GregInTheWater
GLASGOW OPEN WATER SWIMMING COACH
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I am writing this blog post in early December 2021, thinking it has been far too long between blog posts. This is not a year in review for 2021 as I hope to have that post up in early January 2022. However, I wanted to explain why there has been such a long time between blog posts. The year of 2020 was a year of massive change for a large number of… Read More
I recently wrote this blog entry for The Big Blue Swim, and thought I would share it here with you. The Big Blue Swim (https://thebigblueswim.com/ ) operate swim adventure holidays in Greece over the summer. I have had the very good fortune to have worked with them as a guide since the summer of 2018 in two of their locations in Crete and Lefkada. Swimmers come from around the globe to enjoy… Read More
I am writing this blog entry in early January 2021 looking back on that year of 2020, which will be remembered by so many people as a year of loss, isolation and lockdown. It was of course the year that a virus swept the world to create a pandemic with a range of responses around the world. My nation of birth Australia quickly went into full quarantine quite early, closing its internal… Read More
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
I am writing this blog entry during the late May bank holiday weekend in 2020. Normally at this time of year, I would be swimming as often as possible, enjoying the relative warmth of Loch Lomond as the spring sun heats it up past 10c. I used to think I would die when I first exposed myself to water of that temperature; but now I celebrate it, as I know that summer… Read More
One of my swim pals Gary was training for a non-wetsuit attempt on the length of Loch Lomond, a swim of 36 km. As part of that training, we had done the Inchtavannach and Inchconnachan loops several times, building up to distances of 5.5km. The warm summer of 2018 had continued, with the water in Loch Lomond between 19.5c and 20.5c, which was very pleasant for my 2km morning swims with The… Read More
Loch Lomond in which I swim throughout the year has many islands in it. One of the joys of the early summer is going on the first swim around Inchtavannach, often in the early evening. The summer of 2018 was proving to be the best since the amazing one of 1976. If that was the reward we were given after the Beast from the East in late winter, that was fine by… Read More
As the winter settled in Scotland, I took some time to get over the disappointment I felt from the ice km event. I knew that I had to get more cold water swims in all-weather conditions, to prepare me for any future attempts. Luckily, the area around Glasgow is ideal for winter swimming, with plenty of locations to choose from. Our normal swim time is 9am on a Saturday morning, and in… Read More
I had noticed that an ice swimming event had been arranged at Bardowie Loch on the north side of Glasgow, to be held in February 2018. After dipping my toe in the water of an ice event at the GB Champs in Loch Lomond in February 2017, I decided to train for this event. My plan was to enter the 1km ice swim. Now you might ask what an ice swim is?… 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
GregInTheWater 