Day 5/ Swim 1 : Iniscara Lake
Today I wake up excited, I am excited at the prospect of a ” Three-a-day”, meaning 3 training sessions in one day, the first swim is in my favourite lake, Lake Iniscara, the water temperature balmy compared to the Irish sea and chilling rivers, today the water temperature is said to be 16 degrees Celsius ( 61 F )
We arrive early, I get out of the car and contemplate the swim, it is 2 laps of 4km each and an added bonus, a feed of Maxim between laps, something to look forward to…..
We walk down to the lake edge, I stay wrapped up in a cozy Burton hoodie and a pair on hand-me-down ugg boots, Ned walks beside me…..
I wait for a bit more then strip down to my suit, the lake looks beautiful, I am excited to get in and pump out some laps, that’s me in the middle, we wade deeper down the slipway, the water gets deep fast, I keep edging out, then suddenly there is no more slipway, the slipway drops away and I go under, ” well that dropped off fast”, I giggle to myself and begin swimming, the water feels delightful.
Out into the center of the lake we all go, one by one we stop short, the depth changes once more, my belly and legs drag along the bottom, many swimmers stand up to walk through the shallow waters, we swim off to the side where things get deep again, from here it is full steam ahead, we thunder down the lake headed to the pump station and dam, we are in the reservoir above the river of the dam swim we swam just a few nights ago, to me if feels like another world for the water this morning is soothing on my skin, my feet are not numb, my jaw is not clenched, I am having a fine old time, I swim on. Robbin waits on shore, soon I will swim in and snag a feed from her before entering into lap 2, the ducks wait too…
Lap 1 down, I toss back 300mls of my Maxim Carbo feed and head back out for the final lap, for a total of 8km, Colm and Ned are swimming the second lap alongside me, it is a good clip, I like the company, we reach the pump house quickly and turn for home, ” beat that old guy over there”, shouts Ned, he points to Colm and swims off, I love a bit of a race, I thunder down the lake after Colm, we edge forwards of each other as we jockey for postion on the home stretch, I am breathing heavily and wait for it, I feel warm! Soon we are at the last sprint, I drive my head down and push hard, we reach the slipway, I stand up with thoughts of a hot chocolate and Jelly Babies, ” come one, 20 more minutes to make 2 hours, we swim to the buoy and back, it looks to be about 300 meters each way”, Colm says.
I obediently follow, I am still thinking of Hot Chocolate, ” it will wait”, I think and then go about chasing Colm, before you know it we are on the last 300, ” all you’ve got to Shore”, he quietly says and with that we are off, stroke by stroke I breathe heavier, my legs begin to tingle and then we touch shore, hooray, we walk out of the water, what a great swim, I like this lake very much….
You guessed it, I make a beeline first for warm clothes and then Hot Chocolate, we pack up quickly, why? Because we are on the way to swim # 2, Spike Island, a few of us are swimming from the Prison Island Spike Island to Cobn, Spike Island was a working prison up until 6 years ago and Cobn is a port town and the last port of call for the Titanic where she picked up 123 passengers, a few lucky souls got off in Cobn.
What will a prison break swim be like? I’ll keep you posted
What was the best part of today’s swim?I was last, along with Colm out of the water
Closing Thought:
Your ship will not come in to you, you have to swim out to meet it