Her Spirit member and Winter Swim Challenge veteran, Nina shares her swim story and how the Winter Swim challenge helped her even write her university dissertation…

2020 where my new swimming journey began, I started solo swimming and this was for around 2 months, until I found out there were some open water swimming taster sessions running on a Saturday, someone called Mel was running these and someone called Lynne was supporting and a lady called Jayne was swimming with me every week (I didn’t know who they were at the time but 2 years later have become big parts of my life). At the time I joined I was in a very dark place, I was suffering from severe anxiety and just making it to those sessions on a Saturday was enough, I couldn’t really build up the confidence to talk to anyone until one week which was the 10^th October I spoke to Mel and she told me all about the app Her Spirit and what it was and what it provided, I didn’t know what to do on the app, so I just joined anyway and waited about a month before I made my first post.

Then the Winter Swim Challenge came along with a second lockdown to add to an already dark place and the swim challenge turned into a bath challenge and I clocked up most my minutes by plunging into a very cold bath in my swimming costume, hat and goggles. And every so often Mel had some great sessions she ran with JC which gave a great opportunity to get in the lake. I even did many swims at home where I went to keepers mostly just forcing my dad to stand there and watch as again I was too scared to join anyone there, this was where I met a lady called Kate who welcomed me with open arms and now is another one of my closest friends.

Over the whole of the winter I also forced myself out of the house on many occasions just to socialise and it was exhausting mentally, and I totalled 291 minutes from November to March, a great achievement, that winter was the hardest winter for me in several years and still remains the same, however, having something that kept me doing something throughout helped me massively. I had also signed up for summer solstice 10K and so I needed to keep going for that as at that point it was my biggest challenge to date and I have Holly to thank for that challenge, didn’t know what it would bring for the following year. Then became spring where Jules became my training partner and put up with me turning up violently hungover and also forgetting my wetsuit, she was my rock and kept me going all until the big 10K that year.

The winter swim challenge came about all over again, this year a new challenge Windermere (13 miles of water to tackle, and only 11 months to train) and also Conniston which wasn’t on the original plan but an event I was grateful for as Her Spirit provided me with a sponsored space to help me through the windermere goal. I had a big journey was ahead of me and it was a bit of a challenge to fit in with the final year of uni.

This winter swim challenge looked much different fighting many illnesses and infections stopped many weeks of swimming and the change in temperature took me to Hawaii for Christmas for family celebrations, so that changed the minutes ratio drastically but somehow I managed to total 1074 minutes which is massively different to my 291 from 2020 (the lack of lockdowns may account to that), but every time I entered the water I was surrounded with friends that I had become close with over the past year and my whole support network was polar opposite to the year before and I loved every minute I was in the water for.

The winter swim challenge created yet again a way to keep going through the dark winter months. 2022 may not have planned out to the absolute tee however this year I am in a full-time job having finished uni with a 2:1 and a first in my dissertation. The winter swim challenge also helped me write my dissertation as I headed down the lake every Wednesday to swim and then write, it kept me active while hating writing an 8000-word essay.  Although I completed Conniston, I am heading back for more and completing it next year with more training and hard work, and the winter swim challenge will support me in this.

To cut short, what did winter swimming do for me: I achieved goals, I kept active, I kept social and most of all I loved every minute of every swim. I ended up doing challenges that only Her Spirit bought to me and with the power of togetherness I wouldn’t change it for the world.