Gareth Brauteseth

Lewis Pugh

Hold the phone!

Lewis Pugh just swam across Pumori Lake.

For those of you who don’t know, Pumori Lake is in the Himalayas at 5300m and the water temp is 2 degrees.

The problem with swimming at altitude is quite similar to walking at altitude, you cannot do it very fast and if you do you run out of energy and need to stop. Only problem is that when you in water when you stop, you drown.

Other problem is that if you spend too much time in the water you get hypothermia.

So Lewis swam across in 22minutes, nicely done. I really hope he enjoyed his first shower after that.

Before the Cold

The Cadiz freedom swim was a great success. Plenty swimmers, no deaths, very very very cold water and unfortunately for me an unsuccessful swim.

As the old adage states, if you fail to prepare you should prepare to fail.

This was the exact circumstance that lead to me being hauled out of the water with 1km to go with pretty hectic hypothermia.

1 month is not enough to do that swim especially at 85kg with very little fat reserves. I need more water time, more cold water time, more fat and I need to be stronger to make it happen.

I will be hitting the pool soon for a well thought out approach to crossing from Robben Island. I must admit that there is nothing like failure to motivate one to get back into the water. You cannot let the island beat you.