How do others see you? 8 year olds on sport and fitness.

We all influence other people. Perhaps your job puts you in a position of power, or maybe you’re in the public eye. It could simply be that one person sees you as an inspiration. Whatever the reason, each one of us influences those around us. Hopefully in a positive way!

Have you ever wondered how other people see you?

When my friend Katherine – who’s a school teacher – approached me recently to ask if I’d help out with a school project, I said sure! I didn’t know what she had in mind but I’m always keen to help out with anything which informs or inspires kids about sport, healthier eating and activity.

So, “year 3″ (for the clueless – like me – this means boys and girls of eight and nine years old) sent me a load of questions about the sports I’ve done.

Hi Nicola,

We have learnt a bit about you today and some of the sports that you have done. We have some questions to ask you about the things that you have done, and Miss Palmer says you have very kindly agreed to answer them! We loved your photographs on your blog, you must work really hard when you are doing all your sports. Here are our questions:

Some of the questions were hilarious, some were cute and some really made me think. Here are just some of them:

Do you enjoy being an athlete?
Do you have to work hard to do your sports?
Have you ever coached anybody else in any sports?
What did you see when you swam in the sea? Did you see any animals?
Were you cold in the ocean?
Were you exhausted afterwards?
Why did you enter the triathlon?
Is bodybuilding easy?
How did you grow such big muscles?
What exercises do you have to do to be a bodybuilder?
Do you have to eat healthy food to make your muscles bigger?
Do you go on the treadmill? Do you go on the exercise bike?
Do you have to eat different sorts of food when you are bodybuilding to when you are channel swimming?

I love their curiosity and imagination! I also think it’s really interesting that the “top three” questions for Channel swimming (goosefat, sharks and water temperature) didn’t crop up at all, and nor did anything about tan for bodybuilding. I wonder why adults tend have such a limited range of questions to ask (at least at first) whereas these kids presumably either understood why we wear tan, or just thought it was too boring a thing to ask – a waste of a perfectly good question

So, I answered all their questions, unsure of what the project was or what would be done with my replies. I felt quite a lot of pressure suddenly! For all I knew, this could be the first time some of these children had ever learned about or thought about nutrition, being active, body image. I didn’t want to patronise, but nor did I want to pitch it too high and risk them switching off or feeling overwhelmed. I really wanted to encourage them, to spark some interest, perhaps even to encourage a dream of their own. (As I told them, I was exactly their age when I first thought about swimming the Channel.) Here was a great opportunity to get these children to realise that they have the power to achieve anything they want to, and that dreams should be dreamed big! I didn’t want to mess it up!

A few days later, my inbox was full of the most wonderful pictures and stories. They are just about the best thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve printed them all out and will keep them in my kit bag. I can only hope that I inspired and motivated at least some of Year 3. They have certainly inspired me.

Thank you, Year 3!

Read on for some of the pictures they sent me, as well as a few choice quotes from the stories they wrote.

This one is quite simply immense. The power! That triangle-me is owning that stage! I can only hope to be this large and in charge when I next compete

Crazy separation I’ve got going on there! As well as the most muscley shins I’ve ever seen. I think I need to work on my quads a bit more, though

I’m so happy in this one! With good reason – I appear to be shoulder pressing two 80kg dumbbells overhead. I’m not sure what I’m wearing. I love that I am training outside on a beautiful sunny day, and also love that one of the podiums (?) says “well done” on it.

Just me and some crazy-cute seals hanging out together. Check out the whiskers on those seals! Adorable!

Hi! I’m swimming the Channel and there’s a really big tanker and I’m really happy about it all!

Now for the words of wisdom. I should point out that these are not my words, they’re written by Year 3. They presumably read my replies to their initial questions and then let their imaginations go… Quite right, too. That’s the best way to write sometimes: just get going and start writing, then see what came out.

If you want sporting success, Musfirah tells us to “look insid, start being healthy!”

Imaan tells us that, to build muscle, you must “lift really heavy weights or small, digit number weights. Then you can enter the competition, but you will have to show off your muscals to the jujes.” He also reminds us of the importance of safety when cycling. “..she had to were a helmet for safety just in case she falls off.” What are you saying, Imaan?

Jasmine has a few words to say about diet. “…lots of eggs, meat, fish and even kangoo – but it is meat, it keeps you fit. When you are a body builder you can’t eat cakes or choclett!”

Adeed has the impression that I am a “musly millionair”, love him. Perhaps he has had some sort of premonition? Fingers crossed. He chronicles my 2011 season by saying that “on her first day she won a trophy and she was proud of her self.” Well, yes, I suppose I was, and should be more often! “Eat meat, fresh eggs, kangaroos, healthy food and sports drink,” advises Adeed (as opposed to rotten eggs, I assume!)

Elliot keeps it real. “If you want to be a body builder, get to that gym!”

I’ll leave you with these simple truths from Haiden and Joshua W:

“Give it a go!”
“Always remmember, don’t give up.”

They said it!

What did you dream of doing when you were eight or nine years old? Have you done it yet?

How do others see you? 8 year olds on sport and fitness. is a post from The Fit Writer blog.

Nicola Joyce – the Fit Writer – is a freelance copywriter and journalist who writes for the sport and fitness industry. Her main website is here.

Byline in The Washington Post (and “Swim: Why We Love The Water” giveaway)

I don’t just train. I do a bit of work, too I work as a freelance writer, doing both editorial work (features in consumer magazines, mostly, but some trade/industry publications, too) and commercial work as a copywriter (content for B2B clients, B2C clients and agencies).

I don’t often blog about work (I probably should do so more often), in fact there are only a handful of work-related posts on this blog:

- Where you could have found my byline back in May 2010
- How to engage with fitness journalists and bloggers
- How I became a freelance writer (and other FAQs)
- More bylines
- My favourite commissions (at that point!)
- A few fitness copywriting examples
- And a few more here.
- The importance of quality content for fitness professionals

You can also check out some of my clients on my Pinterest board “my lovely clients” (cos they are all lovely – one of the benefits of being freelance is that you don’t have to work with the non-lovely ones).

On the whole, I am excited by everything I write. Every new commission still gives me a thrill, even after eight years. However, this one’s a bit special and I’d really like to shout about it. Indulge me, please. I promise we’ll be back to photos of my weightlifting belt and reviews of protein powders soon

In March, I was contacted by someone who purported to be a commissioning Editor at The Washington Post. Yeah right, I thought. Ha ha! But… it’s not quite 1st April. So maybe this isn’t an April Fool. Sure enough, it was real. The Washington Post had been looking for a book reviewer for the book “Swim: Why We Love The Water” and had found me. (For those of you who have only known me, or this blog, since I took up bodybuilding, you need to know that I come from a swimming background and have swum the English Channel twice). The Editor had read a few of my articles, blog posts and online features about swimming and decided to approach me.

I was very excited. I mean, come on. The Washington Post?

The review came out and is still online here.

Would you like to win a copy of Lynn Sherr’s book, “Swim: Why We Love The Water”? Because you can. I have a spare copy here (not the review copy with my bits of paper stuck all over it).

To win, please:
1) “Like” “Swim: Why We Love The Water” Facebook page
2) Tweet a link to this blog post, including my Twitter name (@thefitwriter) and Lynn’s (@LynnSherr) and include the hashtag #SWIM in your Tweet
3) Come and leave a comment on this blog post to let me know you’ve done those two things… and then tell me your most memorable swimming experience. I’d love to hear about it, no matter where or when it was. Pool, sea, lake or lido… tell me

Byline in The Washington Post (and “Swim: Why We Love The Water” giveaway) is a post from The Fit Writer blog.

Nicola Joyce – the Fit Writer – is a freelance copywriter and journalist who writes for the sport and fitness industry. Her main website is here.

Guest post over on Girl on the River

Hi all, happy Friday: we made it! *wipes brow*

This is very quick post to let you know that I have an interview/guest post over on Girl On The River’s blog: go and take a look. As a bonus, you get to see a bee-yoo-tiful picture of my “muscley fat” Channel swimmer’s back (with a pretty sensational swimming tan!)

GOTR has been doing a fascinating blog series about whether it’s possible to get leaner and stronger at the same time. She’s a journo, like me, so her posts are full of interviews and great Q&As with really interesting people (I don’t mean me! I mean people like Paul Mattick, double World Rowing Champion!)

I hope you like her blog – have a look around – she’s a rower and tackles some interesting issues, tells some funny stories and gives a good glimpse into the crazy world of rowing.

You can follow Girl On The River on Twitter here and Facebook here.

Thanks for the opportunity, GOTR!

Guest post over on Girl on the River is a post from the Fit Writer blog.

Nicola Joyce – the Fit Writer – is a freelance copywriter and journalist who writes for the sport and fitness industry. Her main website is here.

Channel swimming vs bodybuilding

As some of you know, my previous incarnation was as an English Channel swimmer. I’ve swum it twice. In fact, when I started this blog, I wrote a lot about Channel swimming (hence the Channel swimming tab and Channel swimming FAQs, both of which I urge you to read if you’re at all interested in the pursuit).

Sometimes, when I’m pondering my general awesomeness, I wonder if I’m the only person to have swum the Channel and competed as a natural bodybuilder (perhaps one day I’ll do the research). From the outside looking in, they seem poles apart. But when I think about the two sports from the point of view of the athlete, I realise they’re really not that dissimilar. “But you’d never catch me fannying about on stage in a pair of budgie-smugglers,” the Channel swimmers amongst you cry. “And you wouldn’t catch me getting in that dirty cold water,” the bodybuilders agree.

They’re not so different. To prove it, I’ve conjured up this handy chart (click for a larger version, if my formatting incapabilities render it impossible to see…)

Channel swim vs bodybuilding

Which would you rather do? Jump in the sea in your swimmers all by yourself? Or jump on stage in your swimmers in front of an audience?

Edited to add: it has been pointed out to me that the “you are up at 3am because…” answers are the wrong way round. But you spotted that already, right? *oops*!

Channel swimming vs bodybuilding is a post from The Fit Writer blog.

Nicola Joyce – the Fit Writer – is a freelance copywriter and journalist who writes for the sport and fitness industry. Her main website is here.

thefitwriter talks bodybuilding to BBC Radio Berkshire

Hi! Just a quick one with a link to yesterday’s radio interview: it’s on iPlayer (probably for a week or so) so you can listen to it if you want!

The link is here and I’m on from 02:02:43 onwards – the interview is split into several sections with music/news/travel/weather in between, so keep listening!

She started off by asking me about channel swimming, and gets on to the topic of bodybuilding after that. I think I gave OK answers to her questions and she certainly seemed enthusiastic and very interested about natural bodybuilding. If you do decide to listen, I hope you enjoy the interview!

thefitwriter talks bodybuilding to BBC Radio Berkshire is a post from The Fit Writer blog.

Nicola Joyce – the Fit Writer – is a freelance copywriter and journalist who writes for the sport and fitness industry. Her main website is here.

Surprising similarities: Channel swimming and bodybuilding

Those of you reading who’ve known me for a few years *hi Mum!* already know that my sporting background isn’t in bodybuilding (my current challenge). New readers might be surprised to hear that I’m probably best-known for a very different type of sport: I’m a Channel swimmer. I’ve swum the English Channel twice (as a solo swim), once (as a relay swim, both there and back) and I’ve done similar swims like around the Channel Island of Jersey (USA readers: the Channel Islands are between us and France. They’re nice. Go and visit some time!)

So, when I decided to give bodybuilding/figure/physique* competition a go, I felt as if I’d taken a sudden and rather odd turn off my normal sporty track. Channel swimming had always been the big one for me, and I was also passionate about triathlon (and its component sports, swimming, road biking and running). (*back when I made the decision, I didn’t know which category I’d end up in).

Bodybuilding felt completely alien, brand-new and so far outside my comfort zone that I could just about see my comfort zone on the horizon if I looked behind me through binoculars.

However, here I am several months later and it’s dawned on me that Channel swimming and bodybuilding aren’t so different after all. Externally, yes, they’re worlds apart. But what goes on inside isn’t so different.

I’m not sure how many people out there have both swum the Channel and competed in bodybuilding but, if there are any reading, I’d love to hear your take on this in the comments.

Common themes in Channel swimming and bodybuilding

Get used to wearing swimwear
This is the theme which got me thinking about all the others. When I was training for my swims, it wasn’t unusual to spend 8… 10… 12 hours a day in a swimsuit. I thought nothing of it, it was just my kit, my uniform. OK, so the “swimsuit” I wear for bodybuilding is a little different (I’m not sure the velvet would cope for long in salt water!), but it definitely helps that I have no problem wandering around in swimwear. As a nice aside, I always used to choose to wear a two-piece swimsuit for Channel swim training (quicker to get off and therefore quicker to get warm clothes on). But they were a little bit bigger than my competition bikini!

Tweak your body fat

To swim the Channel, I had to get fat(ter). I consciously had to pack on bodyfat – and keep it there throughout all the training, in order to keep me a bit warmer. We don’t use wetsuits, so I had to grow my own under my skin.

To compete in bodybuilding, I’m having to lose bodyfat. There’s no point building all these muscles if I step on stage with them all covered up. That would be a bit like building a kit car, taking it to a show but forgetting to take the dust-sheet off.

Body temperature
This goes hand-in-hand with purposefully changing your bodyfat levels, but get used to changes in body temperature. In Channel swimming, I got so hot so easily. I gave up wearing shoes unless I had to, lived my life in shorts and t-shirts, and slept without a sheet. Partly because of the extra body fat and partly because I spent so long swimming in cold water that my body adapted and acclimatised.

During bodybuilding prep, I’m often chilly and it doesn’t take much for me to be sitting on the sofa dressed in hoodie, jeans and slippers with a rug around my shoulders. LOL!

Accept that external influences are bigger than you

In Channel swimming, you can be the fastest, strongest swimmer who’s trained better than anyone else. But if the weather’s against you, or you get sea sick and can’t hold your feeds down, you’re out. You have to accept that this thing is bigger than you. Bring your best and try your hardest, but there is always a chance you won’t make it, no matter how hard you try. That’s not defeatest. It’s realistic.

In bodybuilding, people are telling me to take the same kind of mental approach. Train hard, be as good as you can be and bring your best on the day. That’s all you can do. Then accept that external factors over which you have no control – the other competitors, the judges’ opinions, the subjectivity of judging – will play a large part in how you place on the day.

Consistency is key
Both Channel swimming and bodybuilding demand and reward consistency and compliance. In Channel swimming, you must swim regularly in cold water, or your mind and body won’t build up the physical and mental stamina they need to get you across. In bodybuilding, you must be compliant 24/7, particularly in the latter stages of prep: training, nutrition, sleep (ha!), rest, stretching, posing… there’s a lot to do and you have to be consistent. Every little decision counts. Each one can take you towards or away from your goal.

No cheating: it’s all up to you
Neither Channel swimming nor bodybuilding give you anywhere to hide. You can’t style it out. If you’re not ready, you’re not ready, and no-one can help. It is all down to you. That can be a pro or a con, depending on who you are how you take it. It totally works for me: I like relying on myself. I know what I can do (I also know what I can’t do!) and I like to get on with it. When you’re out there in the middle of the English Channel in the dark, you’re the only one who can keep your arms turning and your mind focused on how the sand will feel beneath your feet when you get to the other side. In bodybuilding, you’re the only one who can decide whether or not it’s worth eating that bit of cake, or whether it will matter if you put your weights down a kg because you’re tired.

Of course, you have people who care about you and support you in both sports: in swimming, your boat crew, the boat skipper, your personal crew, and the people back on land who are thinking of you. In bodybuilding, you probably have a coach and if you’re lucky a partner, family and friends who support you. But when it comes to the crunch, you’re the only one who can decide whether to push on or give up.

Public interest
My husband told me to put this one in: he says both sports mean you need to get used to the fact that members of the public will stare at you, come up to you and ask about training, or ask random questions, either during training or just generally. I suppose this is true but I hadn’t really thought of it!

Misconceptions
I guess both Channel swimming and bodybuilding are unusual sports, odd even. Certainly niche. That’s probably why I come across a lot of misconceptions with both past-times. Misconceptions which naturally lead to…

The top three questions…
Channel swimming:
“Do you cover yourself in goose fat?”
“How far is it?”
“Do you swim it all in one go?”

Bodybuilding:
“Will you dehydrate yourself/not drink any water in the week before your show?”
“Aren’t you worried that you’ll get all bulky/look like a man/muscle will turn to fat after you stop?”
“So you have to cut all the fat out of your diet, right, because you need to lose bodyfat?”

(And, as a bonus, my least favourite “Why do you want to do that to yourself?!” <— this from a close friend…!)

Your grocery budget will skyrocket

True story: I found a receipt the other day from a supermarket shop I did one Saturday with two Channel swimming buddies. This was just for the 48hours we were spending down in Kent. It included a big packet of dried pasta, doughnuts, bread rolls, cheese, deli meat, chocolate, milkshakes, bananas… etc. It really made me laugh, because it so instantly transported me back to that Summer, when we’d swim from 9am-4pm and then have 4:05pm-8am in which to refuel, get ready for the next day’s swim and try to pack on a little more body fat. Of course, we could have made better choices and probably should have done, but it’s damn hard to meet a Channel swimmer’s calories needs in vegetables. So we indulged at weekends. And that amount of food costs!

Now of course my diet is markedly different, but I’m still eating a lot, and the amount I spend on vegetables, egg whites and other protein sources is noticeable! (Not to mention the supplements!)

You need a mentor
I know I just said that, in both sports, it’s all down to you, but of course you can’t go it alone. You need a support system, a team, a system of accountability, expert guidance. In both sports I’ve been fortunate enough to find the perfect coach and mentor. The legend that is Freda Streeter for Channel swimming, and my coach Kat for bodybuilding. There are many, many others who have helped along the way of course (in both sports). Too many to list!

You have to like your own company
Self-explanatory!

The exhaustion

Both Channel swim training and bodybuilding training leave me exhausted right down to the marrow of my bones. I guess it’s tiredness on a metabolic level. I only realised that a lot of people don’t know what I mean, when I tried to explain it to a non-sporty friend and she genuinely could not understand what I meant.

Running and road biking never made me feel this way, even training for marathons and long sportive rides. They made me very tired, but in an achy, sleepy way. Swimming in cold water, and lifting very heavy weights, both shatter me. I might not even be sore or achy, but I am drained of energy, to the extent that even the idea of leaning down and picking something up off the floor seems too much of a challenge. I can often be found standing in one spot, staring down at a bit of mud the dog’s brought into the house. I am OK. I’m just wondering whether I can be bothered leaning down, focusing on it, picking it up and straightening back up again. Then of course I’d have to walk out of my way to the bin. It’s all a bit much, you understand?

Have you done sports which seemed totally different but, actually, had similarities? What were they? Aaaand which would you rather do, swim the English Channel or enter a bodybuilding competition?

Surprising similarities: Channel swimming and bodybuilding is a post from The Fit Writer blog.

Nicola Joyce – the Fit Writer – is a freelance copywriter and journalist who writes for the sport and fitness industry. Her main website is here.

Coaching, cold water and the BBC

(I’ll wait to see if anyone Googles that exact combination of words!)

Phew, what a day. Lying in bed with my laptop on my knees and typing this is about all I can manage right now.

(Shortly after this was taken, clouds rolled in and wind picked up – brrrr!)

As long-time readers of the blog will remember, a few weekends a year I coach open-water swimming (I do this for triathlon coaching company thetrilife.com in partnership with event organisers Human Race). Time rolls around quickly, and here we are at the start of the triathlon season again, so it was time for me to zip up my wetsuit, put on my coaching hat (it looks just like a swimming hat but contains top tips and handy hints) and step into that cold water.

And, maaan, was it cold. I mean, it actually was cold, but it felt even colder. Not surprising really since I’m probably sitting at anywhere between 5-10% less body fat now than I was last year. And, as any Channel swimmer knows, subcutaneous fat makes a big (gooood!) difference when it comes to feeling at home in cold water.

I was in a wetsuit, of course. A wetsuit which was so baggy the other coaches were laughing at me. Yes folks, heavy weight training will not make a woman bulky. The baggy wetsuit didn’t do much to protect me from the cold water. Brrr!

Despite the cold, it was a great day. I truly love coaching and feel it’s a real honour to take people through what is often their very first time in open-water. And I got to see my coaching buddies again, and chat with Bill Black, perhaps one of my favourite people in triathlon. (He always seems to find new ways to introduce us to our coachees: this year I was “that little fish…”)

Last year, I finished off my days coaching at Dorney with a 20+mile bike ride home, having also ridden there. Not this year (no such long cardio for me, certainly not with 7 weeks to go til my comp). Today had a rather unusual ending: being interviewed by the BBC! This is not something which happens to me frequently. Or, ever. But on Thursday I had a call from a nice young woman called Charlotte, a BBC news reporter who works for Radio 4. It seems the BBC are putting together a feature or series of features about the explosion in popularity of triathlon in this country. They found me online via this very blog, decided I’d be able to be vaguely useful to the feature and came along to interview me. Happily, I was decked out in triathlon kit, soaking wet from lake water and set against a backdrop of a supersprint race.

I don’t know where the clip will be used (Charlotte said it could be on Radio4, on TV and/or online) but as soon as I find out, I’ll let you know. I just hope I was useful to them – I was seriously so cold that I was having trouble speaking (you know when you want to say a word but your mouth won’t form the correct shape?!)

A few people have challenged me with the idea that bodybuilding is a vain sport, and others have suggested I’m vain for working towards a bodybuilding show. I can’t answer for the sport in its entirety, but I’m hoping my willingness to be filmed whilst wearing a wetsuit and woolly hat and without a scrap of makeup on my face (which is tinged blue and chapped from the wind) answers the second challenge. (And remember when I wrote that piece for the Observer book? My portrait photo for that one… yep, me in a swimming costume (!) standing in a lake. In April). Or perhaps bodybuilding allows me to indulge the small scrap of vanity I have left after Channel swimming and open-water triathlons have taken their toll?

Right, I must go. Richard of Richards TransRockies is here because he and my husband are doing some mega-long off road sportive tomorrow. And there’s Eurovision to watch. I hope you had a good Saturday.

Do you think bodybuilding is a vain pursuit? Do you think it’s possible to engage in a vain sport without being a vain person? Do you find that once you’ve typed “vain” several times you start to doubt that you’ve spelled it correctly?

Coaching, cold water and the BBC is a post from The Fit Writer blog.

Fancy swimming a mile every hour…for 24 hours?

Like swimming? Free between 9.30am on 30th April and 9.30am on 1st May? Well then here’s a challenge for you: swimming a mile, on the hour, every hour, for 24 hours all in the beautiful setting of Guildford Lido.

This unusual challenge is the 2swim4life event and it’s all happening in aid of the charity Help for Heroes. I was contacted recently about 2swim4life but can’t take part myself this year. But I thought some of my lovely readers might be able to. So, do you fancy it?

Entrants include channel swimmers, open water swimmers, distance and sprinters all seeing who has the mental and physical staying power to go the distance. I would imagine the psychological and emotional challenges will be just as great – if not greater – than the physical ones. I remember that one of the worst bits about the two-way Channel relay I did in 2005 was the “getting in and out and in again” aspect. I wonder how the 2swim4life event swimmers will cope with having to get back in to swim a mile…23 times. Finishing that 24th mile will feel fantastic!

The organisers told me:

So far there are individuals from Spain and the Isle of Man as well as all across England. There are teams of three and individuals wanting to push themselves. There are a variety of reasons behind people wanting to do the challenge: some want to see how much they can raise for the worthwhile charity, whilst some have lost loved ones in conflict and want to give something back to help others.

The event is for swimmers over 25 years of age on 31/12/11. Swimmers aged 18-25 don’t have to feel left out – they are welcome to take part in the half event. It’s the same format, swimming a mile on the hour, but starting at 9.30pm and swimming overnight until the finish at 9:30am.

The event start date and time coincides with the first day of opening of Guildford Lido’s Summer opening so it’s a great chance for people to come and see the fantastic facilities at the Lido. Swimmers will be welcome to use the hot tub and marquee, get hot drinks and of course enjoy the wonderful company of…like-minded folk

We do ask that each swimmer assigns a non-swimming buddy to help look after their mental, physical and emotional wellbeing, as well as ensuring their fitness for such a task.

Is this tough but exciting challenge for you? Go on, give it a go. Just be sure to let me know how you get on. There’s a guest blog post waiting for you here

Guest post: Dr Karen Throsby on open-water swimming

Today’s guest post is from Dr Karen Throsby, Channel swimmer and academic who is currently immersed in a sociological study of channel swimmers’ bodies. You can read about the time she interviewed me here (and here on her own blog). I asked Karen to write a post about what open-water (sea) swimming means to her. Her response, below, is beautiful. I think it will resonate with any of you out there who have ever swum in open water (and enjoyed it!) and will perhaps intrigue and delight those of you who have never known the joy of slipping into cold water and entering that quiet world…

Without further ado I give you Karen Throsby.

What I miss about open water swimming…

(Karen calls this her “happy swimming” photo and says she has it on her phone to remind her what open-water swimming feels like at its very best. The photo is from her round-Jersey swim).

How lovely to have been invited to write a guest post on Nicola’s fab blog. Unlike Nicola, who is an accomplished mistress of many fitness activities, I am rather more one-dimensional, sticking mainly to swimming, with the occasional gym visit (although more out of duty than love). In the absence of another sport that really grabs my enthusiasm, and even though I quite enjoy pool swimming, I’ve now reached that point in the year when I really start to long for the open water swimming season to start….

I miss the calm of it. I like nothing more than swimming along for hours at a time, not thinking about work and the burgeoning to-do list on my laptop, or about the political or current affairs that have me ranting at the radio over breakfast. Sometimes, I fill an entire hour between feeds just thinking about a single green jelly baby, or by counting repeatedly from one to four. There is a special pleasure in knowing that for those few hours, I have to do nothing but swim, away from the distractions and demands of the everyday (and without having change direction every 25 seconds).

I miss feeling strong and physically competent. I am, in my everyday life, quite clumsy and physically awkward. I have terrible hand-eye co-ordination, a bafflingly inadequate spatial sense, and very slow reactions. Imagine what an unappealing prospect I was at school when the time came to pick teams in PE and how those years taught me to dread sport. But in the water, I am strong, capable, co-ordinated…even graceful (or at least, that’s how I feel). If you had told me this while I was at school, as I lined up, full of shame, waiting to be picked last for another hour of ordeal-by-netball, I would never have believed you. It is a liberation that I can’t even find the words for; it’s how I imagine flying would be.

I miss the tingle and burn of the cold water on my back, even though I hate it at the time; I miss having a swimming suntan, even if it is absurdly uneven and probably quite unhealthy. I miss the sounds of swimming – the breathing, bubbling, and splashing; the wind, and the slap of the water. I miss the delicious tiredness at the end of a long open water swim, and the voracious post-swim hunger. I just miss the sheer pleasure of it.

Roll on May.

Thank you Karen for these lovely words. They’re enough to make me miss open-water swimming, too! All the very best with your training this year (Karen is due to swim the Catalina Channel this summer).

Guest post: Dr Karen Throsby on open-water swimming is a post from The Fit Writer blog.

Channel swimming: extraordinary bodies

Yesterday I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Dr Karen Throsby, a sociology lecturer at Warwick University. Karen is in the middle of a 2.5 year research project into the sociology and politics behind creating (and walking around inside) the kind of physical body capable of swimming the English Channel. Both Karen and I are Channel swimmers and I found it fascinating and a complete pleasure to talk (for hours!) to her: someone experienced in Channel swimming and so interested in what I’d call the politics of the body. My Masters studies touched on gender politics and the sociology of the body and chatting to Karen made me realise quite how much I’d forgotten. Now my brain aches to match my muscles!

Karen during training for her Channel swim

Here is the website for Karen’s project. If you’ve swum the Channel and want to offer your thoughts, memories and feelings up for research, get in touch with her. Karen’s blog The Long Swim is here (she’s swimming Catalina next and I’m jealous….so I guess that answers your questions Karen when you asked “so is that it for you now?” )

I’ve asked Karen to do a guest post and a Q&A on this blog some time, so please do look out for that, I promise it will be interesting to you whether you’re interested in Channel swimming, sport in general or in why we view our bodies (and those of others) in the way we do. For now, here’s a little about Karen’s research and things she asked me.

Karen’s research is called “Becoming a Channel Swimmer: Identity and Embodiment in a Sporting Subculture” which is a fancy way of saying she’s looking at what happens (socially) when we have to create a certain kind of body to do a certain sporting event (in the Channel swimming example, typically to add or retain body fat -certainly not lose it – and to build significant upper body muscle, usually without trying). What does it mean to us to have that kind of body? And how do other people react Is there a “perfect sporting body” and, if so, what is it, and how can that be when so many different kinds of bodies perform very well against different types of athletic demands? Karen’s looking at how our society views and values muscle, strength and body fat and the social politics behind sport and our bodies in sport.

Huge apologies to Karen if I’ve dumbed her work down to such a level that she no longer recognises it

Me after my first Channel swim

So she interviewed me as someone who’s swum the English Channel twice and around the Channel Island of Jersey once (and a half, but we don’t talk about that!) She asked me how I felt about my body as it changed, and whether I made a conscious effort to control the changes one way or another. She asked me about nutrition. She asked how I felt about my swims: the training swims, the preparation stages, the swims themselves once I got in and set off for France.

She asked questions about what swimming means to me, how it feels, and what my favourite swimming memory is. If you’re interested, I said it was hard to choose between the moment I stood up on Wissant sand at the end of my second Channel swim, and that crazy 4-hour training swim in Dover harbour in 2004 when – out of nowhere – the skies blackened and we had a storm of ice-chips so large and hard they cut us. Of course, we were so cold our cuts didn’t bleed until we were getting dressed after the swim.

Happy days.

Thanks, Karen, for a very interesting chat and for asking me to dig back into my bank of memories and feelings about swimming and Channel swimming in particular. I hope we’ll keep in touch.

Channel swimming: extraordinary bodies is a post from The Fit Writer blog.