London

Dust off your wetsuit, it’s time for night swimming

Published:

It's cold and dark, but winter night swimming could give you the edge on your winter training, and if it won't make you faster, it will make you tougher.

If you’ve been secretly relieved to retreat to warm, sanitary, indoor swimming pools for the winter, this may come as bad news.

Open water winter swimming is catching on and you don’t even need to wait for daylight to train. Yep, get that wetsuit down from winter storage because London has a new open water winter venue and there is no shortage of super-keen triathletes in neoprene hats and booties getting in winter miles. 

The Royal Docks in east London is now open to swimmers all year round and for those who don’t mind the deep dark unknown, on Wednesdays it’s open for night swimming. I even had a go myself.

Standing on the pier, surrounded by the modern developments and vibrant bars of The Royal Docks, the Emirates cable car above and the illuminated skyscrapers of Canary Wharf in the distance, you could easily mistake the water front as a marina in the Cote D’Azure.

Until that is, you sit down and dangle your feet into the 11 degree water. Ouch. I did not have the luxury of neoprene booties and even sitting for two minutes while I adjusted my two swim caps (for extra warmth) made my feet smart with the cold.

The thought of swimming in water this cold gave me nightmares the previous night. The first time I ever swam in open water, two years ago, it was 13 degrees and I went into mild shock. It was not a pretty sight. I was nervous the same would happen again, but unbelievably, once I convinced myself to plunge into the the dark waters of the docks I felt fine – as long as I kept moving. It seems two seasons of open water training has toughened me up to the cold.

The swimming venue in daylight

Swimming in the pitch black water was magical. The 1500m course used in the summer has been shortened to 400m for the winter. The course is marked by orange buoys – hard to spot in the dark so for goodness sake don’t wear polarised goggles. If you can sight the faint outline of a buoy in the dark, you’ll be able to sight anything, so consider night swimming as the ultimate training for open water sighting.

One thing you will be able to spot is other swimmers. I was attached to a mandatory floating device with a light on it. It trails behind your feet so you won’t notice it’s there. It’s a safety device so supervisors on shore can see the swimmers. The speckle of dots on the water looks very pretty from a distance.

The winter timetable at Royal Docks includes weekday mornings and Wednesday evenings from 4pm-7pm. More details here.

You can also swim through the winter (in daylight) at:

Thorpe Lake

Hampstead Heath Ponds

Serpentine Lido 

Report written by Helen Croydon, journlist and member of the Triathlon England media team. Follow her on Twitter @Helen_Croydon

Thanks to our Partners

Join Us

And enjoy insurance benefits, race licensing and more...