Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 No precept is more sacred to marathon swimmers than the forbidding of a deliberate touch between swimmer and anything else; boats, people or equipment other than feed supplies. That is the way we disqualify ourselves or how we signify that a swim is over. Until you have been there, until it…
I had intended this article to cover further the articles shared by Nick Adams from the turn of the last century, but I realised that I would have to digress from those accounts and go back to the classical origins that inspired the sport and thence to those whom the origins inspired. Hence, I’ve altered the…
Kathy Watkin’s book The Crossing, (reviewed here), is the only currently available biography of Captain Matthew Webb. It is required reading for any English Channel Aspirant and certainly for anyone interested in the history of the sport of swimming as a whole, not just Channel swimming. Yet those of us who are familiar with detailed accounts of solo swims,…
How many times have I started a posted a post with similar words to; “Strange things happen in marathon swimming?” Ah, how the worm turns. One reader of LoneSwimmer.com is a pool swimmer with their sights set on open water and their first 10k swim, always a big milestone. Their research led to LoneSwimmer.com and accidentally to my…
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. With the sickness, the changes in feeds, how the crew felt, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that Sylvain was still swimming strongly. That despite everything, he was very much the star and focus of our private show, and our entire concern. The earlier change of…
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. I wasn’t sure when I started this how long this series would be. Previous long series have run to five posts. This will take six. Given his achievement, I think it’s fair to say that Sylvain deserves a six-part series! As I wrote in the previous post, almost immediately…
Part 1. We arose in Varne Ridge early on Sunday morning, but much better than the more usual middle of the night for a typical Channel swim. Sylvain’s favourite breakfast is brioche, and he didn’t start the morning with a typical Channel swimmer’s huge breakfast, instead restraining himself and just having brioche and coffee, while…
Parts 1, 2, 3. I’m really sorry that this is taking so long, I have better things to do myself! I’ve found it difficult to distil this subject down to essentials. I’ve written long series before, and there’s no way I’m giving Diana Nyad more blog parts than more important subjects like Understanding Cold Adaptation in…
Parts 1& 2. As I said previously, I endured three hours of the panel on the telephone before bailing out about thirty minutes before the end. You are surely thinking to yourself, only three hours compared to this unending series? Yes, that’s how I feel also, actually. 🙂 Swim promoter, panel organiser, Moderator and former Observer…
Part 1. Let me start with a note: this series is growing all the time as I write. I had no plans to turn this into the Infinite Jest of marathon swimming, but the words keep pouring out. I have no idea how much longer it will be right now, or if I will have…
A “review panel” was recently held to consider Diana Nyad’s claimed Cuba to Florida to swim. (On Tuesday 10th September, 2013). This panel was unprecedented in marathon swimming. I had nothing to do with the genesis thereof nor arranging or my invitation to the panel. I consider the holding of such a review panel, regardless…
I’m writing this because Diana Nyad asked me on Twitter to comment on her blog, after I’d previously commented on Twitter regarding the unveiling of the Heat Drip device being considered for her Cuba to Florida swim. (To be clear, other than that, I have had no contact with Diana Nyad and don’t know her).…
Due to increasing global demand, a worldwide network of like-minded swimmers and coaches will soon be offering a free open water swimming lecture series and support for global Freedom Swims as part of the Freedom Swim Network. The need for these services arises in the increased need for experienced support crew and knowledge of…
There are better cold water swimmers than I. There are faster cold water swimmers than I. There are hardier cold water swimmers than I. There are more scientific cold water swimmers than I. There are more experienced cold water swimmers than I. There are people who love colder water more than I. There are even…
As a linkbait title, you have to admit it’s pretty intriguing. One of the toughest things for me about writing this site is article titles. I try to make them interesting when the best thing to do is make them effective for search engines, which is a very different thing. The best titles are a combination of…
The Hype Cycle is a new type of swimming stroke in development for triathletes that is likely to soon be adopted into the wider world of marathon swimming after FINA adopt it as the official sixth stroke. As developed by the University of Portsmouth’s famous open water safety research department, instead of standard arm-stroke the research…
LoneSwimmer is mostly about covering the positive aspects about swimming, or at least, of my swimming life, and imparting what I’ve learned in the hope of spreading the knowledge. But every swimmer, every person involved in any sport has things about their sport that they dislike or … maybe even hate… 1. Extreme Cold Water I…
A significant technological change in swimming over the previous few years has been the development and introduction of various sports watches intended primarily for swimming. Most of these watches introduce some feature or combination of features, from lap counting to calorie expenditure to GPS tracking. For example some years ago I reviewed the Swimovate PoolMate watch, my…
Apart from some of the How To articles this index includes many of the site’s most popular articles, particularly the long swim reports covering my friends Trent Grimsey, Sylvain Estadieu, Stephen Redmond and Finbarr Hedderman. Thanks once again to those people for allowing me to provide such fascinating first-hand accounts of the largely hidden world of marathon swimming. There are…
This post arises from the blog’s fifth anniversary in January. Such milestones tend to make one consider various things. One that I have been ruminating on without any conclusions is the history and evolution of the blog and its place in open water swimming. I have recently come to (hesitatingly) accept that LoneSwimmer.com is probably the world’s most…
A couple of years later, I am still a little surprised that LoneSwimmer.com won the inaugural 2012 Irish Blog Awards for Best Sport and Recreation award (when the site was also a finalist in a second category). Ireland is a sport-obsessed country, even more than many others. Football (soccer), football (rugby), football (Gaelic), football (compromise rules) and even…
In the early twentieth century, American satirist Ambrose Bierce collected his weekly newspaper columns into a book which he intended to call a Cynic’s Dictionary. His repeated characterisation as a devil by various US politicians of the day led to its publication under the title of Devil’s Dictionary. I have neither the wit not skill of…
I had forgotten about the anniversary but I started LoneSwimmer.com on a whim on the afternoon of 18th of January, 2010. Little did I guess where it would lead. Since then LoneSwimmer has grown year on year, and often month on month. It was viewed in 185 countries in 2013 though the countries that most…
Well-known Californian swimmer Jamie Patrick earlier in the year mentioned in the blog comments that he liked reading articles about the history of open water swimming. Apart from what already appears in various books it’s hard to find such stories. But I shortly thereafter carried the story of Tom Blower and the first North Channel…
I’ve had no time for writing recently. The huge effort of writing the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim 2013 report series, long hours at night moderating the marathonswimmers.org forum during the Diana Nyad controversy, personal crises, trips to Dover and other things have meant the blog has been quieter than since I started, I’ve always previously…
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