By: Blonde Two
Sorry, this one’s about swimming again. B1 and I do have some walks booked soon, I promise!
I am not a natural athlete, in fact I am not any sort of athlete. When I was at school I played a bit of hockey (a back and away from the action) and some netball (goal keeper because I was tall) but I really didn’t fit into the sporty scene.
And then swimming came along. I was a late starter with two parents who at the time couldn’t swim (Mum, rather amusingly did have to teach swimming). I can remember the day clearly when I finally swam a width of the pool (almost as cold as outside), straight away afterwards I got back in and swam four lengths! Once I had achieved that I started to dream, maybe I could make it in the sporting world, maybe swimming was the thing for that gangly, under-coordinated girl.
As it turns out, I may have been right. I have since discovered that the layer of voluptuousness I now carry is actually quite useful when it comes to cold water swimming (apparently water isn’t officially cold until it is less than 10 degrees centigrade) It would appear that my ‘snuggle-blanket’ allows me to stay in the water just a touch longer than some more sylph-like friends.
I have been reading up on the subject. According to H2Open Magazine a layer of fat does help you to stay in cold water longer (they didn’t say how thick the layer needed to be). This longer-in advantage however is slightly counteracted by a corresponding shape-induced water-resistance effect. Curves, it would appear, can cause drag in the water. I have to confess that they can cause drag on the land too!
I could go on but it is time to go for a swim. It just goes to show doesn’t it, that our great outdoors is for everybody. All shapes, all ages, all sizes. How wonderful!
Until D.of E. and Ten Tors, walking really didn’t figure at all in school sports, yet it is the ideal sport for the gawky. I used to retreat to the top of the window ladders in P.E. to get out of sight, and in hockey I played right wing so that I could vanish behind three beautiful trees half way up the hockey pitch on that side. My day came eventually, though – after we had finished with O-levels, we were allowed to use the school pool every afternoon. I loved every minute of it – it was a long, hot summer that year.