The Outdoor Swimmers' Handbook: Collected Wisdom on the Art, Sport and Science of Outdoor Swimming

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I do a bit of breaststroke, but a bit strange with one arm over here and the other over there, and I do side stroke as well. The Outdoor Swimmers’ Handbook ‘is like an overheard catch up of everything that’s been learnt and experienced in the last 16 years of The OSS,’ says Kate, ‘everything that we, as a community, have learnt about understanding rivers, lakes, sea, about the physiology of cold, planning swims, night swims, and how to swim better.

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Through her profound creativity and enthusiasm, Rew’s efforts and publications have literally encouraged, guided, and inspired millions of people – first starting in the UK and then expanding globally – to take to the open water. But at this point in history people needed to hear that it was ‘allowed’, so we went around ‘sanctioning’ swimming.

Swimming the length of Windermere remains the UK marathon crown, but today there are swimmers everywhere who are exploring their local seas and waterways for the sheer joy of it. Today, there are open-water lake and wild swim groups offering warm welcomes across the country, and swimmers across the world are looking to the UK to work out how to create a similar culture of free, nomadic swimming where they live. I used to get in on the surface because I was too afraid to put my feet down and thought I would get sucked in to the scary gogglemonster machinery. These people happily hang up their trunks after the summer and won’t be seen again until May,” she explains. Learn how to handle the fear of deep water Many swimmers have a "fear of the deep", especially on dull days.

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You can also learn a lot from the people you encounter on the water, from fellow swimmers to beach lifeguards and locals who know their environment well. How to find a place to swim is also covered, which is particularly useful in a climate of fraught access rights, where many swim spots feel like closely guarded secrets.

Then he gestured for us to come closer and everyone gathered around, slithering over each other like a mosh pit of seals to high-five him and hug him. Just as there was a time before triathlons, skateboarding, surfing, mountaineering or mountain biking, there was a time when mass-participation open-water swims were not commonplace. The photographs in the book are particularly splendid: some have all the disarming beauty of great paintings….

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At this point he had averaged over twelve hours of swimming a day for 157 days without, as far as we knew, grumbling once. There, three figures dive off the sandstone and are buoyed by what appears to be the sluice and joy of a downstream Neolithic drift.We’ve got this situation that I don’t think anyone in the OSS would have predicted of people starting swimming in the midwinter. Kate: There are many varieties of swimming out there, from pottering about to long distance to adventure.