Colin Hill, head of the Great Swim and guest speaker at the Global Open Water Swimming Conference, took part in the Byron Swim Festival, a 5K swim from Asia to Europe.
Colin placed first in 1 hour and 27 minutes. He had a great review of the event, “It was a tough swim. The tides were strong.”
“It felt like [we were going] the wrong direction for a lot of the swim, pretty choppy. About 15 out of the 158 swimmers didn’t wear wetsuits as it was 13°C (55.4°F). SwimTrek, the organizer, made everyone swim either 45 minutes without a wetsuit or 30 minutes with a wetsuit in a test swim the day before.”
“Besides the swim where 150 people entered a rather choppy Hellespont, it was a great festival [celebrating the 200th anniversary of Lord Byron’s first swim’.
“With talks from the current Lord Byron – and Charles Sprawson, author of Haunts of the Black Masseur – the Swimmer as Hero, it was something to remember.“
A video of the race can be seen here, showing Colin finishing first.
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