GregInTheWater
GLASGOW OPEN WATER SWIMMING COACH
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Most of my blog entries are about races, long swims, or swim holidays. Today I thought I would just write about the routine fun swims that I do in Scotland over the summer. My normal place to swim is Loch Lomond, but this loch is 36km long, so there are plenty of places to get in to go for a swim. Normally I swim in the mornings with a group of swimmers… Read More
Now you might well be wondering why I am doing a blog entry about The Big Yin, or Sir Billy Connolly, the favourite son of Glasgow. He is a revered figure in Glasgow and has even had three giant murals of him installed on the Glasgow Mural Trail. He has been given the Freedom of the City alongside Nelson Mandela and Sir Alec Ferguson, which allows him to fish in the… Read More
Well 2017 was certainly another fantastic year with lots of swimming adventures. I will get the boring statistics out of the way first:- I competed in three swimming events with top ten finishes in all of them; I swam a total of 285 km on 167 different swims of which 140 of the swims were outdoors; I swam in six countries over the year: Portugal, Greece, Montenegro, Croatia, England and of course… Read More
After my return from the trip to Montenegro and Croatia, it was time to prepare for winter swimming. I was planning to swim through this winter without the wetsuit or as they say in this part of the world skins. My plan was simple, keep swimming in the Scottish lochs in skins while the water temperature continued its slide into winter. I had made some progress the previous winter, but this year… Read More
Our ten lochs challenge continued to Loch Venachar. This was only a short drive from Loch Lubnaig, and the conditions were excellent for swimming. There was hardly a breath of wind whispering over the calm surface as we invaded the loch from the car-park. Most times I have swum here I have witnessed the wind swirling around from multiple directions, so it was a welcome change to have calm conditions…. Read More
My 100th blog post. When I started this blog it was to record my various ocean swims races or open water swims as they call them in the UK. I just looked at my very first blog, and it talked about places to swim around the world that I might get to. Well I have swum at all of them and more. I started doing open water swim events in my former… Read More
A view of part of the swim course at Bardowie Loch on a warm Scottish morning in late spring The weather in Scotland had been up to its usual keep the weather forecasters busy form. In the last few days of April it snowed in Glasgow, and then a few weeks later the spring sunshine broke through the murky cloud to shine brightly on the spring flowers. All through April I had… Read More
I was determined to swim through the winter in Scotland; and by that I did not mean swimming in an indoor pool. I meant swimming in the lochs in the bracing water. This was coming from someone who grew up in Australia where the winter swimming clubs had to put ice cubes in the water to make them colder; a place where if the sea temperature dropped to 13c it was a… Read More
Each year I post a summary of my swim events, but this year it is different. I used to write it at the end of May each year, as that was the end of the open water swim season in Australia, and it would cover the 12 months to the end of May. Well, this year I am writing it at the end of May, but it is now covers a different… Read More
It has been quite a while since I posted on this blog, with my 16 kilometre swim in Loch Rannoch the last entry. But that does not mean I have not been swimming outdoors in Scotland. Just because the nights get longer, the water gets colder and the snow starts to fall, it does not mean I have not been swimming. So after the marathon swim in September, the weather morphed into… Read More
GregInTheWater 