Skip to content
24 miles in 24 hours
IronMAK
Cotswolds, UKNew Member
Hey everyone, just wanted to introduce myself and say thank you for your inspirational posts so far. I’m relatively new to swimming (started 2016 at the age of 44) completed a few 70.3’s and Ironman U.K. in 2018 and my first 10k marathon swim only last year at my local lake. I love open-water swimming and now taking on my biggest challenge yet;
To swim 24 miles in 24 hours to raise money for Level Water who teach disabled children to swim, so I swim so that others can learn to swim which is cool.
However, my lack of knowledge and experience has dawned on me this week, 3 days before this challenge and I was wondering if any of you wonderfully inspirational and knowledgeable people could give any advice that might just get ne through this EPIC challenge!
The format (for most) is a relay, so up to teams of 8 people, all swimming 1 mile, on the hour, every hour. However, I’ve taken on the challenge to swim 1 mile an hour, for the full 24hrs and have some questions;
I will be swimming in my wetsuit, the lake is currently 18.2C and the forecast 17C (daytime) 9C (nighttime) 14Sept24@12pm - 15Sept24@12pm here in the Cotswolds, UK). Do I take my wetsuit off in-between swims (30-35 min to do 1 mile) or keep it on. I need to keep core temperature up so the best way to do this please? Ideally, keeping the wetsuit on for the duration will save time and energy. Just worried about core temperature dropping (especially at night time), getting the wetsuit off and back on again wet!)
I do suffer from Reynauds, especially in my hands and feet. I have neoprene gloves and have swam once this week, however it’s like swimming with sausages on your fingers, not the most efficient method, but could be a game changer. Anyone who have experience with overcoming Reynauds on a prolonged cooler swim, I’m all ears 🙏🏻 I’m guessing I should buy neoprene boots for the swim also?
I do have a DryRobe, so I’m guessing use this, warm hat, socks, gloves in-between the swims (I get 25 mins to; take wetsuit off/back on again - if I decide to go this routine), use the toilet, eat food, drink electrolyte and prepare to go back in). Again, anyone with experience I would be eternally grateful for your advice.
I have calculated calories burned (I reckon around 400kcals/h, so around 10,000kcals burned in 24hrs, I will take on 200-300kcals per hour, mixing it up between carb powder (every other hour) and real foods alternately; real foods such as soup, porridge, banana, nuts, sandwiches. Any advice on what you have found works well would be helpful.
I’ve done a few ultramarathons over the years, so drawing from this experience, plus my first 10k swim was eventful, especially after the initial panic attack as the water was 23C, realising I would be in for 4hrs. I hadn’t thought (or practiced) peeing in my wetsuit either 🙈 or eating/refuelling on the swim. I survived and back for more!
I’m sure there will be other questions or points that will arise these next 72hrs, but I very much appreciate your input. I know, reading this back is like a lamb to the slaughter, but hey, we all have to start somewhere and I feel what Level Water are doing for the young people and that fact I’ve been looking for an endurance event and this is something locally, seemed like an opportunity not too miss.
I will of course keep you all updated. Here are a few pics from my last 3 swims (Friday, Sunday, Tuesday) just gone. I will have one more swim Friday, a short one, and start on Saturday, 12pm. Feel free to follow me on Strava or Instagram @markkenna as I will try and vlog (if my fingers don’t fall off before then!) 🤣 and please do feel free to donate, although this isn’t what this post is about out.
I thank you 🙏🏻 in advance for your tips, advice and feedback.
Warm regards, Mark x
Comments
@IronMAK That sounds like quite an adventure for a good cause. Years ago, I did a relay swim that was a fund raiser. At the time, it was the longest swim I had attempted. Seems like fund raising is a good motivator for trying new things.
In answer to your questions. The swim we did was with two other swim buddies. We did a half hour swim each, so it was a half hour in the water, followed by an hour out of water. We were on a boat going from the start point to the finish point. We were advised to wear wetsuits, so that's what we did. For all of us, it was the first time wearing wetsuits. What we learned was that they are a pain to put on and take off. So we ended up just unzipping them and peeling off just the top part and letting it hang loose at the waist. As the day warmed up, it was still pretty tolerable, even with the one hour rest. At night, you could just unzip, but not take off. Or take off top and wear a sweatshirt or something.
We would take off our swim cap as it got kind of warm. But again, you can moderate this as the day progresses. For example, you could just leave your swim cap on and if it's still too cool, then wear a warm cap on top of that. Same idea with gloves. Either way, I would not fully remove the wetsuit. As the swim progresses, you will find that you are spending all your rest time removing and putting on your wetsuit and that will get old pretty quick.
Like you, I have Reynauds and it can really bug me as things cool down. I've never swum with neoprene gloves so I can't really speak to that. But your description of swimming with sausages sounds like why I don't want to swim with gloves. I do think you should spend your out of water time warming your hands and feet. Neoprene gloves and boots could do this while you are out of the water and you could remove them before swimming. (Or remove during swimming.) You could also get some of those hand warming packets if you feel you need to supercharge warming.
One of the things I do when the hands start getting affected is to wiggle my fingers by clenching and unchanging my fists. I'll just do that for a little while and then swim normally for a while. Sometimes after I've done that once, it goes away and everything is fine. Sometimes I'm battling it for the whole swim. With getting out of the water and resting every half hour or so, you have a great chance to warm up those hands and feet. Maybe even overheat them a bit and then resume the battle in the water.
I can't really speak to feeds, as the broken swim is a lot different than a continuous swim. That 20 minute rest and then restart is a strange thing. At first the swim seems short and the rest seems long. As time goes on, that sort of reverses and that 20 minute rest goes by in a heartbeat. When we did our relay, we found that we would just eat a tiny bit of solid food and drink some liquid. We took a lot more food and liquid than we actually used. We would fuel up as soon as we got onto the boat and then take advantage of our rest time.
The other thing about that rest out of water is that after you get warmed up and swimming, you have to stop and rest. Seems like that's a good thing, right? Well it's not that great, because then you have to get back in the water, warm up again and start swimming. As things progress, that warm up swim starts taking longer and longer, so you end up doing like a 15 minute warm up and a 15 minute swim followed by a long rest. The long rest cools you down, tightens the muscles etc. So remember to get in some light stretching and wiggle your arms and legs about just so you aren't starting from zero.
That's about all I can think of. It sounds like a cool swim you are doing and we will love to hear the post event summary. Good luck with your swim and I hope some of this info helps.
@curly appreciate your advice, especially leaving the wetsuit half-on and using a jumper, coat etc to keep core warm, a warm hat and gloves too. Hand warmers (and a hot water bottle) is now on the list and I'll remember to be as active as I can be, warm up around the fire pit and drink/eat warm soup, coffee, tea etc in between my mile swims (4 laps) as I know this will help me keep warm when out of the water. Like you, it will be 35 mins in the water, 25 mins out the water, so i need a plan I can repeat for 24hrs. Wish me luck and I will definitely write a post event summary and put it here. Thanks again for taking the time to write, it's very much appreciated, MAK.
I undertook my biggest swim challenge so far; to swim 24 miles in 24 hours which I completed last week as part of Level Water’s event over at Lake 32 Outdoor Centre, my local lake. It was brutal, relentless, character-building and it certainly pushed my limits of what I thought I was capable of.
After a week to reflect and getting back into the water on Saturday, it felt different, I had a new found respect for the water, I am hungry to swim more longer-distances and these swim communities are a real inspiration for me, to share my love of the open-water and to learn more about challenges, events and resources. I wrote a summary which I will post a link below and I look forward to hearing more of your stories and adventures based around the love of open-water and endurance events.
As many of you know, my love of swimming was taken to a new level last weekend where I had the opportunity to push myself & grow in so many ways, swimming 24 miles in 24 hours;
👉🏻 Mindset: What I thought was possible & what is actually possible aligned through grit & determination, controlling the controllable & sitting comfortably with the feeling of being uncomfortable.
👉🏻 Reframing: Our minds will always take the path of least resistance, finding the easiest way to get something done & often will tell you to stop if what you are trying to do is outside of the ‘comfort zone’. By thinking differently about a situation, in the middle if the storm (challenge, event, moment), to take stock, dig deep, find your WHY is so important. You need this driver to push through the storms, the uncomfortable moments & come out the other side with the goals & achievements you want. The storm will always pass.
👉🏻 One Swim At A Time: Breaking tasks down into manageable chuncks. There was very dark moments in my 24h swim, cold, wet, hungry & tired. Saying to myself ‘just one more swim’ got me through this challenge, that & some warm soup that I was swimming so that kids could learn to swim. ☺️
Thank you 🙏🏻 for your donations, it means a lot £37k has been raised from the event so far, that’s 2,466 swimming lessons and we have done £925 of that, so well done 👏🏻
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-24-hour-charity-swim-level-water-mark-kenna-cvh2e