it’s grounds really well, grew up a couple of miles from there and had a friend who lived within the grounds.

I don’t have a TT bike, so not an option. Currently knocking around on a steel frame so contemplating a new bike… thinking of a normal lightweight carbon or maybe aero roadbike.

In terms of swim training… most stuff I read suggests very little stuff done at the full race distance but instead using a lot of intervals??

a mile a day?

TSY – ok so you know the potentially sloppy corners on the way down to the cattle grid and the need to keep speed up for the other side. You get your head down on the second half which is more open.

Re the swim, I think your are building a great base and this is excellent. But you also need to think about your speed swimming. Hence I would be substituting some of your daily long swims with some drill sessions and definitely more intervals. Loads of 100 or 200m sets of relatively short recovery times will serve you well. Plus B’heim is a very short swim so it’s fine to blast it!

The Felt aero? I loved tri until got fed up with ripp off pricing and hassle of it all. So did more ultra marathons and now Mtb for a change. But looking at prices of 2012 Mtb makes me wonder if I should just get a new TT bike and stick to tris!! I think tri popularity and pricing may have peaked last year but Mtb not yet it seems!

I’m not doing a mile all in one go at the moment, it’s split into smaller sections 200 – 400 unless I’m doing drills. Still dogged by poor breathing in that as I tire I forget to exhale properly.

What time would you suggest aspiring to, to cover a mile in the pool? This morning (with some rest and 200 of breast stroke included) it took 35 mins.

Also, I’ve been told that road bike pricing is actually better value for 2012 than it was for 2011.

TSY – you could well be correct regarding bike pricing. I have seen some great offers in contrast to mtb!!

Spend the next month doing some serious breathing drills. Remember what kills a lot of swimmers is not breathing out. That’s what makes you “feel” tired after only a few lengths….but sounds as though you get this. If you can master bi-lateral breathing then so much the better but dont stress about it. A good drill is to go, bubble, bubble, breathe as you swim – it forces you to breathe out and help with bi-lateral breathing. I always start a session with at least 100m of this with no other thoughts in my mind.

If your are doing an Oly at some stage then obviously you do have to feel comfortable with a straight 1500m preferably FC! So yes, keep doing some longer swims but DONT over do them. Focus on getting your times down for 100m and 200m sets and doing them off shorter and shorter intervals (eg, 20 secs, then 15 secs, then 10 etc) and try to pace them consistently. Its very hard to do at first as you will set off too fast to start with – we all do. I would spend most of my sessions doing this plus one drill session and one long swim (trying to build towards 1500m without stopping.) But doing intervals will give you both the speed and the endurance and will be perfect for Blenheim.

Re times – that’s a difficult one without knowing more about you. Excuse me saying this but 35m (even with BS and the odd rest) suggest that you need work on technique and fitness. Try to set 30m as a realistic first goal, then slower increments to 29, 28, etc.

FWIW – 25m would put you very high in most age groups as UK tris. And remember that a wetsuit will improve your time by a good 10% due to the bouyancy effect.

Final thought – you will never regret sorting out your breathing early.

Above all enjoy swimming. You cannot win a tri on the swim but you can sure as hell lose one if you knacker yourself out too early.

The outdoor swimming society do a book with get in / out points for the whole of the Thames.

Windsor swim looks brilliant, although it is a pity they don’t do it a little further up, past Dorney it is much more scenic and nice.

I’ve been swimming at loads of places in the Thames – lots of nice bits up near maidenhead, chertsey meads, Staines (penton hook, off the island below the lock). I’ve also been in quite a few times at twickenham, which is a lovely swim on a quiet morning (get in is on the ham side of the river unless you have friends on the island) , although you *really* need to know the tides there, at high tide it turns very fast, so low tide is best, you can’t swim against the tide.

The Thames is always best on a weekday or early on a weekend, because there are quite a lot of boats other times.

My favourite river is our local one, the (Derbyshire) Derwent – so many brilliant swims in it. Last year my first swim was in March, last in October, all without wetsuit because it was so warm, here’s hoping for brilliant weather again this year!

Oh, about the disease / dirt thing, don’t swim just after a rain storm, as in any river the fields run off into it (and in London the sewer overflows too, although if you’re not swimming in the tidal section I don’t see how the sewage would get to where you are.

Cheers THM.

Right 30 mins for the mile it is tomorrow 🙂

I think it’s technique that lets me down as I couldn’t swim freestyle for **** a year ago. Cracked bi-lateral breathing when I had a leg injury in October that meant nothing but swimming for 6 weeks… now feels wrong to breathe just to one side.

I can swim 100 in less than 1.30 but it leaves be knackered, guess I’ve just keep working on it and cutting down on my rests.

Hence I would be substituting some of your daily long swims with some drill sessions and definitely more intervals.

Hehe.. TSY does not understand the concept of less being more 🙂

I do, but only when it comes to rest and bodyfat 🙂

TSY – well you are already ahead of most swimmers!!

May I suggest 10 x 100m or even 15 x 100m off 2 mins – ie, you set off every two mins. I would see how long you could hold 1:45 (15 secs rest) or 1:50 (10 secs rest). It should be interesting to see how long you can hold that for – don’t blast the first few if they feel easy.

Dont start on 1:35 then drift to 2:00. Better to start at 1:50 and try and hold it there consistently.

Seriously, if you could hold either 1:45 or 1:50 consistently, you will be leaving the swim at B’heim near the front of the pack!!

How’s is your breathing on a 1:30?

I could do with some swimming training actually. I haven’t done it regularly since 2009. I reckon I got my technique down pretty well then though, apart from my turns needing work.