Anybody who likes swimming open water I would urge you to do this event next year and maybe we could have a few VTC teams entering? The swim up the Jubilee River was gorgeous! Many amazing people swam the whole 10k themselves and huge respect to them, but for the rest of us who do not have webbed feet splitting the race into 2kish blocks and changing swimmers at the locks was good fun and manageable. 

I started off as Number 1 swimmer of our team of 4, in the second wave. There were 4 waves going up in expected speed with the fastest swimmers in Wave 4. It was quite a rowdy start with a bit of fighting which I was surprised about as some of the swimmers were going to be in the water for 3-4 hours, but it didn’t put me off as I am used to the VTC Bonkers 7pm Monday night Shepperton crowd and they are a bit rowdy too!

Soon I had lost the 2 girls who had been trying to sandwich me between them and then just enjoyed the swim pretty much on my own. Beautiful countryside around Eton, and I felt that I had a good rhythm going. Thumb to thigh and early catch were the things that I thought about as well as blimey what’s that in my face – oh its only a weed – relax!

At the end of my 1.9k I came out second in my wave at 00:33:31.0 at a pace of 3.4km/h which I was very happy with. I then handed over my chip to the next swimmer. There were some great swimmers in the waves behind and although I was chuffed with my time it put me 171/374 out of all the swimmers for my leg and that cut me back down to size!

Worst bit about the race is carrying people’s gear as you walk along next to them as they swim their leg. So pack light!

My group came second in the mixed gender category relay teams only to be beaten by a group from Shepperton Lake.

Fiona Dowthwaite