Were there facilities for kit bags, as there are at running events? What happened in case of emergency? I had always had my phone at running events; I had even had a tiny Nokia during my first marathon, which took place before the advent of smartphones. This time I would be uncontactable from the moment I left for the start, which was miles upriver. How would that feel? And how did these events start anyway? Were they true, those tales I had heard online of broken ribs and kicks in the face as swimmers fought for space? How did you know how far you had swum and how far you had to go? Were there the equivalent of mile markers anywhere? Or a drinks station?
Admittedly, some of the answers to these queries were readily available on the event’s website, but others remained unanswered until the day of the swim itself.
The day, when it arrived, was inauspicious. It was not windy, but the sky was smothered in the sort of low, dirty cloud that makes looking up feel as if you’re trying to peek out from a piece of scummy old Tupperware. It was far from the sort of morning where dreams are realised. I did not want to go at all.
The only thing that kept me from shirking altogether was the memory of a conversation I’d had with my sister a few weeks earlier, when I had told her that I wanted to swim this river event, and then head to Greece in order to swim to Ithaca.
‘Why do you do all this?’ she had asked me. ‘What’s the end point?’
I shrugged her off at the time, getting away with a flippant ‘Because I can’, but the real answer wasn’t far off.
I wanted to swim out there in the rivers and lakes and oceans because it felt like developing a superpower, an extra part of a self I had believed to be static, or at least limited. Over the course of the year, as the stroke and the breathing and the sense of peace I had come to feel in the water had developed, it was almost as if I’d learned to fly. By this point, when I dreamt that I was flying (which I do about once a month), even the position of my arms had changed to something more like a swimmer’s stroke, instead of the wide-open wings of a bird. Freedom takes on a different shape once you’re a swimmer.
To discover a new skill as an adult is like noticing a door, deciding to open it and finding an entire room in your own home that you never knew you had. And I had done it – I had opened the door to the extra room. Now I wanted to be able to see water, anywhere in the world – oceans, lakes and pools – and sense not fear but adventure and peace.
Because a life lived most fully is not the one with the most money earned, the most stuff bought or the most races won, but the one with the most experiences experienced the most fully. I wanted to dive into water as I wanted to dive into life: filled with joy, curiosity, and the knowledge that though there might be dangers, they aren’t daunting enough to make it not worth doing. And by the grotty morning of that river swim, those feelings were within touching distance.
D had, by now, accepted the new superhero status that I had bestowed upon the act of swimming down a river with the current on my side. I had explained the true nature of our trip to Littlehampton and he had dealt with it with admirable serenity. Having had his support over the course of several marathons, either as friend or partner, in person or via text, tweet and even FaceTime, I knew that he made an honourable backup crew, however sanguine he might be during the hours before the event.
So he was with me on the train that unpromising morning. It was early, and quiet, and there was no sign of any other swimmers. I rooted around in my rucksack, checking and rechecking that I had with me what I thought I’d need: my wetsuit, my goggles, the coloured cap that had been sent to me as evidence of my entry into the event, a large tube of moisturiser, my flip-flops. Occasionally I would bleat randomly:
‘I don’t even know where the start line is – it’s just a blob on my phone map.’
‘Will I see an actual fish?’
‘How do we get out afterwards?’
‘Will you be there at the end? Cheering?’
‘Just stay calm,’ he said. ‘Don’t waste your energy on what might happen, but look out for things you know will happen. You know you’ll have to breathe right. You know you’ll see your hands in the water every time you take a stroke. You know not to kick too hard. You know all of that.’
We worked on the list of knowns for a while during that thirty-minute train ride. But the one comment that really stuck in my mind was one that was entirely useless: ‘I’ll tell you what else I know. There’s always a tattoo parlour with a funny name near the station in towns this size.’
When we arrived in Littlehampton, I checked in at the makeshift desk in the RNLI boat shed, which was headquarters for the event. A marker pen was used to write my competitor number on my hands. ‘Just in case!’ said the woman behind the desk, with a cheery smile. One I did not return. To her left was a second desk, where we were invited to leave bags if we wanted to. My trusty support crew offered to take care of mine.
Outside the boat shed was a large concrete ramp where they launched the lifeboats, which headed either left (out to sea, and Littlehampton beach), or right (up the river). This was where we would finish the race. On the ramp were several swans. Huge, confident swans, picture-book examples of the vicious beasts that primary school children are warned about. Unsurprisingly, for birds that revel in the knowledge that they could break your arm if they wanted to, they seemed unperturbed by the increasing number of people clustering nearby. Theirs was the strut of animals who know they look good, know they swim well, and know they will get the river back to themselves before too long. It was also a strut that I would have to walk alongside if I was planning to get out of the river in an hour or two’s time. My stomach tightened, as did D’s hand in mine.
Outdoor swimming events are not new – people have been racing on the Thames since Victorian times, swimming across Lake Windermere since the 1920s and taking part in triathlons for decades. But they were new to me. And I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. I had managed to grasp snatches of information from my classmates, but it’s hard to really express how anxious you are when you’re wrapped in a towel and your hair is dripping on their shoes.
Our early arrival meant we had time to spare, so we headed into the RNLI café for a cup of tea. At this point I was wearing my swimming costume underneath leggings and a sweatshirt, and had my wetsuit and goggles in my swimming rucksack with my towel and change of clothes. It did not take long to realise how desperately inadequate this was as a look. I may as well have turned up in a swimsuit to the Oscars. As every minute passed, more and more men (and a few women) arrived in their boldly emblazoned triathlon club kits, shaking hands and indulging in bracing, deeply masculine slaps on the back.
These were not professional athletes. They were largely middle-aged men. But they were all decked out in the kind of kit I associated with the opening ceremonies of international sporting events. Branded hoodies, branded bags and branded ‘event wear’ was dripping off every last one of them. And I could tell – from the extensive wetsuit research I had done before buying a second-hand one – that they were all wearing top-of-the-range neoprene as well. I felt like the high-school dweeb at a party for jocks.
I am used to being patronised, underestimated and even physically pushed out of the way by a very distinct type of sporty bloke. Almost always white, almost always over thirty-five and almost always confident that they know more about sport than me. This crowd were not entirely new to me when they started to emerge that Saturday morning. They don’t mean to be rude, I sincerely believe that. They are merely vibrating with the sort of fragile masculinity that means their identity is closely tethered to how fast they can run, swim or cycle.
I don’t know if they realise how intimidating they can be. Is it part of the warm-up to throw yourself around, flashing your expensive kit and thwacking passing strangers in the eye with a flick of your rucksack? Or is it how their nerves manifest themselves – sticking in tiny groups, talking louder than necessary and standing or sitting with legs spread obnoxiously?
Either way, they make me sad. Not for myself, as I was lucky enough to have my dad and my brother on side from the second I invested a millisecond in exercise. They let me know that this behaviour is no shorthand for sportiness; that it really is just rudeness. But what if I hadn’t had my family when I started? Would I have been one of the very many women who now tell me, regularly, that they are too intimidated to enter sporting events because they’re not the right type of person? I like to think not, but I am far from sure.
It seemed that the loveliness of my classmates and the open, non-judgemental, welcoming environment of my swimming course had lulled me into a false sense of security about what kind of person might be at a formal swimming event. I had hoped for something gentler, but had not realised that because the swim was the same distance as an Ironman one, it might be filled with competitive amateur sportsmen at their most objectionable, as well as those who simply liked swimming in rivers. I’m sure they’re all charming when they’re not in neoprene, I told myself as I cast my gaze across the cliques.
‘Stay cool,’ said D, who had done well to recognise that muscle clenching just below my temple. I winked at him as I went to the bathroom to put on my wetsuit. I will spare you the details of how well that went. Suffice to say the cubicles were less than roomy.
The energy in the café had changed when I emerged, and people were starting to move from their tables and gather their kit before heading for the coaches. I took a deep breath and braced myself to do the same. It was only now, as I bent down to pack my sweatshirt into my rucksack on the floor, and saw a pair of gnarly bare feet centimetres from my face, that I realised I had to surrender my footwear. The alternative was to face losing them at a riverbank several kilometres away. How had I not thought of this before? How had I not realised that if we were being bussed from the finish to the start line, we could take nothing at all with us?
Forgive me, I’m aware that it seems princessy, and that there are many, many people with greater problems, but having wet or dirty feet horrifies me. It’s not so much the thought of actual dirt, but the squelch of not walking on dry land makes my stomach heave the way that some people respond to the sound of nails being dragged down a blackboard, or someone eating a banana on a train, or baby sick over a parent’s shoulder. For me it is, and always has been, the potential for the slippery and the gooey that quickens my heart rate to a state of appalled panic.
I would rather spend five years running marathons – a world of blisters and pain – than walk to the side of a swimming pool without my flip-flops. In gyms and swimming pools, my foot is removed from its sock and placed directly into the flip-flop. The possibility of it coming into contact with damp balls of fluff from other people’s clothes, or clumps of their hair, or remnants of their discarded plasters makes me want to weep like a Sicilian widow at the funeral of the most handsome man in the village.
As far as I’m concerned, the five worst foot feelings of all time are:
1) Wearing clean, fresh socks and treading in a spill.
2) Stepping barefoot on either a slimy rock in shallow seawater or an unexpectedly reedy riverbank.
3) Wearing leather summer sandals in a thunderstorm, resulting in clammy damp feet for the rest of the day as the leather slowly dries beneath your soles.
4) Walking through a swimming pool or gym changing room barefoot and feeling the fizzing of a new verruca.
5) Experiencing a night of passion, only to realise, as your foot hits the offending article, that you shared that passion with the sort of monster who would leave a condom on the floor by the bed.
All of these things are worse than the time two of my toenails fell off. You can’t appreciate how horrific this ordeal is unless it has happened to you. So you can imagine my dread as the moment to board the coach barefoot suddenly roared towards me. And it wasn’t just the bare feet that were the problem: I had to leave my husband, and with him our means of communication. I felt very alone. I wanted to weep, I wanted to vomit, I wanted to flee.
But I also wanted to feel the river water between my fingers, to experience the liberty of swimming in nature, away from the confines of the pool, to sense the motion of the water helping me along as I headed towards the sea. I wanted those things so much. I wanted them much more than I wanted to flee. So I had to take my shoes off and get on with it.
Having surrendered my rucksack, including my phone and shoes, to D, I boarded a decommissioned school bus. As we left the car park and drove slowly through Littlehampton, I watched the shops and cafés slide past the window. When I caught sight of what looked like a poster advertising tattooists’ work, I snapped my head back as the bus moved past, trying to catch the name of the shop. D had been right: Needle and Fred. I looked down into my lap and smiled to myself.
Eventually the bus pulled into the car park of a small rural church. There was no river in sight, and the small gravelled area was surrounded by fields. I stepped gingerly towards the coach door, thinking serene thoughts about my vagus nerve. A slow line of wetsuits was walking barefoot around the edge of the car park to avoid the gravel, and gathering to the side of the church. I hopped as deftly as I could on to the grass behind them and joined the snaking procession. While trying not to think about snakes.
People were starting to put on their hats and goggles, and many were rolling what looked like deodorant around the edges of their wetsuits. I was curious, before surmising that it was some sort of lubricant to stop the suits from rubbing. These people with accessories seemed to have support cars that had followed them to the car park. I wondered whether I really needed lubricant, or whether it was all part of the intimidation ritual that some of the competitors seemed intent on indulging in.
Before long, the second coach arrived, and now the volume of swimmers and the number of black wetsuits and covered heads meant it was all but impossible to tell people apart. I was scanning faces frenetically, trying to find someone I recognised. Most of us looked like portly upright ants. Eventually, after much searching, I found a couple of women from my class. It was their second year doing the event, so I was almost tearfully grateful to see them.
‘What happens at the start?’ I asked anxiously. ‘Will they swim over me?’
‘Do you care about your time?’ one of them asked.
‘No! Of course not! I just want to make it to the end!’
‘Then start at the back with us,’ the other said. ‘The river is wide enough that you can overtake people later if you need to.’
My shoulders instantly dropped an inch. I didn’t have to join in the melee of competitive swimmers. I could do things my way.
Soon the swimmers started to move around the side of the churchyard, down a small country lane that I hadn’t even spotted. We walked for about five hundred metres alongside a field of rape, each step in squelching mud. I stared at my feet, remembering childhood tantrums over muddy toes on country walks, or soggy sandals on summer trips. No matter what else happened today, I had already confronted one enormous, lifelong terror.
The three of us happily let others pass as we arrived at the river. At this point it was about a hundred metres wide. There were small buoys in place, marking the start line, just ahead of where people were entering the water, and several safety kayaks either side of them. People in swimming caps that demarcated them as aiming for faster times than us were already jostling at the front, treading water, waiting for the starting klaxon. We remained on the edge, happy to get in once the rush had passed. There were none of the pens, barriers or organisation of the large running events I had done, and none of the gentle entry procedure of our few swimming lessons in the sea.
The klaxon sounded and the river became thick with foam as the swimmers started to move. A childhood visit to the zoo, where we saw vegetables thrown into the piranha tank, surfaced in my memory. The agitated water, the sense of frenzy, the anxiety about wanting to look but being scared of what I might see. Eventually there was enough space for us to step down into the wate
r ourselves. I forced myself to breathe as I felt the silt beneath me, the cold of the water around me, and the endless air above. Still your breath, still your mind, I told myself, and soon we were off, into the foaming water the others had left behind.
For the first ten minutes or so, I was lost in a sensory wonderland, absolutely distracted from my breath as I warmed up and found a rhythm in the water. There was none of the noise of crashing waves that I had become accustomed to in the sea, nor was I rocked from side to side by tidal swells. Breathing was significantly easier; there was air whenever I turned my head. The water was greener than I had ever seen in the sea. It was the colour and opacity of a piece of glass, washed up, jewel-like, on the shore. With every stroke I took, I could clearly see the waxy red of my nail polish dancing through the green of the water, a thousand tiny bubbles in its wake each time. It was mesmerising, almost Christmassy.
The water tasted like nothing I had experienced before. There was no salt, despite us being so close to the sea. It was exactly what I would have imagined this shade of earthy green to taste like. ‘Mint and mud’, Virginia Woolf called it, and I understood in those moments what she meant. It was silty, but fresh, calling to mind the chlorophyll intensity of spirulina or similarly verdant powders so beloved of health food shops. There was nothing of the familiar chlorine burn in my nose, nor the sting of salt on my lips or eyes. It was fresh.
I smiled to myself, remembering a conversation I’d had with Patrick in the week leading up to the event.
‘One of the things you’ll notice after all this sea swimming is the cinnamon,’ he told me, as I questioned him for the umpteenth time about what it felt like to swim in a river.
‘Why is that?’ I queried, intrigued by this exotic nugget of information. ‘What is in the earth in Sussex that could do that to the taste of water? Or does it come from the sea?’
‘That’s just what rivers taste like,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Especially after the stormy spring we’ve had.’
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