Summer☀️swimming In Sweden 🇸🇪 The Vidöstern simmet 🏊♂️
The Vidostern swim caught my eye in Outdoor Swimmer magazine earlier this year. I’m a lifelong open-water swimmer and have always been a bit of a traveler, curious about how things are done in other countries. So a challenging swim in a beautiful Swedish lake immediately sowed the seed for a first summer trip to Scandinavia with my 15 year-old son, Bruce. Avoiding the extreme heat of southern Europe (and England!) was a bonus.
Wanting to avoid planes, cars and too much carbon, we decided to take the ferry from Harwich (within sight of our seaside home, Felixstowe) to the Hoek 🇳🇱 and then Interail through NL, D and DK, up to Sweden.
Sailing out in sunshine through awesome fields of offshore wind turbines was exhilarating.
First (swim) stop was cool Copenhagen with city centre waters clean enough to swim and everyone relaxing on the smooth wooden ‘deck-beaches’, swimming freely and some jumping off high platforms - very different to the strict supervision of the UK. And Bruce had one of his favourite ever runs along the bustling Copenhagen waterfront - we’ll be back! And after the best Thai meal ever, it was time to Interail on to Sweden 🇸🇪
After a rural detour to a deserted hostel at Gnosjö we made it to Varnamo the day before the swim and in time for the (21k) race briefing. And what a briefing! Delivered (in English) with a perfect blend of professionalism, humour and passion by the inspiring instigator of the whole event, Adam Svennson. [My only comment here would be to also hold a (short) briefing for the 6k event.] Such a great feeling walking into that room full of outdoor swimming compadres - noticed the mighty 42k guys carb loading throughout! - all preparing for their huge challenge.
To get to registration at Sundet we’d need a lift - and, lucky us, this was happily provided by Pia, Adam’s wife, who gave us a guided ride along the route, also explaining how much work goes into the event - all by volunteers. There were 80 volunteers on the day - 40 on land, 40 on the water. And for the first time Adam himself was able to step back a little to allow him to swim the 21k himself 💪Organising and competing (both successfully) in a race of this size - as a coach and organiser myself - I can relate to the huge effort & achievement this represents 👏👏👏
The 6k start time of 2pm was very civilised! There was time for a relaxed registration, listening to a bit of Abba on the PA 🇸🇪, chatting to fellow-6kers. We also got to see the winner of the 42k swim arrive - what a dude, strolling out quietly, no hat, full beard, arms raised, a brief roar - very coolly done sir 😎
An air-conditioned bus took us to our posh start area: our individual, inflated tow floats laid out on lush, shady green grass in the grounds of a grand building - this was the plushest event toilet facility imaginable, and the first time I’ve ever wandered *in my wetsuit* past a wedding party enjoying lunch at a long table on my way to complete that essential pre-race task 😉
Just before the start I introduced myself to one of the biggest names in marathon swimming - English Channel record-holder (6hrs 55min in 2011) - Trent Grimsey, lining up alongside us. Like me, Trent was on holiday with family, and also sees himself more as swim coach than swimmer these days. With no training or wetsuit he still managed to get on the men’s podium 👍🇦🇺
One idea here would be to gather all the 6k swimmers briefly together for a whole-group photo before the start - with an excellent photographer there and such a picturesque location, it would make a lovely memento and publicity shot. Next time?!
I felt great at the 6k water start - but committed the schoolboy error of not checking our first target, so headed off (alone!) towards the first visible yellow buoy, realising later that this was for the 21k swimmers only 🙄 That only cost me perhaps 100m but was enough to lose touch with other swimmers and I ended up swimming most of the remaining distance alone. At the next marker I thought we had to check in on shore but when there was told that wasn’t necessary. Normally I would do a swim of this length without feeds, so after that error it was all systems go! The lake was so calm and hazard-free you could really appreciate the beauty of the surroundings and also focus on technique and find a rhythm - all aspects which make swimming at its best a unique Zen-like experience 😊
But I also wanted to post a good time and do myself justice, so keeping stroke rate up above 60spm, sighting efficiently and swimming with purpose were also on my agenda. Leaving those earlier navigation blips behind, the buoys ticked by and before too long the bridge was just visible, giving fresh impetus. I headed straight for it, but as I approached, a line of reeds appeared and the water became too shallow to swim - I had gone to the right of a small ‘island’ just before the bridge and had to make a 90° turn for 50m to rejoin the correct route to the finish - won’t make that mistake next time!
It was a great feeling hitting the timing board and getting a pleasing finish time of 1hr 59min 25sec 😉. Not on the podium (there was an actual podium👍) but a top 10 holiday finish, celebrated with coffee and a waffle - nice!
Many thanks to Adam, Christer and team, for such top notch organisation, as well as Ingela, Niklas & Jesper for their hospitality. We went on to enjoy a relaxing time (and more swimming!) in Gothenburg and have a superb Scandi / north European vacation, all thanks to the unique Vidosternsimmet.
