I get asked various questions related to cold because I like to write about it. Those questions often inspire further writing ideas. One thing I realised was there was no good agreement on cold water. A poll of open water swimmers by DNOWS gave the following results. Under 5ºC (41ºF) – 0% Under 10ºC (50ºF) – 7%…
Swimmers train a lot. A lot of time is spent in the water. One consequence is tight muscles. Another problem for some is insufficient flexibility for swimming, like ankles and legs. Apart from the essentials of regular massage, and probably direct icing, stretching becomes necessary if not essential. Each of us will probably have some…
This post and the subsequent Part Two post should not be construed as medical advice. This is another example of how I deal with something related to swimming, in which I have made mistakes and learned and adapted and which may be instructive or useful as advice or warning. Throughout the two articles I will…
Courtesy of another question. Though as Julie Galloway pointed out in her interview yesterday on Daily news of Open Water Source, we (Irish) call them togs not costume or swimsuit. And we never knew we were different! This applies mainly to chlorine, which eats the nylon/lycra mix. We’ve all been there. One day you are…
I don’t like dietary supplements. B Complex, multivitamins etc. The little reading I’ve done so far on the subject indicates little or no benefit is gained from commercial multivitamins for endurance athletes But I don’t rule it out… Since my EC, (too late that is), I’ve had a few interesting conversations with an online friend…
You are thinking this has to my most inane post ever. You may be right, though I believe it is possible for me to be more inane. But bear with me … How do you tie your togs? Granny knot or bow? Well that’s fine. Usually But there are times when neither of those will…
This article is, once again, a variation of the most popular question here: “What temperature of water is too cold to swim in”?, which I’ve written about before. The temperature at the Guillamene last Sunday week (October 16th, 2011) was about 13° Celsius (55° F). That’s far warmer than what most people will imagine, not…
We’ve all had this problem. You try to stick your towel in there. You stake your head and bang it to the side. For hours. But there’s a simple solution: Hop up and down on one leg, the leg on the same side at which the water is in your ear. The water will simply…
Following on from the discussion on hectopascals and atmospheric pressure: Let’s use the same chart again. This time you know what the numbers mean, various high and low pressure areas. But there are different kinds of lines to be seen also. In this chart we are concerned with five types light black line with numbers…
Courtesy of another search that brings people here, and following Hurricane Katya last week and the synoptic chart that I linked for it. So we’ve started with that same synoptic chart again. In this chart we have a low pressure area, Hurricane Katya, north west of Ireland, in sea area Rockall, right in the centre at…
When you are in Dover weather is the beginning and end of everything. We felt we had a better handle on the coming storm to hit Ireland as we were trying to get a good of idea of what coming toward the Strait. Everyone in Ireland today knows it’s windy (but really unusually it’s dry,…
I would have mentioned this previously if it weren’t for the Project Copper posts, but the sea-lice have been back for the past two weeks, as always at this time of the year when the water reaches its warmest. 13.9 degrees Celsius at the Guillamene the other day, the first time I’ve measured it in…
You don’t have to be planning a swim to get used to watching the Dover weather. Maybe you have friends over there. Maybe you’re thinking about the distance future. Maybe you’re just a Channel junkie. First there’s the Shipping Forecast for the immediate future. Of course, you’ll also want to understand it.This what the pilots use.…
Practice everything. Do nothing new on the day. These are the two corollaries of the long distance swimmer’s maxim about preparation. Experienced swimmers learn it early. Plan. So for planning for something like a 24 hour pool swim, experienced swimmers like Lisa & Danny first think about what they will need, and will go back to previous…
My swim box is slightly infamous. When surfing I used to keep my wetsuit and gear in a plastic crate, like a child’s toy crate. With swimming I was using one even more. At the Guillamenes, the car park is at the top of the cliff, and I preferred to change as soon as I…
I don’t want to be accused of hypocrisy, given my own habits and the site name. So I deliberately didn’t write much originally about Open Water Rule Number One, though I’ve mentioned it in passing quite a few times. But I would also be less than honest if I avoid it completely. Open water swimming Rule Number…
The post entitled “what temperature of water is too cold to swim in?“, was for over a year the site’s most popular. This is a slightly updated version (main changes in italics), specifically the list of factors affecting ability. This post was courtesy of searches on the site as a few variations of this question…
Part 1 of Extreme Cold Adaptation in Humans. Let’s back up a bit. Way back in fact, to some of my first posts, where I talked about Habituation and Acclimatization. By the way, if I was writing those posts now, since my experience had changed again, I would have different figures. It’s good that I…
I know I posted a version of this a year ago (or so). So here’s an updated version with some more information on it. My sister mentioned the other day that it looked like I was writing code occasionally, and I guess I am, but it’s not a secret code. This is the “code” of…
Following a previous rant on the subject of lane swimming, I decided to do a quick explanation of lane swimming etiquette. None of this is original to me, these are the rules that club and lane swimmers around the world follow, but which seem a mystery to everyone else. The result is the site’s most popular article, and since…
This core exercise is known as the Turkish Get Up and it’s pretty great. It was, I think, originally done with a Russian Kettleball, and though Kettleballs are now well-known enough that Tesco are selling them, I figured more people are likely to have dumbbells. The guy in the vid is using a 25 pound…
Part 2. Almost done. Obviously meteorology is a far more complex subject than the thumbnail I’m giving again. I’m just covering some of the major influencing factors for Ireland and the North East Atlantic. So last time we saw some of the prevailing winds ran opposite those across Ireland. To explain these difference we need…
I finished Part 1 with the Coriolis effect. I said last time that the warmer air at the equator flows toward the poles. The Coriolis Effect impacts this to cause the major weather patterns. Since the world is a sphere, the surface of the earth at the equator is moving much faster than the surface…
“Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get” – Mark Twain So I’ve written about the Shipping News and the databuoys and waves and wind etc. I thought I might do some more on the weather subject and move up to a bigger scale, particularly as it affects Ireland and the North Atlantic.…
I though I’d continue on from yesterday’s post and talk about how to interpret the radio sea weather forecasts. In Ireland we get the Sea Area Forecast, also called the Marine Forecast on RTE Radio 1 (which comes from Met Eireann) twice a day. In the UK it’s more famously know as The Shipping News.…
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