Swim Serpentine was my final event of the season. I was supposed to do it last year, but it was cancelled due to the link between Hyde Park and the Queen's death. I deferred and all was going well until the random heatwave and the concerns over blue green algae. It seems they regularly have to wash out the lake before the event to make sure that the levels are within swimmable threshold. This year that wasn't working/helping and on Tuesday they put out a message on Facebook that they had concerns that the levels would not be safe and that they would let us know by Wednesday 17:00. No email or anything else. Wednesday 17:00 came and went and there was nothing. Eventually they did put up a message saying they still had concerns and they would let us know by Thursday 18:00. Thursday morning they finally sent out an email saying the same thing. They finally decided that the thresholds were just about within swimmable limits on Thursday evening and that the swim was a go. We had another email on Friday morning with the final tests:
I decided it was now or never, I wasn't going to defer another year. Many of my friends decided not to risk it, which was fair.
After all my chafing last week, I was very careful to make sure I had enough on my neck. I also have a stupidly large head and they were advertising larger hats in the information tent, so I went to ask them. They didn't have any red hats so I ended up with an orange one. Best. Hat. Ever. I am going to be wearing that hat until it dies.
I was wearing skins again, the water temperature was 21 degrees, but less of the random cold spots than last time. I was desperately trying not to drink the water but it was pretty disgusting (I stank afterwards!). It was much much busier than last week and there were people everywhere - many unable it seems to swim in a straight line so would zig zag in front of you. I also had a kayaker cut right in front of me at one point! It was pretty hard to figure out where you were going with the buoys being purple (not the best colour for visibility!). Near the end I did get confused and managed to kick the bottom of the lake - got a bit too close to the shore!
When I got out, I discovered that I had green slunge all over the inside of my trisuit - gross! It absolutely stank as well, everything had to go in the wash. I looked over my Strava stats and it was telling me I'd got a 2 minute PB from last time - no way! Yes way!
On my way home my eyes went weirdly blurry and I had a runny nose. Got home to find I had red eyes with nasty yellow goo :/. Thankfully it cleared up the next day but it was very painful. I couldn't stop sneezing either so must have had some kind of allergic reaction to the water.
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