Oh, to be stationed in the UK! The food, the beer, the pubs, the swimming!
There are a great many swims in the UK. You can find swims all over the island, with the help of many swimming organizations, to include the Outdoor Swimming Society (organizers of my upcoming first marathon swim, the Dart 10K), the British Long Distance Swimming Assocation, among others. But my favorite lately is the Great Swim people. And now, they have TV!
I was tipped off to Great Swim TV from Steve Munatones' site. I thought I would give it a try, but didn't expect such a professional production. Seriously, this is something I would watch during the Olympics. Incredibly well done, even with knowledgable commentators, not just recycled pool swimming experts who think they know about OW. The Great Swim folks got some very informed speakers, not only about their own Brit swimmers, but about important aspects of our sport, like drafting and navigation.
Everyone who wants to race OW should watch these elite races from the British Gas Great Salford Swim. Here, in color and live-action, you can see what Evan and his groupies were discussing some time ago about stroke rate differences in pool vs. OW. I picked one fairly clear (it was raining) one-minute section of Kari-Anne Payne's swim and counted 93 strokes. 93! Forget about FQS and long, steady pulls. In OW, stroke rate is king (or queen, in Kari-Anne's case).
Take the time to watch both the men's and women's elite races. They last only as long as the winners take to swim it. These are 1500 meter races, not 10Ks, so you can watch both in the time it takes normal mortals to swim 1500 meters.
Glad you enjoyed the Great Swim video... personally I thought it was the best OW footage I've ever seen, including the Beijing Olympics.
Did you happen to catch the SL/SR discussion on the USMS forum? That ended up being a somewhat more interesting discussion than the one on my blog. You should post your observations!
Posted by: evan | 09 June 2011 at 09:47