If open water swimming was as simple or simplistic as is sometimes portrayed I’d long have ceased writing. Olympic or professional open water swimmers who distil the skills associated with open water swimming to a mere “learn to sight, swim straight” have over-looked all the other skills they may have learned along the way. Similarly, amateur marathon…
I love swimming at my favourite places such as Kilfarassey, Sandycove and the Guillamenes. but I also love swimming at new places and there aren’t that many left to me on the Waterford Coast. It’s been some time since I did Project Copper Coast, swimming from Powerstown Head as far as Stradbally. There’s a gap…
Because I live and swim in Ireland, I am constantly made aware of the large tidal range here. I’ve written extensively about tides previously because I feel they are an aspect of open water swimming not appreciated by enough swimmers and because global variations can mean that many people never see nor even realise the…
In Part One I covered the physiological limiting factors in marathon swimming. The various environmental aspects of a swim are not insignificant. They are especially important in that they all lay outside the swimmer’s control and often even outside the control of the support crew. Water Temperature This is generally a known factor prior to a…
I was pretty excited a few month’s ago to be asked by Simon Griffiths, editor of the world’s first and only open water swimming magazine, to write a post on a subject I feel pretty strongly about; tides. You feel strongly about tides, Donal? You are even weirder than we thought. The magazine has previously…
Recently I wrote about how I consider safe entry and exit points and possibility of swimming at all tide times to be a critical requirement of a good open water swim location. Kids growing tend to think the whole world is the same as their local experience. Though I didn’t live by the coast growing…
Part 1 – Theory So, why a different post for what we can call the observed local effects? Well, depending where you are in the world, this may not be needed. There are some places where the observed local effects match those predicted by theory. However, why isn’t that the case for everywhere? Simply, the…
One occasional bee I have in my swimming bonnet is the lack of understanding of tides amongst many OW swimmers. It is however quite understandable, if the location where you swim isn’t particularly affected by tides. But what about expedition swim planning or trips to spots you don’t know? Or from a safety point of…
LoneSwimmer 