Brunt on the gentrification of swimming

There’s no doubt that if there’s one pastime that has boomed over the past couple of years, it’s wild swimming. Or, as it used to be known, ‘swimming’.

It’s a sure sign that something has caught on when it starts being written about in newspaper lifestyle supplements. And it seems that I can’t glance at social media these days without being bombarded with adverts for tow floats, organic towels, flasks to keep your post-swim latte warm, and camouflage changing robes.

Naturally my reaction to this is delight at seeing so many people enjoying outdoor healthy pursuits and discovering the joy of swimming. That’s my public reaction anyway.

Behind the insincere smile I’m quietly seething that the thing I do, which was previously considered the exclusive preserve of super-fit nutters, has been gentrified, and my opportunities to brag about my death-defying open-water exploits have been diminished.

For nothing takes the edge off the element of danger you’ve cultivated like seeing your sport appear in a free magazine from a supermarket.

Of course, there are some major differences between the kind of open-water swimming we all do and the average wild swim. For the most part the new breed of wild swimmers don’t:

• All set off at the same time and boot each other in the face.
• Take the shortest line possible at turn-buoys while windmilling their arms furiously.
• Stagger out of the water like a Westminster partygoer, rip their wetsuits off while running and then sling them in a field full of near-identical others before forgetting about them for several hours.

Open-water swimming is now in the same category as tai-chi and hot yoga

Try telling that to the public, though. As far as they’re concerned swimming is swimming and that thing we used to do which suggested we spent our time striking bravely forth through stormy, shark-infested waters is now in the same category as tai-chi and hot yoga.

These are particularly tough times for me because as well as being a triathlete of note (the ‘note’ being that I’m crap), I’m also a Masters and open-water swimmer, and if there’s one place this tow-float appropriation of swimming is felt more keenly than in tri, it’s among the cold-water mob who eschew drybags for Tesco carriers, changing robes for rough towels and wetsuits for pink skin.

It may feel like Masters’ swimmers are just triathletes who don’t bike and run, but there are some key differences:

• Triathletes dislike anything that isn’t distance freestyle and things like fly or individual medley are considered weird and inefficient (fair comment, to be honest).
• Any distance more than 3.8km is considered a waste of effort. Some triathletes will do 5km at a push for training purposes, but more than that is frankly unnecessary. This was confirmed to me at the Big Cotswold Swim earlier this year by a couple of nice people from Torfaen Tri Club. They’d done the 4km race as part of training for IM Wales and I’d done the 10k. Their considered verdict was that I was a berk.
• Most triathletes aren’t trying to win the swim, they just want to get round with all their teeth intact and not be too knackered for the bike.
• There is a general lack of carbon and gadgetry in swimming, and the few toys you do see like pull-buoys and fins are generally older than the average wine-bottle gift bag.

But whether it’s tri or Masters, it looks like we all have to face the fact that open-water swimming is no longer seen as the hazardous and sexy pastime it once was.

However, I am happy to put aside my petty prejudices and grumbles that I am no longer seen as some sort of bristly superhero made of flint and scar-tissue, because there are two distinct advantages to having lakes and beaches full of new swimmers:

• There are more people to join us, the rowers, paddle-boarders, surfers and canoeists in complaining about all the sewage that it has become fashionable to dump in bathing areas.
• Doing head-up breaststroke makes it easier for them to see and admire the sleek, torpedo-like swimming style I like to imagine I have.

Top image credit: Daniel Seex