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
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
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
A few of us had decided to enter the Highland Open Water Swim event at Resipole in late April 2018. This swim was advertised as a mile swim across a sea loch called Loch Sunart, with swimmers escorted across by boat to the far shore and a swim back. A fairly accurate description of what transpired. I like to support the Highland Open Water Swims when I can, as they raise… 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
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 middle of August 2017, and time for the annual Pier to Pub swim. This is one of my favourite swim races, and I was lucky to be doing it for the third year in a row. The race starts at Arden Pier on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond, and finishes 2.3km away at the hotel on Inchmurrin, (the largest island in the Loch, and the largest fresh water island… Read More
My first summer race of 2017 was the Royal West of Scotland Amateur Boat Club (RWSABC) Cross Clyde Swim from Kilcreggan to Greenock. This swim is in the lower reaches of the Clyde River as it flows through the Firth of Clyde out to the Irish Sea. It is an annual swim that is only held when conditions are favourable. I had the pleasure of swimming in the RWSABC 150th… Read More
GregInTheWater 