Swim safe, swim without your ego

Often the most dangerous thing about our swimming is ourselves. Ella Foote changes her approach to long-distance swimming.

When people first start swimming in open water one of the most common questions is, “what should I wear?” A great thing about swimming outside is that you don’t really need to wear anything at all if you are in a remote enough location, but what I often tell swimmers I am guiding, coaching or teaching, is that they should wear whatever is most supportive and comfortable for the type of swimming they want to do. There is a lot of commentary about swimwear and debate when it comes to wetsuits versus skins swimming. I have prided myself on being a skins swimmer my whole life, never wanting or needing a wetsuit, that is until this year when water and air temperatures have been cooler and my tolerance for the cold has changed.

When I first started open water events many of them were wetsuit compulsory, influenced by triathlon. Back in the early 2000s, there weren’t many wetsuit styles and they predominately catered for an athletic physique, something I have never had, even at my fittest! After a swim holiday with SwimTrek in the Lake District, one of the coaches suggested my cold-water tolerance was good enough to never bother with a wetsuit, so I took their advice and continued swimming without and finding ways around wetsuit-compulsory events. Twenty years ago, this was tough, but if you were a member of the BLDSA (British Long Distance Swimming Association) that was often enough to convince event organisers to let you compete without a wetsuit, so I joined!

Loving skins swims

I have enjoyed many years, and many events, open water swimming without a wetsuit. Occasionally I have felt cold towards the end of a swim, but never cold enough for it to be dangerous. In 2016, after years of challenging myself to a different longdistance event annually, I decided to take a break from event swims and just swim for joy for a while. I stopped feeling the need to cover a certain distance or spend a certain amount of time in the water, I focused on how I felt and where I fancied swimming instead. However, as the popularity of outdoor swimming has increased, so have events and challenge opportunities and each year I have often felt tempted to rejoin the world of long-distance events. There is something about mass participation swims, the energy from other swimmers, the preswim anxiety, the training before and the first frantic 100m, perhaps it was time to dive back into it.

This year I entered the around-Brownsea Island swim. It is a swim event I have done before; one I had enjoyed the most and in a location that I love very much. The distance, 6.5k with tidal assistance, wasn’t too intimidating and as it was also a return to the island for organisers after a five year break. It seemed an ideal event to join. I trained in the pool over winter and waited in anticipation for conditions and temperatures to improve to take my training outside. Except, temperatures didn’t really change much from February to June and while the lake temperature locally crept up to 15 degrees by May, the air temperatures were unseasonably cool and on 1 June, we even popped our heating on for a day as it was so cold. At the end of May, when in Devon for a short break, I thought I would be able to get some long sea swims done as part of my training, but with the sea still a cool 12 degrees when I arrived, the most I managed was 45 minutes.

Feeling the cold

It could be the cooler UK weather, it could be that my body has changed shape or that I haven’t done any swims longer than 3k in the last eight years, but I couldn’t tolerate the cold like before. I knew the Brownsea swim would take me around 2.5-3 hours depending on the conditions and the thought of spending two-plus hours in 12-degree water seemed a little foolish. I needed to totally reconsider my approach to the swim. My fellow swim-pals, also signed up to the event, started to become as obsessed as me with the sea temperature. We hoped for some consistent warm weather to heat things up a bit. While the sea did warm up a little the closer we got to the event in June, the conditions in the UK didn’t improve and I realised I might have to rethink my skins swim.

When I first tried an open water wetsuit, I needed help putting it on and when I was in the water, I found it restrictive and difficult to swim. I now know it means it was too small, which wasn’t that surprising given the lack of choice 20 years ago. Today, there are multiple brands, multiple price points, different neoprene thickness and flexibility and different style wetsuits. We still have a long way to go with an inclusive size range, but many brands have adapted and extended their wetsuit offer to match the varying types of swimmer and growing popularity in our sport. I was pleasantly surprised when I recently tried a Yonda Spectre at how well it fit and how lovely it was to swim in, but I didn’t want to swim an event in a wetsuit! While wetsuits have come a long way in 20 years, it turns out my ego hasn’t.

Time to layer up

Eventually, I realised while it could be the time to invest in a wetsuit, I still love to swim skins and the investment wouldn’t pay off for the use I would get out of it. But I was still anxious about the cold water and needed a smart solution. I turned to Zone3 and investigated their Yulex long-sleeved suits as a half-way point between skins swimming and wetsuits. With full coverage across the back and arms, it promised to provide core warmth and protection while allowing freedom of movement. With Zone3 also recently extending their size range, I knew I would be able to fit into the swimsuit too. I still had a whisper in my head saying, “but Ella, you’re a skins swimmer,” but when I challenged this idea, I realised it didn’t matter at all what I wore when I swam, so long as I could enjoy the swim and more importantly, I was safe.

The Zone3 long sleeve swimsuit was a dream to swim in. I immediately started training in it and I instantly benefited from the warmth it provided. I was suddenly able to extend my training swims as I wasn’t getting too cold, and I was able to push my training from a measly 2k in open water to 4k without feeling any discomfort. By the time the event rolled around in mid-June, we had ideal conditions for the swim. Sunshine, barely any wind and the sea had warmed a little to 15 degrees, but I wasn’t worried, I had finally left my ego behind and focused on the best swimwear to support the swim I was doing, and I was comfortable wearing. I finished the swim faster than I expected and enjoyed every moment of it, so much so I am wondering what event I should swim next year…