Reblogged from Amino Vital:

Reblogged from The Water Blogged Triathlete:

Reblogged from The Road to Ironman Texas:

Taken with GoPro Hero3 Black Edition. I haven't been able to play around with my videos as my computer is too slow. I will get a Mac soon. :)

Read more… 4 more words

1. Train as normal until Tuesday. On Wednesday do 5-10 short sprints of say 100m somewhere around the speed you want to race at on Saturday. On Thursday and Friday do not train.

2. Set a realistic goal and determine a tactic to achieve it. Eg get a better runner to pace you or use your GPS watch to race against a ‘course’ or against a fixed speed. Or use that watch to run at a constant pace.

3. Look up what a dynamic warm up is and use one on Saturday morning allowing plenty of time to do it, finishing 10 minutes before you start the race.

4. Eat lightly and normally on Friday. Stay hydrated on Friday. On Saturday drink and eat as little as you can without feeling ill or risking throwing up.

5. Your attitude and determination and aversion to pain will make at least 2% difference to your time I reckon. So you have to adopt whatever mental strategy that works best for you to overcome that. Personally I know it’s going to hurt and I prepare myself to live with that and visualise the glory at the end (maybe!)

A more detailed look at this subject is discussed and there are various plans and other tips all over this blog.

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English: View from Juniper Bottom, Box Hill Looking across the Surrey Hills from Box Hill National Trust nature reserve. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Surrey Hills are turning into a cycling Mecca for The Lycra-men of London.

I was out there again last week for 5 hours of ‘fun’. There is some quite amazing scenery and hills to test us all. General road surfaces are a bit poor however and there is also often a need to get from A to B via some pretty nastily busy main roads. Like everywhere else motorised road users tend not to welcome cyclists to their domain.

So bringing us to Box Hill. EVERYONE goes there. It does have particularly nice views and a café at the top and a bike shop not far from the top and often a mobile cycle repair guy at the top. However it’s not that hard a hill really, I don’t know why everyone raves about it. Going down takes a fair while and you think that the way up will take ages but, for some reason, it never seems quite that bad. Maybe it’s the smooth road surface post-Olympics?

Anyway there is the feel-good factor of doing a non-trivial hill that everyone goes on about and not feeling that tired at the top.

http://the5krunner.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/garmin-firmware-2-60-revert-back-from-2-70.jpg

You need to download and then rename it to a .zip file as wordpress won’t let me host .zip files. But it is the right one really, honest! Don’t do it if you don’t believe me. Alternatively you can get the same files and instructions from: Social.Support@garmin.com

After downloading and renaming to .zip follow these instructions:

For PC:

1.      Navigate to this folder location:

a.       Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\User account name\Application Data\GARMIN\Devices\numbered Unit ID folder

b.      Windows Vista / 7 / 8: C:\Users\User account name\AppData\Roaming\GARMIN\Devices\numbered Unit ID folder

2.      Unzip or drag and drop the files inside attachment to location above

3.      Close windows explorer

4.      Open Garmin ANT Agent

5.      Turn On Forerunner 910XT and bring within range of the ANT stick

6.      ANT Agent will transfer software to device

For Mac OS:

1.      Navigate to ~user/Library¹/Application Support/Garmin/Devices/numbered Unit ID folder/

2.      Unzip or drag and drop the files inside attachment to location above

3.      Open Garmin ANT Agent

4.      Turn On Forerunner 910XT and bring within range of the ANT stick

5.      ANT Agent will transfer software to device

¹On Mac OS 10.6 and higher: the Library folder is hidden. To get to Library:

1.      Open Finder

2.      Click Go in the top menu bar

3.      Click Home

4.      Click Go in the top menu bar

5.      Click Go to Folder…

6.      Type Library

7.      Click Go

Reblogged from Ella PandaHill:

Reblogged from LoneSwimmer:

Reblogged from ZwemZa:

Olympian Keri-anne Payne has launched a swimming event at one of the UK's largest stretches of water.

Around 2,000 people are expected for the open water Great Scottish Swim in August, held for the first time at Loch Lomond.

Payne, an Olympic open water silver-medallist and 10k open water world champion, will join participants for the event which is part of the Great Swim, …

Read more… 147 more words

Reblogged from whirlpoolheadcase:

We had an eventful Open Water training session at Colwick Park today.

It was quite busy and there were lots of swimmers wearing pink hats.  I'm sure some of them were pretending to be marker buoys (which are also pink).  Every time I raised my head to spot where I was going I caught sight of one of these 'buoys'.  Or so I thought. 

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Reblogged from LoneSwimmer:

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Regular readers will know from past posts such as Ballymacaw, Portally, and Whiting Bay that when I am swimming a new location by myself, I try to understand as much as I can before I get in the water. When swimming a new location, it's always well to remember my safety motto: The best safety decisions are made outside of the water…

Read more… 1,017 more words

Reblogged from ZwemZa:

An Australian marathon swimmer hopes to be the first person ever to swim from Cuba to the US without a shark cage.

As well as the sharks, 29-year-old Chloe McCardel will battle exposure, swift sea currents, stinging jellyfish and extreme fatigue as she attempts the record swim from Cuba to Florida this week.

The 103-mile (166km) journey is considered the 'holy grail' of marathon swimming, with numerous failed attempts having been made at the treacherous crossing.

Read more… 429 more words

Today i saw this hedgehog, he wasn’t doing intervals  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Indeed what is the difference between doing 5k in 19 minutes or 23 minutes. The hilarious response, of course, is 4 minutes. But you saw that one coming.

Essentially there is not that much difference in the TYPE of training you need to do for each: Long runs, medium length quite fast intervals and shortish length fast intervals.

As you get faster in your 5k times it’s not really the case that you need to do more fast training. That’s certainly NOT the case. You just need to do MORE training. IE More volume – and that increased volume includes faster training.

As you get faster, normally, you are able to handle greater volumes AND greater intensities. So your fast training is faster than it was when you were slower…doh! BUT you are better able to cope with that training and respond better to it and recover quicker from it.

An exception would be newer aspiring athletes. You have to sort out your long runs. Look for ‘coupled state’ on this blog and  on the net. Essentially that marks the point where you can probably safely proceed to more intensive interval training.

However you must keep up your training in all areas otherwise at some point, perhaps after a month or so injury break, the area that you were previously lacking comes back to haunt you and you can’t quite compensate in other areas. So I’d been advised, for medical reasons, to avoid the intervals for a while – which I dutifully did. I do a lot of cross training and my times seemed to hold up. Come a running injury and forced break and then I return to running after a complete 6 week rest from running and my 5k times are WAY down by over 3 minutes.

But then it is quite interesting to see how my good endurance base enables me very quickly to start eating into those 3 minutes.

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Me at Shepperton (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Managed a couple of laps of Shepperton Lake today. Great venue for Open Water Swimming in SW London. A little murky perhaps but it is very nice that it has the long and short loops.

I was trying out a few new wetsuits today and I’m amazed that they improve my swimming by so much – they actually make me half decent! (Well quarter-decent). All the winter training definitely paid off and I’m obviously doing something wrong with my legs or general flatness in the water but hey, who cares?, the suit is used in the race and I’m fast in the suit.

roll on Hyde Park.

US Navy 061021-N-4856G-002 Special Operations Chief (SEAL) Mitch Hall (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to USA Triathlon, an athlete must meet one of six criteria to apply for elite status: finish within 8 percent of the winning elite time in three USA Triathlon-sanctioned events; finish in the top 10 and within 8 percent of the winner’s time at the International Triathlon Union Age Group World Championships; finish in the top 10 in the amateur field at the Ironman World Championship; finish in the top five and within 8 percent of the winning time at the USAT Age Group National Championships; finish in the top five and within 8 percent of the winning time at the USAT Collegiate National Championships; or finish in the top three in the amateur field at an Elite Qualifying Race.

So in the UK

1. Finish in the top 10 and within 8 percent of the winner’s time at the ITU AG Group World Championships

2. Finish in the top 5 and within 8 percent of the winning time at the ETU AG European Championships

3. Top 3 in the National Championships AND within 5% of winning time of your AG’s elite winner (as defined by above 2 criteria).

Thoughts? I invented the last one! but it seems reasonable.

Source: livestrong.com

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Garmin 910XT – What single existing bug would you like fixing in the next firmware release? Personally I would like the ‘current pace’ one sorting out but that’s just me. What do you all think Garmin should sort out for us next?

The last 2.70 firmware was released at the back end of 2012…time for a new one surely.

Some of the forums are full of complaints (fair enough IF A BUG AFFECTS YOU). But Garmin might respond better to fix the ones that most of us have issue with – if they only knew which ones that was. do the poll or see the results

YOU CAN ONLY VOTE ONCE

If there are some new options that come up I will add to the poll if possible.

Marahon shoes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You’ve been running a while right?

OK, good. Go get an old pair of running-only shoes. Not day-to-day shoes.

Turn ‘em upside down and look where they wear out. If the heel is wearing out then you heel strike. If the bit under where your toes start is wearing out then you strike mid-foot or forefoot.

So no argument there please. I don’t care what the video analysis might say about you. The evidence is literally staring you in the face from your shoes.

Note we pretty much ALL heel strike whilst walking.

There are undoubtedly great runners who heel strike.

However if you heel strike then your foot has to roll down from the heel and onto the front of the foot before you push off. That takes time. Not a lot of time. But time nevertheless. If you heel strike you cannot escape that obvious fact. That wasted time multiplied by the number of steps you take is a LOT of wasted time. Heel striking is slower.

IT might be faster for you now. But it IS slower than it otherwise could be. It is slowing you down.

There are also other factors at play where heel striking acts as a cushioning brake as the mass of your body move from behind the heel to in front of it. This weight transfer process also take its toll on the knee. It’s probably why you get knee or hip injuries.

Fore-foot or mid-foot (flat-foot) striking requires less contact time with the ground. It more naturally has more of the weight further forwards and more naturally engages more muscles groups better. It puts a bit more strain on your calves. So you can’t change overnight without building up your calf muscles.

You’ve probably got little calf muscles as well right? Yep. That’s because you heel strike (often!). More proof.

Start to use those poxy calf muscles for midfoot running too much too soon and you WILL have all sorts of calf, soleus, achillees problems. And these can take a LONG time to heal.

It might take a year to gradually transition. At the end of that you will probably be no faster but you will be in a  good place to GET FASTER WITH LESS INJURIES.

Go for it.

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English: 2-D cross-sectional view of glycogen: A core protein of glycogenin is surrounded by branches of glucose units. The entire globular complex may contain approximately 30.000 glucose units. (Description reference: Page 12 in: Exercise physiology: energy, nutrition, and human performance By William D. McArdle, Frank I. Katch, Victor L. Katch Edition: 6, illustrated Published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2006 ISBN 0781749905, 9780781749909, 1068 pages) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lots of the stuff in our body is fuel for living. This includes fat. It’s harder to get energy out of fat than it is to get energy out of muscle glycogen. However muscle/liver glycogen is limited and in endurance events it may well run out. Then you stop. Literally stop.

So you take on board energy when you train and race but sometimes that too is not enough to perform optimally.

It is possible to train your body to better burn fat. This is great as it, simplistically, makes you thinner but it also puts further away that point where you run out of glycogen.

This probably won’t help your 5k much but the further over 1  hour your event goes the more important it becomes.

So how do you do it?

1. Eat a high fat meal BEFORE exercise. However this is only for long exercise periods of at least 90 minutes. The abundance of fat is recognised by your body and your body tries to use it more than it otherwise would. This strategy is for serious athletes only!

2. For shorter workouts eat nothing beforehand. ie make sure it was at least 2 hours since your last Low GI meal. Only use water during the exercise.

3. A longer term dietary strategy is to eat a low GL based diet. Again this makes the body metabolism shift towards using fat as a fuel source.

4. Do moderate (sweating) exercise for extended periods. If you do too much speedwork then the energy required for the speedwork is too great and that can ONLY be quickly got from muscle/liver glycogen. So the longer/moderate stuff lets your body practice drip feeding itself, partly, from your fat stores.

5. Do muscle building exercise (not body building!! but you can if you want to) ie fast running. Bigger, stronger more efficient muscles burn more energy whilst at rest. They do not necessarily burn the energy within the muscles themselves they also burn fat.

Remember one big problem with diets and exercise is that people do not re-fuel themselves properly.

• What’s the point of doing a massive 3 hour run and then not re-fuelling properly. If you don’t take on board enough carbs water and protein then the muscles will not repair themselves and will not ‘fill up’ with energy.
• What’s the point of going on a diet and cutting out protein so that your muscles waste away? As soon as you start eating again the extra energy is stored straight away as fat!!
• What’s the point of not drinking enough water, other than being bad for you, as soon as you drink water again you put that ‘weight’ back on!

So, some of the above points appear contradictory. Which is kind of true.

However what it is really telling you is that you need a balanced exercise regime AND a balanced dietary regime. You need to do long runs AND fast runs. You need to eat protein, carbs and fat (and water, not too much fat please!). 5k training is a great way to balance the exercise and, for the sake of argument, a low GL diet (look at the food packaging’s labels, it’s on there) is a good enough one for the food. To lose weight quickly try the Atkins diet but the lack of carbs in it will cause you problems with life and exercise soon enough!

Cover via Amazon

1. Periodisation

Understanding the balance between training hard and recovering.

2. Training Load

Measuring training hard and recovering!

3. Training by Pace

If you want to run fast at some point you have to have periods when you train fast. You train ‘fast’ most effectively by pace. Anything up to an hour I train by pace. You need a device which can tell you how fast you are running.

4. Training by Heart Rate

Sometimes you have to hold yourself back. It’s not perfect but training by heart rate is great for anything over 40 minutes. You need a device which can tell you your heart rate.

5. Bodily Systems

The body does not have a ‘speed system’ which you can train. There are LOTS of processes which you have to train to get faster. These processes all respond to differing stimuli. Ie training at differing levels of intensity for differing periods of time.

6. Training Effectiveness / Tapering

Building up an endurance base takes time and stays a long time. Speed takes relatively ‘little’ time to acquire (assuming you have the capacity to do so) and is more quickly lost. Knowing the most effective training day is about 10 days before your race. Understanding that tapering allows your body to recover and respond properly to all that hard work you have been doing – whilst maintaining its race readiness/freshness.

7. Intervals

If you want to do 5k faster you could just practice doing 5k lots and lots. It would eventually work but intervals would get you faster, sooner. You need to practice getting faster and faster over ever increasing time periods…starting from one minute. Personally I incorporate intervals into ALL workouts with the exception of extensive endurance runs in the winter.

(8. Must do better) – gym work, hill work, stretch, plyometrics, diet, hydration.

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We love the new Polar FT60 . As you can see the display is very in-vogue, angular looking and perhaps more importantly to the stats obsessed purist….the screen are is quite big. Lots of easy-to-read information.

It has some nice colours too! Even in black if purple is too much for you.

It’s not cheap but I reckon you might just be able to find one on Amazon for under £100 if you are lucky, if not then at least somewhere close to that.

If you are looking at weight loss then heart rate based training is the way to go for most people. The FT60 does that and also builds in some nice features like Training Load to tell you when to have a rest day or when to have a hard day.

If you like Polar and are looking for more of a running watch that has GPS/pace/speed information then have a look at the new Polar RCX3. Super-sweet. Possible review later this year – to follow.

The manufacturer’s key points are listed below:

STAR Training Programme lets you select personalised fitness targets and then suggests different training times and intensities to maximise your results

Smart Calories lets you know exactly how many calories you’ve burned

Own Zone guides you to train at the right intensity

Fitness Test tells you exactly how your fitness is developing

Training Load helps you find the perfect balance between rest and training

Available now for RRP £149.50 in stores

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Tongue n’ Cheek (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Top 10 5k and parkrun running tips. Running myths debunked!

Maybe you have a few to add to the mix

1. Hydration: Not really that important. The weight of the extra water in your body will slow you down. As evidence look a the tiny water bottles that tour de France riders use in the 100++ mile stages. They use most of that to spray over their heads on hot days to keep themselves cool. Also the water bottles are normally sponsored by big banks.

2. Shoes: Big shoes are best for getting a PB as they help you bounce more so lengthening your stride and creating/giving you extra energy.

3. Sprint at the start. You are not as tired at the start of a 5k race so it never hurts to sprint off really quickly (kids are very good at this and usually win).

4. Breathing: Your body exhales lots of un-used oxygen. Save time and energy by holding your breath for 3 or 4 seconds longer than you normally do each breath, that way using the oxygen you already have in your lungs.

5. If  you have kids you will have noticed they are hyperactive very soon after coloured sweets. Translate that effect into your running by having a few packs of M&Ms, or similar, before you race. About 3 minutes before the race starts is best.

6. Ignore advice to kick your heels up as you run. Logically you should keep your feet as close to the gorund as possible for longer races. That way you save huge amounts of energy by NOT having to lift them up too far from the ground.

7. (See also point 2). Try to make your stride as long as possible. That way you will get there quicker.

8. If you want to do a really fast 5k the best training is to run 90 minutes 3 times a week at a very easy pace. ie just faster than walking pace. do NOT practice running fast as that causes too much damage to your body which is hard to repair.

9. You get most of your energy from sugar and therefore you should cut out things like protein and complex carbohydrates from your diet. Most top runners have NO fat in their diet, cut all that out too. Focus on sugars. Remember a Mars a day helps you work, rest and play? They said it because it was true.

10. The best times to train are the 2 days before your race or parkrun. Training on these days significantly boots muscle memory so, come Parkrun-Saturday, you will not have forgotten how to run.

Any other top tips? Share below

Please IF IN ANY DOUBT this is all tongue-in-cheek!!!! Start on my home page for some proper running advice.

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English: Alistair Brownlee wins the Hyde Park Triathlon,August 2011 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well I looked a while back at the easiest route to qualify for Hyde Park. Me, and very many of you made the most basic mistake of leaving it too late to apply for ANY qualifying race. Consequently not getting the chance to even attempt to qualify. I did manage to get a place but certainly not from my favoured event.

So where are we now?

Looking at the male sprint:
The number of people SO FAR registered to try to qualify are: 45-49 (57 athletes), 40-44 (54), 35-39 (47) and so it goes on. Such that MOST age groups are going to leave some people struggling to qualify even if they have achieved the 115% time. The situation is not quite so competitive in the women’s age groups and fairly similar in the Standard distance.

good Luck. You’ll probably need at least an element of that to get in.

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One to scare off the car drivers!

F60 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Elite Great Britain Team Medallists

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parkrun 55 (Photo credit: Paul Holloway)

I was recently asked “How do I improve my 5k parkrun time?”. Unfortunately ‘it depends’ is going to form a large part of the answer.

Many people reading this will be shouting “train more!”. Which of course is true.

But what kind of training is best (A: it depends on your fitness etc etc)

What level you are currently at and your recent training is also going to make a big difference on what is the NEXT effective thing to do.

And it depends on when you want to improve it by. Today is Thursday so trying to improve it this Saturday will require virtually no training.

Look at my home page for tips on how to improve my parkrun time this coming weekend.

If you are looking to improve your time in a couple of weeks then you should be looking at tapering down from what you have been doing.

If you are looking at improving your time in 4-6 weeks time then you should be looking at fast intervals and tempo runs followed by a careful taper.

If you are looking at a 3 month time horizon then you need to follow a 3 month training plan.

Something along those lines would be good…

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Heart rate and power (Photo credit: samwebster)

What! A heart rate of 280bpm, that can’t be right can it? Oh hang on a minute now there’s no reading at all.

Most of you have been there with Garmin HR straps. It’s annoying when the readings are wrong especially if you train by heart rate.

There are various solutions out there. Some of them are sound others not.

Firstly there could be a fault with your STRAP and/or your heart rate SENSOR / POD. I think that is unlikely in most cases.

Secondly if you have ever used a Garmin HARD strap you will probably have never found any problems. So, IMHO, that shows that the problem probably does not lie with the watch. If, like me, you may have bought a POLAR soft strap to which the GARMIN POD fits you will probably found the same level of HR spikes and dropouts in similar circumstances. Therefore this suggests to me that there is nothing inherently uniquely wrong with Garmin’s design.

It’s just that soft straps for some reason are more prone to the sort fo behaviour we are talking about. Why? If you look at the reverse of the strap you will see that the smooth ‘rubber’ contact area may be smaller on a soft strap.

Yesterday I had a turbo session indoors. Nothing too hard but a bit sweaty nevertheless. Immediately afterwards I went for a slow run in the freezing cold. Within 5 minutes I had incorrect HR readings. I had stopped sweating and some of the sweat already there had dried out. This to me VERY strongly suggests that the problem is related to the contact between the body/chest and the strap.

In really cold or really dry weather you may well find you are more prone to spikes. This could be because both hot and cold weather can have less humidity (humidity might be a factor). Or it could also be the case that when really cold you might not sweat much or when really hot and you are not trying much the sweat very quickly evaporates.

Either way a wet strap helps.

So if you lick your strap before any exercise you will probably find an improvement.

Furthermore if you thoroughly wet the strap, you may find yet more improvement.

Garmin recommend that you use medical grade gel. Let’s face it few of us will ever do this. But if you have let me know if that fixes the problem.

Well 30 minutes after posting the article I got this from Cy Gearing on FB:

Cy Gearing :: I use the garmin soft strap and use a gel from amazon. I don’t sweat a great deal so had issues, but been using the gel for 3 months now without dropouts. It cost the vast sum of £3.05 for 2 x100ml bottles and you need so little that I’m sure they will last at least a year!

So this I think backs up my assertion that it is a contact problem rather than static or faulty devices. Although Cy has obviously found that gel makes a significant improvement (well if 100% counts as significant!). Amazon here we come!

However static might be a cause. You need two different materials for static to happen. This could be different shorts and shirt. Or it could be the soft strap and your shirt rubbing together. It might also be linked to static from body hair. I’m not convinced about this explanation but it is possible. I still have problems when ‘topless’ on my turbo. Static absolutely CANNOT be the cause in that scenario. Although it might be a contributory factor in other scenarios.

Summary: I started off by saying you could have a faulty unit. Most likely the best approach is to thoroughly wet your strap and ensure it is snugly fitted in the right position. Or use a hard strap!

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Circle with vDot Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You can get your VDOT from a recent race or PB and you can use that to give you your training pace.

That’s it really. You don’t need to know what it stands for.

Here is a table (below). Find your 5k PB and look across at the last 3 columns

So for someone looking to do a sub-20 minute 5k you should be already fairly close to that so let’s assume your 5k time is 20:39 (6:38/mile or 4:07/km). IE you look at what you’ve achieved and not what you aspire to.

You would do one or two long runs a week at 8:49/mile (5:23/km) pace – say 80 minutes each

You would do a tempo run at 7:02/mile (4:22/km) pace – say 1 session of 2×20 minutes with 4 minute recovery.

You would do intervals at 1:36/400m (4:00/km) pace – say 5-10 intervals with 2-3 minutes recovery.

Here is a link to my ‘straightforward sub 20 5k training plan‘ which is not dissimilar but different enough to warrant a read.

All of these VDOT sessions should be well within your capability. You should really try to run at exactly the ‘right’ speed if you are following this method. As you are within your abilities then exactness and technique should be your focus. You wanted a scientific approach after all?

Distance (Photo credit: Rafee.)

Analysis: This running is supported by many coaches, so I’m not going to criticise it. I think the important thing is to make sure you do all 3 run types each week. Once you are getting close to an important race then you will drop at least one of the longer easy runs. You can get to a sub 20 minute 5k ‘easily’ without >1hour easy runs. However others would argue that this VDOT approach would get you to your goals quicker.

H2Open has teamed up with the organisers of seven great open water races. Participants in the series may swim as many of these races as they like. At the end of the season they will be ranked according to their best four finishing positions.

The events are as follows:

4 May – Priory Country Park, Bedford – Distance: 5 km
galeforce-events.com

22 June – Bray Lake, Berkshire -Distance: 3 km
allabouttriathlons.co.uk

6 July – National Water Sports Centre, Nottingham – Distance: 5 km
onestepbeyond.org.uk

14 July – Henley-on-Thames – Distance: 1 mile
henleyswim.com

17 August – Monster Swim, Loch Ness – Distance: 1 mile
swimtrek.com

7 September – Vachery Pond, Surrey – Distance: 3 km
xterra-england.co.uk/races/big-swims.php

14 September – Bradley Stoke, Bristol – Distance: 3 km
Bristolopenwater.co.uk

As well as the opportunity to compare their performance with other swimmers in their age group, competitors could land themselves some fantastic prizes thanks to sponsors Dryrobe (www.wandering-star.co.uk) and Torq Fitness (www.torqfitness.co.uk). And, in addition to awards for category winners, there are also random spot prizes so anyone who takes part in four or more races has the chance of being a winner.

One 2012 participant said the following:“Last year I did the ranking series swims and had the best time. I travelled to places I didn’t know existed – loved every swim and didn’t want to get out on the last one!”

To find out more about the Series see www.nationalopenwaterswimseries.com

Notes:

H2Open is the world first and only magazine dedicated to open water swimming. It provides training advice, gear reviews and racing tips to open water swimmers, as well as celebrating the pleasures of swimming outside and finding the best places to enjoy the water. Published bi-monthly in the UK it is available world-wide in print and digital formats.

Contacts:

Simon Griffiths, Editor, simon.griffiths@h2openmagazine.com, +44 (0)7958 312 607
Thomas Standfied, Advertising and Sales Manager, tstandfield@mashmedia.net, +44 (0)208 971 8282
Subscriptions: http://www.escosubs.co.uk/h2open
Web: http://www.h2openmagazine.com

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