Last weekend offered a hard choice for open water swimmers in the UK: which event to choose! This year I was lucky enough to get a place in the Brownsea Island Swim and enjoyed a lovely 6.5k splash around this iconic spot in Poole Harbour. Other options were Chillswim’s length of Coniston (one of my favourites), the OSS Dart 10k (that I’ve still never managed to do), the new 10k Dock 2 Dock in London, various distance swims up to 10k at Dorney Lake with Human Race and at Bray Lake with F3 events, Windermere one-way with MyTriEvents, Fritton Lake Big Swims, Abersoch Oceanswim and the Oxford Classic.

I know of one person who managed to do two of these events. Simon Harmer, an Afghanistan veteran who lost his legs to an improvised explosive device, completed the Dart 10k on Saturday with the OSS and then the Brownsea Island Swim on Sunday. His status update on Facebook afterwards said: “feeling tired”!

There may have been other people who managed more than one of these fantastic swims but I suspect they are few and far between, so well done Simon.

For race organisers, I’m sure the first weekend in September looks like a good bet for a major open water swimming event. The water should still be warm, most people are back from their summer holidays but school hasn’t yet started. However, the events last weekend are some of the best of the year. We’re not all capable (or able to manage the expense and logistics) of doing back-to-back long distance swims. I hope next year the organisers can manage to find separate weekends on which to do them.

With all of that going on, it felt a bit like the season was coming to an end with a bang. However, there are still a few events to look out for if you want to get another one in before the water cools down and the days grow short. Scroll to the end of the newsletter for a selection of events for the next two weekends.

Enjoy the newsletter and happy swimming. 

Simon Griffiths

Founder and publisher, H2Open Magazine