Serpentine Swimming Club

Nick is such a cool guy!  Very welcoming host.

This morning I met Nick Adams at 7:45am at the Serpentine Swimming Club.  He introduced me to quite a few other channel swimmers.  It was amazing being in their company.  Every Saturday they have a race.  They gave Nick and I a 43:20 handicap.  So after they sent off the first old chap, we stood around and waited for our "mark" to go.

For those of you who don't know of Nick Adams is.  He is a legend! He is collecting quite a collection of his own English Channel Crossings.  He has 8 under his belt, including a two way crossing.  He's a Triple Crown swimmer, and a top notch person.  It was awesome to see him greet swimmers at the club this morning.  Alot of character and a fun person to be around. 

I wore my GoPro, but it failed to capture.  Argh!  Nick was kind enough to stay back with me.  He's a much faster swimmer.  In fact he's got nearly half the records of this club (which was formally created in 1864).  I was there to enjoy the experience and not necessarily win.  But I did go fairly hard and my shoulder held up just fine.  After the 800 M race, I did another two laps for an additional 800 M for a total of 1600 M.

Past President honored.

It was really cool to see that the club at the end of every race awards the winner with a cup and then gives a tribute to a member of the club that has passed on.  It was really cool to see.  They also gave a "Hip Hip! Hooray!" and a bouquet of flowers to one of their members that just returned this last week from her own successful English Channel crossing.

Afterwards Nick invited us to join him and other members for breakfast, but we had to get going back to the hotel to get Austin and Jacob and head out for a Thames River tour. Nick is leaving for a Gibraltar crossing with 3 others.  Sounds like a cool adventure of his own this week!

Total: 1600 M (1750 yards) in The Serpentine at Hyde Park!

I also registered for the 2012 Global Open Water Swimming Conference in Long Beach on Sept 21st!  This conference is gonna be awesome.  Amazing lineup of people who are coming to present topics.  Cannot wait!