4) The One That Got Away
- Ruth Morris
- Sep 30, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 5
Overview
Windermere. I've swum in a few different lakes this summer, but this is the only one that matters - for 2025 at least.
Since chatting with my coach-to-be in July I've been totally focused on the Windermere swim. I got some tips for managing the cold and my training this summer has all been about this interim goal, with less thought of the channel.
I haven’t actually hired Emma yet - as in paid her any money - but from the call we had, I came up with a training plan for August. This will lead up to a Scottish holiday at the start of September, from which I plan to stop on the way home to do Windermere.
The workouts are for strength and involve circuits of kettlebells, weighted squats, exercise bike, floor work, battle ropes and dumbbells. And the running is there so I don’t forget how to do it! Occasionally a workout or run got missed or changed days, but overall it was a good guide for Windermere training.
August 2025
Windermere Training
A very general guide for a marathon swim, is at least 3 ‘big’ training swims leading up to it (more for the Channel), as well as shorter swims in between, then taper (no more than 2 hours at a time) in the last couple of weeks.
The ‘big’ swims are often back to back days, when, on waking up on the morning of day two, achy and tired from the day before, you realise you have another long swim to do that day.
My coach suggested I aim for a 5 hour and 4 hour back to back swim before Windermere, which I have to say felt way out my comfort zone at the time.
Ideally that would have been 2 weeks before the Windermere day, but that was the weekend I’d be travelling to Scotland for vacation. So instead, I planned it for a week sooner - 3 weeks out - then worked backwards in the diary, planning shorter and shorter weekend back to back swims until I got to something manageable for the immediate weekend. So a 4 & 3 hour, a 3 & 2 hour and a 2 & 1 hour. I had one weekend left over, so added one 6 hour swim somewhere in the middle, for good measure.
The 2/1, 3/2 and 4/3 hour swims on back to back days went without a hitch, all very doable, but the 6 hours in one day had my shoulders and arms screaming for the next few days.
Having said that, just 6 days later, I jumped back in the lake, ready to do the first day of the 5/4 hour swims (which psychologically felt easier, being an hour less than the previous weekend). The 4 hour swim the following day felt fairly okay too. Tiring of course, but no more than the 6 hours had been.
A six hour and a 5/4 hours - two of the suggested 3 long swims done. One to go...
September 2025
Windermere Training (Scotland)
The first weekend of September I was travelling to Scotland, so no time for 2 back to back swim days. So another 6 hour swim the day before I travelled, would have to suffice.
An accident and huge delays en route to the lake, prompted a quick U-turn and a decision to do my last long swim in the pool instead. I just needed to get 6 hours done - anywhere - before I went away.
I’d done 600 pool lengths in 6 hours last year (and got the swimsuit strap marks to prove it), so no problem I thought. But just 100 lengths in my legs were screaming; 150 and I was struggling; 200 and ‘I’m outta here’!
Now I do realise the Channel will be much more tiring (there’s an understatement), and that I need to train when tired at times too. But ‘listen to your body’ sprang to mind that day. In hindsight, I believe I’d not fully recovered from the 9 hours of swimming just six days earlier, compounded by 3 days working abroad in that time too.
So I arrived in Scotland 2 weeks out from Windermere, slightly unnerved that I hadn’t quite got my 3rd long swim in. I considered trying for it again during the first couple of days there, but when I felt the water temperature of Loch Tummel, that idea quickly dissipated! I swam every other day, did several 1-2 hour loch swims and a couple of pool swims too. I wasn’t sure of Windermere’s temperature, but I did know I'd be in the water for a lot more hours than I’d been achieving during my holiday.
Water temperature aside... another challenge was the wetsuit. Having abandoned Windermere last year due to cold, a swimsuit only (which would be SO much easier to swim in) absolutely wasn’t an option. I needed to get Windermere done and I'd do whatever it took to stay warm and achieve that. But having been in a swimsuit since spring, the wetsuit I was wearing in the loch felt like a sumo wrestler costume. My arms were heavy to lift, making them tire quicker and I was unable to get into my usual rhythm. So with each swim, I experimented with full and shortie wetsuits, long and short sleeved swimsuits and neoprene sleeves, until I found the optimal combination for temperature and movement.
Exposure!
Water temperature and wetsuit aside... something else that hit me rather unexpectedly, was the feeling of ‘exposure’, sometimes experienced by rock climbers: a heightened awareness of where they are, high off the ground with nothing behind or below them but fresh air... and how big all that fresh air is!
I was careful. I swam with a bright tow float, carried drinking water and my phone in a waterproof case; the weather was good and the wind calm. But alone in the vastness of the loch, surrounded by thick, tall forestry on all sides, I suddenly felt very small - as if my tow float would be a tiny orange spec in an aerial photograph.
My head was in two places... there was the undeniable beauty of being in a Scottish loch on a sunny day in the still, cool water, with every shade of green among the tiered treeline rising from the banks. a perfect blue sky, fluffy clouds and sun beams streaming through the branches. I treaded water in 360° turns, marvelling at the scenery, feeling like I was in a Norwegian fjord. Absolutely breath-taking!
In complete contrast and at exactly the same time, I felt a sense of trepidation, being alone in such an expansive landscape, which had nothing to do with my confidence in being able to swim back to my start point. There was something unsettling beneath the grandeur. Being eye level with the surface of this deep loch, I felt very insignificant. There was no other living thing to be seen or heard; only the sound of my own movement through the water. At times I swam slowly and furtively, as if the water would carry any noise to things unseen.
It was a merge of magnificence and quiet unease...
Windermere End to End: 21st September 2025
Anticipation
2.53am; I’m awake! ‘Go back to sleep! You have almost 2 hours before the alarm goes off’. I’m tossing, turning and still trying to get back to sleep when the alarm finally goes off at 4.50am. I reluctantly prise myself from the warm duvet and groggily shuffle over to the mirror... bloodshot eyes, tired face and despair written all over it. There is no way this is going to happen today.
Comments