Windermere End-to-End, 6.45am
LAKE WINDERMERE 2025
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.
21st September, 4.50am... tell me again why any sane person would want to untangle themselves from a warm, fluffy, cosy duvet after only 4 hours sleep and throw themselves into deep, dark, cold and murky water?
I kind of wrote the swim off in my head as I went through the motions of breakfast, dressing, kitbag, drive... That way, I could resign myself to the outcome now so there would be no expectations or disappointments later on.
6.45am found me in a long sleeved swimsuit under a shortie wetsuit, neoprene boots and mittens, walking down an Ambleside jetty in the dawn light, toward 2 people waiting for me alongside a RIB. Dave the skipper introduced Gordon my observer/feeder/chief photographer and after dropping my kitbag into the boat, explaining my feeding regime and trying to calm my anxiety, it was a case of slithering off the side of the boat into 14.9 degrees of water. The water was calm and the dawn was silent. A shiver rippled through my body. Dave, raised the stopwatch and looked at me, finger on button. I nodded I was ready, and off I swam into a very dark and intimidating expanse of water. My own watch said 6.57am.
The boat was electric, so very quiet, in keeping with the atmosphere of a lake not yet awake. All I could hear through my earplugs and two swim hats (for warmth), was the sound of water movement from my strokes and the murmurings of the two men chatting on the boat.
Inside my head, it was a different story. For the first half an hour, my head was full of noise. How cold am I? How cold will I be in a few hours? Have I worn the right kit? Are my goggles tight enough/too tight? Too tight and I’ll get a headache. I hope they don’t fog up. How far will I get? I’m really tired. I haven’t trained properly for the last 2 weeks. I haven’t done any long swims in this kind of temperature. How tired will be arms get in this wetsuit?
Windermere End-to-End, 7.30am
SETTLING IN
At 7.30am the sun popped its head above the tree-line signalling a new day, piercing the subdued mood and providing the most wonderful golden shimmer across the water, right in my swim path. What a sight! It was incredible to witness the first ribbon of sunlight spilling across the lake, lighting it up. Perhaps it was the stillness and solitude, but in that quiet moment of reflection, I felt truly privileged to be where I was - at one with nature at the start of a new day.
My feed plan asked for a drink of carb infused water after 20 mins, then 30, then 40 when I also got 5 jelly babies - very exciting. That was 1.5 hours in and Dave advised I was just over 3k. I was 50/50 whether I’d be able to complete the swim, although I didn't voice that. The part of me that hoped I would, anticipated 9 hours. ‘So just another 7.5 hours to go’ said a voice in one head. My other head was busy wondering how far I’d get before I got too tired or too cold and had to exit the water!
From then on feeds were every 45 minutes. Sometimes that came round quickly; other times I was checking my watch wondering why the time wasn’t going faster. Gordon would often wave his arms to get my attention, or, if I was in my own little world, I’d ‘wake up’ to Dave shouting my name.
Windermere end-to-end is typically swum south to north, especially for large-scale organised events. With solo swims, there's more room for flexibility. I'd seen the weather (and north wind) forecast so anticipated some cold chop smacking into my face. But so had Dave who made the call to swim north to south (thanks Dave), and in those calm early hours before boat traffic, I noticed a few ripples pushing past me from behind, and was grateful.
Sometimes the boat would be right at my side, sometimes it would move in front and occasionally it dropped back so I couldn't see it for a while. The brief that morning had been to swim no more than a jetty width from the boat, and that if I found myself further away, I’d need to swim back to the boat. The boat wouldn’t follow me as they were the ones setting the route of course. That happened a few times, so I’m convinced I swam further than the recorded distance due to all my zig-zagging!
At just over 3 hours, I’d done 6.4 kilometres, so ‘only another 10 to go’ shouted Dave. Goodness, 10k is a huge swim in it’s own right. I still wasn’t convinced I’d finish it. Just kick, glide, pull; kick, glide, pull; one stroke at a time...
Windermere End-to-End, 9.30am
THOUGHTS
What do I think about is a question I’ve been asked several times. My answer… everything and nothing.
After the first half hour of deafening head noise I settle into the swim, finding my rhythm and making sure I don’t stray too far from the boat.
Unlike the Channel, there’s things to see in Lake Windermere. As the morning went on, there were tourists on pleasure boats, power boats, the halfway ferry, another pleasure boat and waves hitting me from all the wakes. There were islands to swim round, trees and scenery, and of course, the sunrise.
I watched the sun move across the sky and noticed how the lake came to life as time passed. To everyone else it was just another Sunday morning and people were out doing their Sunday morning things.
I tried not to look down the length of the lake too much; it seemed to go on forever so I didn't want to see it. Instead I focused on the water just in front of me, boats - passing and moored - and occasionally some buildings on the bank. I did lots of maths in my head in terms of timings and I played guessing games too. I spotted this clump of trees not far away and guessed I'd pass them after about half an hour. An hour later I told Dave they weren't getting any bigger (closer), which he disputed of course. I passed them an hour and a quarter after that!
At times, my eyes would half close, I’d become oblivious to my arms and legs moving. The noise of my rhythmic breathing became meditative and it felt as if one half of my brain was catching up on sleep while the other half carried on swimming.
Other times, I’d be very alert and conscious about the swim, the cold and how I was doing. Later on my shoulders got very achy, and painful with every stroke. So I’d very deliberately look around me at a boat or some trees, to force a redirection of my thoughts. Then before I knew it, I’d forgotten about the pain, until my physical body gave me another prod.
Kick, glide, pull; kick, glide, pull; one stroke at a time...
Windermere End-to-End, 10.45am
HALFWAY
Another 45 minutes and another food & drink stop. Admittedly I stopped longer to feed than you would/should in the Channel, but there was something grounding about having a short chat with someone before setting off again. Swimming is very isolating.
My feeding regime had been written out for Gordon: a round robin of 5 jelly babies OR 1 gel OR 2 Jaffa cakes OR 1 pot of fruit salad. Food was put into a paper cup and handed to me over the boat side, as were the water bottles.
The first Jaffa cake stop was timed perfectly with the wake of a boat hitting me, so the Jaffa cakes ended up soaking in lake water that had plopped into the cup. Learning point - it’s really hard to fish soggy Jaffa cakes that are falling apart, out of a paper cup with neoprene mittens on!
At one feed, I asked Dave to let me know when I was exactly halfway. So when I got the shout at 8.2 kilometres I checked my watch and saw it was 4 hours to the minute since starting - 10.57. Wow, I thought, if I could do the second half at the same pace I’d get an 8 hour finish. I immediately dismissed that crazy thought realising I’d be more tired during the second half and therefore slower. But the thought of perhaps a 8.5 hour finish made my head spin; even that would be far better than I'd anticipated.
Another hour on and I’d done 10 kilometers, so just another 6.4 ahead. That made my brain shift from how far I’d come, to how far I had left to go. So I asked Dave to give me a countdown of 5k to go, 4k, 3k etc. During those next couple of kilometers I was trying to calculate how many kilometres short I’d been last year when the shivers set in and I'd had to bail out, and decided it was probably just under four. So even when Dave shouted 4k to go, I wasn’t convinced I’d finish. I was already pretty cold and there was still time to get the shivers.
Windermere End-to-End, 1.30pm
DIGGING DEEP
I’d been monitoring the time on my watch, and including feeds, I was doing about 2k an hour. So my head was busy calculating what time I might finish… if I got that far.
When Dave shouted 2k to go, it was genuinely the first time that day I thought 'I’m going to do this'! "About another hour then" I shouted back; Dave nodded. I looked at my watch. 1.58pm - 59 minutes to the 8 hour mark, and at 2k an hour including feeds, could I dare to believe... No, my head can’t go there.
I was cold to the core; I was exhausted, and over the last few kilometres I’d started to get a friction burn around my left armpit that was really starting to bite and getting harder to ignore. We agreed my next and last feed would be in 30 minutes time, given there was only an hour to go.
At 2.28pm I had my last jelly babies and carb water. I was so close to getting an 8 hour time, but I just knew I wouldn’t be able to pull off that last kilometre in 28 minutes. Unless…
I quickly shouted to Dave asking for a '500 metres to go' warning. When I heard ‘half a kilometre left’, I put my foot down without hesitating - or perhaps I should say I pulled out my inner mermaid - going as fast as I could muster despite the friction burn now eating into my flesh and my shoulders and arms being excruciatingly painful. Despite the pain, I felt on a roll. I swam on with strong pulls and kicks that surprised even me. A little voice taunted ‘you can’t keep this up for the whole 500 metres’ but I silently shouted back at it to shut up and swam on unfalteringly.
Tiredness really affected my technique the latter half of the swim, which I only realised afterwards on seeing the video clips. My neoprene booties lifted my feet way too high out the water, significantly reducing the power of my kick. Even Dave said I would have been quicker without the boots.
Windermere End-to-End, 2.50pm
THE FINISH LINE
As I approached the jetty by Fell Foot my peripheral vision saw the boat turning inwards towards me, to face the jetty head on. I adjusted my direction and continued swimming like a maniac, coming alongside the landing platform, until I eventually heard shouting ‘Ruth, Ruth, stop swimming, you’ve done it’! I stopped and looked up. "What? Oh!" was all I could manage.
I must have had question marks in my eyes, as the next words Dave shouted down to me were ‘7 hours 59, and 30 seconds.
I only heard the word seven; the rest didn’t matter. I raised my arms in the air and yelled a loud ‘Woo-hoo; Yesssss!’ then heard a round of applause from several people watching from the bank. What a feeling. Elation. Relief. Surprise. All exhaustion, pain and cold was temporarily suspended while I glowed for a whole 60 seconds.
The boat had turned round for the homeward trip and Dave helped me up a ladder at the back of the boat, which was difficult to navigate with my jelly legs. Once on board, the breeze hit me. I stripped off all neoprene and cocooned myself in woolly hat, dry robe, scarf, mittens and thick socks. Dave revved the throttle and we shot back up the lake as I chatted with Gordon - discovering he was a fireman when not feeding swimmers!
It took just 50 minutes to retrace my 8 hour (sorry, 7 hours, 59 minutes!) swim route back to the starting point. I thanked them both, had the well-deserved ‘I’ve done it’ photo taken, and slightly dazed, staggered my wobbly legs through oblivious tourists out for stroll, and back to my car. I turned the heating and fan to maximum as the afterdrop and shivers started to kick in, and headed back to my cottage. It was just gone 4.00pm.
The Swim Route, Lake Windermere
RELIEF
Several people asked if I was celebrating, elated, happy? To be honest, the overwhelming feeling since the swim has just been relief. Relief that I achieved it when I didn’t quite make it last year, and relief that it opens up my mind and confidence for what’s yet to come.
After all, this was just a training swim!!
Next stop... France!
N.B. While this was classed as a breaststroke swim, you'll notice a few pictures of me doing front crawl here. I did approx. 6 strokes of front crawl once every
couple of hours just to roll my shoulders out, and as it's so rare for me to use this stroke, the pictures made their way to this site just to prove I can do it! 💪