{"id":6915,"date":"2017-10-06T11:25:07","date_gmt":"2017-10-06T11:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fitproblog.mysites.io\/dart-10k\/"},"modified":"2017-10-06T11:25:07","modified_gmt":"2017-10-06T11:25:07","slug":"dart-10k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/dart-10k\/","title":{"rendered":"Swimming the Dart 10K"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>FitPro member, Steve Barrett, has been working in the fitness industry long enough to remember when Jane Fonda\u2019s leggings were a staple gym bag garment. He\u2019s also clocked up a fair few races in his time, but has never done an open water swim \u2013 until now.\u00a0Steve tells us that he had reached a time in his life when \u201che wouldn\u2019t conquer a PB again\u201d and therefore decided to step outside of his comfort zone and try something different.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-4555 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Steve-Barrett-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"474\" height=\"632\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Caption:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><em>Before, looking relaxed, but resigned to the fact you can&#8217;t look good in a wetsuit.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>FitPro:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><strong>Tell us about the moment you decided to take on the challenge?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Steve Barrett: <\/strong><em>In March of this year, after popping up on my Facebook feed, I was sucked in by the beautiful pictures of the Outdoor Swimming Society (OSS) video. I honestly thought it looked amazing and, as I have never done anything like that, I thought it would be a good thing to work towards as we headed towards spring.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/152326484\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/152326484\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dart 10k Outdoor Swimming Society<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/outdoorswimmingsociety\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Outdoor Swimming Society<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vimeo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Location: Totnes to Dittisham<\/p>\n<p>The Dart 10K has grown from 200 swimmers to 1600. The course of the Dart 10K is a unique journey punctuated by landmarks such as the Cormorant Tree, the white rock, Sharpham boat house and Bow Creek.\u00a0It\u2019s supported by volunteers from the local and swimming community who make it special.\u00a0It\u2019s not a race \u2013 they have some fantastic and some very fast swimmers, they also have skin swimmers, disabled swimmers, newbies, butterfly swimmers \u2013 but whatever the level, the language of the day is different. It\u2019s a journey, not a race, and there\u2019s said to be room for everyone in the river.<\/p>\n<p>The day ends with good times! The swim finishes on the village green in Dittisham where there\u2019s a mini-festival feel, with local food suppliers, a children\u2019s playground, all the fun of the fair as swimmers celebrate. With deck chairs and a great view, supporters can wile away as many hours as it takes you to get there.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>FP:\u00a0Where did you train and what did your training consist of?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> <em>The furthest I\u2019ve ever swum was 100m in the pool. I did set out with the best training intentions, but I had just started my new role as the director of group exercise and education with Matrix (ironic, I know!), which meant I was spending a lot of time away from home and on aeroplanes. This isn\u2019t very conducive with going out for spontaneous open water swims! I did manage two swims in the sea between Poole and Bournemouth, but it was so rough that I never really got into a decent rhythm, and so that was it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>FP: Did you seek any advice ahead of the race?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB<\/strong>: <em>Well, the only professional advice I did actually seek was when I bought my wetsuit. The chap selling it was very enthusiastic and knowledgeable. When he asked me what my longest swim had been, I replied, \u201c100m.\u201d He laughed at me. His advice was, \u201cDon\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>FP:<\/strong> <strong>What was your first experience of open water swimming?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> <em>Apart from in the sea it was the actual race day. While I would recommend it to anyone, all I\u2019ll say is that the water I was swimming in certainly wasn\u2019t the same crystal clear waters shown in the advert!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>FP: Can you describe the race itself \u2013 what were the hardest parts of the swim?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> <em>The night before we had a family conference and the general consensus was the prospect of getting up at 4:30am and driving to Devon to get in a river at 8:30am wasn\u2019t high on the list of fun things to do for my partner and daughter.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>While I hadn\u2019t really been in any kind of water, let alone a fast-flowing tidal river, I had been hitting the gym pretty hard and following a programme called \u2018Sprint 8\u2019. I felt confident that although it might be ugly, my fitness would get me through it. Despite the forecast rain, the decision was made and my alarm was set for 4am.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I know athletes when I see them, and the hundreds of people getting into wetsuits in the car park were all fine specimens. This is where the nerves and doubts really started to kick in as I hoisted myself into my Orca wetsuit, for only the third time ever.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> In the briefing, the safety officer said, \u201cMany of you will want to give up in the first 500m.\u201d Well, as we slipped into the water, there was no time to acclimatise to the cold, we were OFF, face down and with effectively zero visibility (I couldn\u2019t see my hand in front of my face). It didn\u2019t take 500m for me to decide I wanted to quit; it only took 50, but as I took a breath I saw my daughter on the bank jumping up and down and shouting, \u201cGo on Daddy, you can do it!\u201d and that was it, there was no way I was going to bail out and be a failure.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> I settled down, but the start of the river is narrow so there are a lot of people going for the same space, and as the visibility is zilch and I was still coming to terms with the fact there was no warm-up, I thought, this is horrible, but it can\u2019t get any worse \u2013 at which point I lost my goggles! The Dart is tidal so there is a mix of fresh and salt water that stings your eyes, but I decided to just dig in and get it done.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>FP:\u00a0What swimming technique did you use? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> <em>I had planned to do front crawl, but with the lack of goggles, I switched to breaststroke with the words on the OSS website ringing in my ears: \u2018Breaststroke for 10K in a wetsuit will kill your knees\u2019, but I was running out of options.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>FP: Did you find yourself crashing into people? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> <em>I didn\u2019t crash into them but they certainly hit me; I think partly because they were faster, but also because they couldn\u2019t see me through the thick water.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>FP: What was your technique for knowing where you were going \u2013 did you just follow the person in front? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> <em>The river is massive in places, really wide and with long straights, so I looked as far ahead as possible for a landmark or buoy to aim for. The river sweeps around some long bends and going straight on the race line isn\u2019t always an option (plus we had to keep to the left as there were some very large boats using the right-hand side of the river). So, it was a combination of working with the current, staying on the correct side of the water, and staying out of the way of oncoming boats.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>FP: Was it what you thought it would be?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> <em>The river was more epic and impressive than I had expected \u2013 very wide and very deep.\u00a0Crystal clear it was not, but that was due to very heavy rain over the preceding days running off Dart Moor and bringing the soil with it. It wasn\u2019t \u2018dirty\u2019 water, but it certainly wasn\u2019t appetising. I thought that people would be taking their time to enjoy the amazing scenery, but they were going through the water like torpedoes. I, on the other hand, was having a lovely time and kept thinking how few people get to see the beautiful houses and valleys from this angle.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>FP: Would you do it again?\u00a0What didn\u2019t you like about the race?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> <em>Well, I\u2019ve been there, done that, and got the T-shirt, so maybe not. Yet, I\u2019m certainly looking to do more open water swimming. The start was the worst part.\u00a0When you run into cold water, you need to catch your breath, but down you go with the field and don\u2019t really spread out until after the first 1km. You\u2019d think that the hailstones that fell around two hours in would have been a low point, but actually I really liked them hitting the water.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>FP: What was the atmosphere like and how would you describe the race support?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong><em> The organisation was very good;\u00a0there were jet skis pulling people out who had given up, plus they were whizzing around to keep swimmers en route. There were loads of people on paddleboards who were there to help anyone out who got into difficulty and they were fantastic.\u00a0I think they were worried about me without any goggles and doing breaststroke, but I\u2019m a good communicator so I just assured them that, while I was slow, I was pretty indestructible.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>FP: Why would you say the Dart 10K has such a good reputation?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-4552 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Dart-10K.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"594\" height=\"792\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> <em>It\u2019s the original long-distance open swim and the organisation is slick. All these types of events are pricey, but I think that they earn their money.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>FP:\u00a0Would you do a triathlon?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> <em>I have to admit, I don\u2019t feel any pull towards a tri; I know I\u2019d end up spending \u00a35k on a bike, then only use it once.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>FP: What time did you complete the race in? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> <em>Don\u2019t laugh \u2026 3.5 hours, but I don&#8217;t care, I did it!\u00a0At 3am the night before I woke up convinced I couldn\u2019t swim 10K, but I set myself a goal of doing it in less than four hours, then said to myself that that meant I only needed to go about 65cm per second. Turns out I smashed that and did more like 57cm per second. For me, it was never a race, it was all about going the distance.\u00a0I crossed the line LAST, but there will have been people who didn\u2019t even get to the start line, and there were plenty who started but finished on the back of a jet ski, so I\u2019m actually rather chuffed that I finished, especially with my appalling (and not recommended) lack of training.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>FP: \u00a0How did you find your other race competitors? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> <em>Very friendly;\u00a0I was in the yellow hat group (slow brigade) with red, white and blue hats being the human speed boats, but it really didn\u2019t seem to matter. It\u2019s not called a race, but most people (99%) seem to go as fast as they can.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>FP: How did you celebrate?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> <em>My daughter said, \u201cDaddy, you smashed it,\u201d and proceeded to tell me what they had been doing for the last 3.5 hours. I sat on a bench and said, \u201cI think I need five minutes to recover \u2013 she gave me less than two, so the &#8216;celebration&#8217; was getting on the shuttle bus back to the start where the car was parked, putting the heated seats on, and eating the entire journey home!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>To follow on from Steve&#8217;s feature, we will hear how FitPro&#8217;s Olivia Hubbard got on in the Royal Parks Half Marathon which takes place this Sunday, 8 October. We will also hear from a group of 14 women who took on the coast to coast walk challenge from the Lake District to Robin Hoods Bay.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Have you just completed an event and are you a FitPro member? We would love to hear from you. Share your story with us and email: publish@fitpro.com\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FitPro member, Steve Barrett, has been working in the fitness industry long enough to remember&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6918,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[473,950,1104,634,137,518,25,204,905,1105,1106,741,700,1107,1108,446,141,1109],"class_list":{"0":"post-6915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news-features","8":"tag-challenge","9":"tag-competition","10":"tag-dart-10k","11":"tag-endurance","12":"tag-featured","13":"tag-fitness","14":"tag-fitpro","15":"tag-fitpro-blog","16":"tag-group-fitness","17":"tag-matrix","18":"tag-open-water","19":"tag-personal-trainer","20":"tag-race","21":"tag-river-swim","22":"tag-steve-barrett","23":"tag-swimming","24":"tag-training","25":"tag-wetsuit"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6915"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}