Saturday's Cold Water swimming championships at Tooting Bec Lido saw a solid gaggle of Serpentine members in attendance to represent the club. Water temperature was a confusing 35ºF/3.5ºC; one wonders if Robin Hunter had a stealth hand in the temperature gauging at Tooting this weekend?
It was a fabulous day with fantastic weather and great racing. After swimming, the hot-tub and sauna served their purpose of warming up cold toes and the food and drink was hearty enough to fill any hungry swimmers stomach, and we mean any. The Serpentine support-team was strong as always and everyone raced with gusto. There were some very close calls on the podium, so well done to all participants.
Notably representing the Serps for the most number of fancy dress-outfits containing facial hair has to be Alice Gartland, closely followed by Herwarth Talkenberg for his affinity in hat wearing. They were joined by Ocativia Williams and Bee Heller as the Wonder Woman relay team, and performed accordingly.
Medals in most catergories, saw three gold, seven silver and one bronze for SSC. The Luckhurst family, represented by Alan, Katherine and William are clearly not to be messed with when it comes to swimming, so three cheers for their brilliant performances and as a result they took more than their fair share of decoration home.
Herwarth Talkenberg, Jeremy Hunter, John Reid, Ana Marva and Felicity Challinor all took medals. Also not forgetting the medal winning relay team: One "1" of a team, Dani Lobo's sub-160 relay team (yes, sub-160 with family Luckhurst (again) pulling him through) sprinted into second place with a time of 1'18.96.
Slogan of the day read:Caution cold water may contain nuts...
Below are a selection of photographs from the 6th Cold Water Swimming Championships.
