Flower Pot Swim

In order to mix things up a bit we decided to do a swim from the Flower Pot pub in Henley on Saturday morning. Me and Heath from the team were there together with Matt Baker and Tom Kean. Matt is an ex national rower who regularly trains with us and Tom is also an ex rower and masters swimmer who is one of the creators of the Henley Swim that I wrote about previously. Jezz was due to join us but bailed at the last minute citing alarm clock issues and Pete had other matters to attend to so was never in the running.

Arrived at around 7 and was a good 5-10 mins ahead of the other guys so thought I would snap a few photos on my phone. As you can see it was a glorious misty morning on the river until the four of us ventured into the water disturbing the peace of the numerous Canadian Geese that were resident. These birds are very vocal and were not shy of telling us that our presence was not appreciated. This wasn't enough to deter us and we set off downstream towards Harleyford. The river was a little colder this morning but Tom did his bit to help warm it up for us. After a twenty minute downstream stretch we regrouped to go upstream which took about half an hour. We went at a pretty decent pace; Heath seemed to really have the bit between his teeth this morning and going downstream it was a struggle to get ahead of him. As I've mentioned previously; we are all very competitive so it is no surprise that there are 'no easy overtakes' in the river. Although, slip streaming does work!!

Perhaps the most notable thing about this morning is that it was nice to vary the location as it can get a bit tedious ploughing up and down the same stretch of river. Being highly organised this morning, I remembered to pack a thermos flask of coffee to enjoy after the swim which quickly gets you warm again.

I'm off now to go and buy some food for the swim as expecting the call any day now providing that the weather gets better. The last report said it was still windy so the frustrating wait continues.