The water was 13’C, calm and still on the surface, the sun had broken over the mountain and I was in the finishing straight of the Tal-y-llyn BIG 10km swim, not even feeling the chill of the water. To me it was confirmation that I was a winter swimmer and validation of everything I had done in sw...

I’ve been cold for as long as I can remember; my parents tell stories of me shivering violently and turning purple in a matter of minutes when taking me swimming as a baby, even in the heated children’s pool at our local leisure centre. That’s not to say I never feel warm, I do, but it takes high...

As an outdoor swimmer, I’ve lost count of the times that someone has said “ Ooh that’s not for me!” after I’ve enthusiastically regaled them with tales of my latest swim exploits. This is never truer than when the tale is about my latest swim at sunrise. My sunrise swimming habit came about quite...

I’ve never really been an advocate of the suits versus skins debate that seems to be the kind of thing swimmers chat about when they either have a brand new wetsuit they want to talk about, or its winter and there is a mischievous sense of getting one up on the people in neoprene.  My diplomatic ...

Almost every outdoor patch of water has some form of flow, whether it is driven by the moon, the wind, the tide or the laws of gravity.  Someone has even written a book about it ‘How to read water’ by Tristan Gooley, which ironically is quite a dry read.  The most obvious places to see or feel th...