Hampton Court Open Water Swim - 3.65km

I had decided to enter this race to just get a feel for what that sort of distance felt like in one go, it was pretty close to IM distance, so a fair representation. Starting with a bunch of other people would also give it more of race feel. Prior to starting, I was not really sure what to do, whether to race it as a swim and just see how quick I could go, or, alternatively, swim as if it were the IM swim. In the end, I did a bit of both. I started quite quickly but then decided to just settle in to a pace and see how that felt after a while. I was swimming in a small pack and this helped me keep the same effort, I am less sure how well it helped in terms of direction - I don't think any of us were sighting that well.



Once I went round the final bend and i could see Kingston Bridge, I decided to put a bit more effort in, I started to kick a bit more just to wake the legs up really.



Was out in 54:02 which was okay I think. I had privately wanted to go a bit quicker than that, but it at least should mean that a sub 60 minutes swim is on the cards in Copenhagen.