**WHEN YOU BOOK THIS SESSION YOU MAY GO STRAIGHT TO WAITLIST. THIS IS SO WE CAN ENSURE THERE IS A SPACE IN YOUR LANE AVAILABLE (WORKED OUT BY SWIM SPEED) AND THOSE WITH THE CORRECT PRIOROTY ARE BOOKED IN**

SOUTH WEST SWIM'S HOW FAR CAN YOU GO?

Push Your Limits. Test Your Endurance.

Saturday 18th April 2026

12:00 noon to 4:15pm

Milton Road Historic Pool (33.3m)

This is a rare opportunity to use over 4 hours of uninterrupted pool time to test your endurance, fitness and mental resilience in a focused, well-managed long swim environment.

SESSION FORMAT

This event is based on the traditional format of 100x100m, however we are going longer due to the Health Hydro's longer 33.3 metre pool.

The swim session time is 4 hours in total. This is an individual event (teams are not permitted) and swimmers can choose one of the following challenges:

• 10km

• 5km

• Or swim as far as you can within the 4 hour session time for the ultimate challenge

All swimming will be completed in 133.2m repeats (4 lengths of the 33.3m pool), with a mandatory minimum rest of 10 seconds between repeats.

Rest is part of the challenge and must be taken.

This session is ideal for:

• Testing endurance and pacing

• Setting out-of-season benchmarks

• Practising race nutrition and hydration

• Completing a long, uninterrupted swim in a structured environment

We do not care which club or coach you usually swim with. This is about bringing swimmers together for a big endurance challenge, not labels.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS (PLEASE READ CAREFULLY)

To take part and book your spot, you must meet all of the following criteria:

• Minimum age: 18 years

• You MUST be able to swim front crawl, as this is a front crawl event.

• Able to sustain a pace of 2 minutes 30 seconds per 100m or faster over distance (i.e. not just being able to swim this pace full effort once)

• Able to swim at least 5km continuously

• Willing to commit to swimming a minimum of 5km during the session

If you do not meet these standards, please do not book.

Swimmers who do not meet the required pace or distance standard, but have booked onto the session, may be removed from the session. Any refund of this nature will carry a £5 admin charge. Please contact us first if you are in any doubt about the suitability of the session for your ability.

LANES & BOOKINGS

• Places are limited per lane

• Lanes are currently open for swimmers faster than 2:30 per 100m

• If you book and are placed on the waitlist, this means lanes are close to capacity and swimmers may need to be filtered by speed to ensure safe and appropriate lane allocation

Our aim is always to include as many swimmers as possible while maintaining safety, flow and session quality.

IMPORTANT BOOKING INFORMATION

• No cancellation period. All bookings are final. However, If you book and go onto the waitlist and we can't accomodate you a refund will be issued.

• Ensure you can swim FRONT CRAWL to a speed of 2minutes 30 seconds per 100m or faster. We will ask all recipients for their swim times as part of the booking process (unless we already have these if you are a regualr squad swimmer)

• Please ensure you are fully available on the date before booking.

• Refunds will not be given under any circumstances once booked, unless we are unable to accomodate you in your lane based on your speed.

We reserve the right to remove swimmers from the session if required due to:

• Safety concerns

• Lane etiquette or conduct

• Failure to meet the stated entry standards

If removal from the session is necessary, no refund will be issued. Our decision is final, the centres lifeguards will also remove swimmers from the session if poor conduct or centre rules are broken.

Push your limits.

Test your endurance.

How far can you go?

Let's See............

Introduction To Open Water Swimming - Level 1 Swim England Workshop

Your first step into the world of open water & triathlon Swimming working to achieve your Swim England Level 1 Open Water Certificate (and shiny badge, we all like a shiny badge.......right)

We are proud to offer our fully coached Introduction sessions for the 2026 season and are confident that our introduction sessions are unrivalled in their content and delivery. Our coaches will be with you in / on the water at all times, you will receive pre-session materials to prepare you for your first swim. After the session we will send online resources and support to assist your swimming further and continue your development. All our materials and methods are constantly reviewed for best practice and skills and safety relevance.

The Details
This Level 1 workshop will swim your way to your Swim England Level 1 certificate in Open Water Swimming and provide you with the skills and confidence to take to the water by yourself, tackle your first Open Water or Triathlon event, or just educate and improve the swim of the non competitive swimmer looking for that new and exciting challenge. 

This workshop is around 1.5 hours in duration, actual water time will vary depending on the water temperature at the time of the session.

This session will cover

• Safety / Session brief, including venue specific safety
• Putting on your wetsuit - making the dark art of getting rubber on your body as simple as 1-2-3-4
• Safe Entry / Exit of the water
• Acclimatisation and breathing control
• Self Rescue & Emergency actions
• Basic Sighting Action for front crawl swimmers
• Group Swimming Familiarisation
• 200m Test Swim (part of the Level 1 Certificate sign off process)
• The Syllabus of the Swim England Level 1 Certificate in Open Water Swimming. This is ONLY passed if the swimmer completes all of the content in the course, including online questions (link sent nearer the course date)

You will need

To participate all swimmers will need to be aged 18 or over and bring with them:

• Aged 18 or over (sessions for 11-17 year olds are available on a 1-to-1 basis)
• To be able to swim at lease 200m of any stroke (note; most of the skills based work in this session is front crawl based)
• A Swimsuit
• A Wetsuit (triathlon/swimming suit NOT a tri suit) – optional on SWS coaches written approval in temperatures over 20 degrees plus but recommended for these sessions due to the stop start nature of skills development.
• Goggles
• Bright coloured swim cap (or two), We have these if you do not have one already.
• Swimming gloves and booties are optional, generally not needed for most swimmers once the water temperature is over 15 degrees.
  
• Towel or Changing Robe. We recommend the Ddipp robes, save 10% using our special discount code SWSWIM-10
• A swimming tow float, such as the Swim Secure Tow Float / Dry Bag Range. Don't worry if you don't have your own, we can loan you one for your session or they are available from us to purchase at a discounted rate (5% off). Contact us before the session to arrange purchase.
  
• A drink, hot or cold depending on the weather. Get an exclusive 15% discount from our friends at Precision Fuel and hydration

Want to develop further?

After your Level 1 course we can also offer individual based coaching in our open water 1-to-1 sessions. Book through your booking account as we would love to take your swimming to the next level.

SOUTH WEST SWIM SQUAD EXCLUSIVE!!
Race Skills Development Workshop Session

This session is ONLY available to our club squad swimmers that swim with us under a 5 or 10 session squad membership, please do not book this session if you are not a member of our SWS Squads as your place will be removed and you will not be able to swim.

An exclusive early season open water skills session for squad swimmers. Join us at lake86 for a bespoke squad workshop where we will work with you on those essential open water racing skills;
- Sighting
- Turns
- Group Swimming / Drafting
We may even throw in some hard work for you, it cant all be skills and rainbows after all.

Book now to reserve your place on this squad special, special pricing and limited places apply to this session. If it is oversubscribed we may host an additional session and split each by lane / speed order.

These sessions can only run if we get at least 4 swimmers per session.

We have two dates:
SATURDAY MAY 16th at 10am - This session is for swimmers who swim in lanes with a paces of 2:00 per 100m or faster.

SATURDAY MAY 23rd at 12 noon- This session is for swimmers who swim in lanes with a paces of less than 2:00 per 100m.

please ensure you book the correct session for your swim speed, if in doubt please contact me before booking.

*Important: Cancellation period for this special workshop is the same as our squad policy; 36 hours before the start time of the session. As this is (potentially) a one off session any early cancellations will transfer into 2x normal squad sessions on your account, please advise if you early cancel so we can activiate this. Late cancellations will mean the session fee is lost as per our standard T&C's

SOUTH WEST SWIM SQUAD EXCLUSIVE!!
Race Skills Development Workshop Session

This session is ONLY available to our club squad swimmers that swim with us under a 5 or 10 session squad membership, please do not book this session if you are not a member of our SWS Squads as your place will be removed and you will not be able to swim.

An exclusive early season open water skills session for squad swimmers. Join us at lake86 for a bespoke squad workshop where we will work with you on those essential open water racing skills;
- Sighting
- Turns
- Group Swimming / Drafting
We may even throw in some hard work for you, it cant all be skills and rainbows after all.

Book now to reserve your place on this squad special, special pricing and limited places apply to this session. If it is oversubscribed we may host an additional session and split each by lane / speed order.

These sessions can only run if we get at least 4 swimmers per session.

We have two dates:
SATURDAY MAY 16th at 10am - This session is for swimmers who swim in lanes with a paces of 2:00 per 100m or faster.

SATURDAY MAY 23rd at 12 noon- This session is for swimmers who swim in lanes with a paces of less than 2:00 per 100m.

please ensure you book the correct session for your swim speed, if in doubt please contact me before booking.

*Important: Cancellation period for this special workshop is the same as our squad policy; 36 hours before the start time of the session. As this is (potentially) a one off session any early cancellations will transfer into 2x normal squad sessions on your account, please advise if you early cancel so we can activiate this. Late cancellations will mean the session fee is lost as per our standard T&C's