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 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
The stunning early summer weather was continuing in early June 2018. A few of my friends had been discussing an attempt to swim the length of Loch Voil. This loch lies in an east west position in the middle of Rob Roy country. The man himself is buried in the churchyard at Balquhidder, having died in 1734. It is also the site of the last part of the Jacobite Rebellion from the… 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
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
A short conversation in early July at Loch Ard with Gillian the Yoga guru swimmer along the lines of how it would be great to swim six or seven lochs in The Trossachs over a weekend during the summer. I thought we could do better than that. So I entered a short comment on our Wild West Swimmers group page about the possibility of swimming ten lochs in a day. I thought… Read More
The idea of a long swim had been on our minds for a few months, especially after our swim down Loch Rannoch in September 2015. We had examined maps of Scotland trying to find a loch that was longer than Loch Rannoch, but still not too far from Glasgow. In the end we decided on Loch Tay, which is a loch about 23 km long ( or 14.5 miles), and around 1… 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
GregInTheWater 