The before and after of my first wild swim with the Nutty Mermaids at Larkwood Lakes and Ecological Park in West Stow, just outside Bury St Edmunds. Funnily enough, I met the owner of Larkwood Lakes later that afternoon at Bury Wild Festival, hosted by the Bury Water Meadows Group. You can read the related blog post here.
All week I’ve been a little nervous, but also excited. I hesitated booking on for a while – but I finally took the plunge (excuse the pun) and booked onto the Wild Swim. I am nervous for many reasons:
Today, I woke up nice and early – as I do most days anyway – but I always wake up early when I have an event on that day. I tend to work on my small business admin tasks early on in the day, adding listings, website updates, social media and writing a blog post like today! I had my two cups of tea and a small breakfast – I don’t normally have breakfast this early but was recomended to by the nutty mermiads website so thought I better! I’m now ready to get up, get my stuff together and go! Eek – I’ll let you know how it goes when I get back.
I had never been to west stow, and it was a lovely journey getting there. Some parts felt like I was driving through woodland – a very welcoming start!
When I arrived it felt like I was trespassing a little – as it is private land – but the gates were open and the signage were clear – so i drove on in.
Parking was easy! No need to worry there, plenty of spaces! As I arrived the instructor was there ready and waiting. I was second to arrive after two lads. When I saw the two lads getting into their wetsuits and looking the part, my heart sank a little, “oh god what have I signed up for” as I know I just wanted a casual wild swim!
I spoke to Jody – the instructor – after I parked, and she was comforting and assured me that just having a little float about is ok and that the group is split, with some people having an intense swim and overs just a float about. After another lady arrived – who was more in my category of a casual swim – we walked to the lake. There’s several lakes at larkwood lake but you swim in the one beyond the car park.
There’s a toilet on site (not that I saw it) – but no changing rooms. Luckily I had the van so I could use that as a changing room, but people were happy just to change on the grass by the lake. Wet suit on, swimming hat, goggles & tow float in hand it was time to enter the water!
Jody had told us it was 9 degrees and that as soon as we’re off the ladder we’re out of our depth – so I was a little apprehensive getting in. My only question during the small induction was, about breathing out my mouth underwater during front crawl, as I wasn’t sure if this was something acceptable to do whilst open water swimming due to hygiene reasons. Jody said this was absolutely fine in this lake, and mentioned the owner of the lake was an ex-marine biologist so checks the water quality a lot and also works with wild life. She mentioned the Otters that live at Larkwood Lakes! (Read more about this here)
I was third to get in the water. I walked down the little ladder off the pontoon and I was in! A few more steps and I was out of my depth… and it was fine! Funny enough – I can swim and tread water! I felt at ease in the water – as I always do – and being out of my depth didn’t change that.
We then swam a lap with the instructor around the lake – around about 200-250m. In a pool I normally swim front crawl, but for the intro lap I did breast stroke – resulting in me discovering how slow I am at breast stroke.
After the intro lap, Jody, the instructor got out and was life guarding the rest of the session.
On my second lap I attempted front crawl, it was great to get my head under, but OMG it was so cold! I could manage it for about 5s before I felt like my head was frozen. A new discovery of the day is brain freeze can come from more than just eating cold ice cream! So due to this for the rest of the session I stuck with breast stroke – which was fine.
After several laps, people were starting to get out. As always, I pushed myself and said to myself I’d do one more lap – in hindsight – maybe I should have listened to my body more, as I think if I was being truthful I was nearing feeling the cold – but I did the lap anyway. It turned out OK, but yeah, open water means listening to your body, this is VERY important.
After my lap I got out, and it was time to get changed – and take the wet suit off. Definitely the hardest part of the session… why is it so hard! But once it was off – dry robe on and it was time to warm up. I took an old towel to stand on so as to not get mucky feet when changing and had a warm tea waiting for me also.
On reflection, everyone was super very friendly and welcoming, there was no reason at all for me to be nervous – thats the way it normally pans out! My intention is to go every other week, or at the least once a month so roll on my next swim with the Nutty Mermaids!
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