Zurich - Booking a Holiday

Badi Enge - "Are you able to swim back, too?"

I mentioned a while back that I’ve booked myself on a swimming holiday. I stumbled across it in the summer months when I was searching for some long-distance swims that I could take part in. There were two in Switzerland (2.65 km and 3 km; the 2.65 km one I’d done before, so was really looking for something a bit longer) and, actually, I ended up missing them both. They were both on the same weekend and it happened to be one of the very few weekends where it was raining, so I opted out. Typical!

Anyway, because it was “swimming season”, I was feeling all enthusiastic and full of desire for new challenges. I like swimming in the lake, but there’s only so far you can swim, so you have to repeat stretches if you want to swim a certain distance. Consequently, I was trying to find these “long distance” swims to take part in. During these swims, the waterways are closed off to other boats, and the way is indicated and lined with rescue boats for a safe swim.

I finally found a really good site and it asked you to state your competence for it to select you swims of an appropriate distance. I naively thought that if I could swim around 3 km, I could be fairly termed as an “intermediate” swimmer. To my horror, the intermediate swims started at 10 km in length. Even the beginner ones went up to 10 km, so it was a reality check. Maybe it was meant more for professional open-water swimmers?

The other problem I have is that the longer swims usually require you to swim crawl, whereas I swim pretty much only breast-stroke. I can see the logic, because they can’t close the waters all day while people just go along casually at their own speed, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating when I’d like to have the opportunity to push myself a bit.

Anyway, on the left-hand side of the website there was an advertisement for a swimming holiday. When I clicked on it, I found that it was doing exactly what I wanted. You go out on a boat, swim 2-3 km in the morning and the same again in the afternoon. You have lunch on the boat. You’re accompanied by a few dinghies so that all swimming speeds are catered for, and you swim from bay to bay or island to island. I will definitely be in the slowest group, since even my breast stroke isn’t that fast. If you want a rest from swimming, you can just sunbathe or read on the boat instead. Perfect!

I’ve booked myself on a week’s holiday to Turkey (taking in one Greek island as well) and they are claiming the water will be 24 degrees. I hope this is true as I’m not very good with water that’s much colder! I’m a luxury swimmer at heart. On the first day they also film you from below and above water and give you tips as to how to improve your swimming. It should be interesting.

Of course, now that I’ve committed to it, I’m feeling a bit nervous. What if I can’t do those distances, will we have to get up really early in the morning, what if I’m so much slower than everyone else, what if the water’s too cold, will they try to force me to swim faster, what if I need the toilet, will I be too exhausted when I get back to do any work?

By the time you’re reading this, I will have returned, so I’ll let you know how I got on next week!