The Fantastic Five

With the winter season drawing to a close we wanted to end what has been a superb 6 months of cold water swimming with a bang, and it didn’t disappoint.

 

Potential ice milers Oliver Downing, Alistair Bell, Graeme Flix, Raf Oya and Alice Goodridge all turned in amazing swims in 4.7ºC water, successfully completing the 1 mile swim to become our 65th,66th,67th,68th & 69th Ice Milers ( subject to ratification).

 

 

We couldn’t have asked for a better end to the season, three of the swimmers, Graeme 43.30, Oliver 40.12 and Alistair 34.32 all had unfinished business, having tried earlier in the season to complete their ice miles. In the five years we have been involved in Ice Mile swimming I can’t remember a finer end to what is without doubt the toughest swimming challenge in the world, Alistair Bell I take off my hat to you.

 

 

Alice travelled down from Cumbria in the early hours of the morning to complete her mile in style completing it in 33.51, will now be heading back to Scotland to inspire a new raft of Scottish Ice milers and winter swimmers, hopefully in preparation for the SYS Four Nations Championships later this year.

 

Raf 40.56 who has waited for over three years to achieve his ice mile with us (being one of our earliest ice mile enquiries when we started to do them) made it feel like a fitting end to this years attempts, pulling together our newest and oldest ice mile journeys. Thank you Raf, it was well worth the wait and a privilege to watch.

 

 

 

Before we put the thermals away and dust off the sombreros I would like to thank all of the dedicated team of volunteers who have made this winter season so successful, without your professionalism and selflessness we couldn’t do what we do. I hope you are as proud of yourselves as we are of you, thank you!.

 

Roll on summer.