I think I may have had the perfect swim today.

We’re in the middle of a brutal heatwave, and the only saving grace is that I have the time and ability to cool down with a swim every day. So I went down to the beach this morning with the aim of swimming early-ish and avoiding the worst of the heat. I didn’t entirely succeed because it was already about 30C/86F at 10 a.m. The water, though, was heavenly—cool and crystalline, with no strong current and barely any swell thanks to a gentle northerly breeze.

And I saw so much sea life! Far more than I’ve ever seen here before. No jellyfish, remarkably, but loads of little crabs scuttling along the sandy seabed, and dogfish (I think?), and something that looked like a bass out of the corner of my eye, and sparkly schools of whitebait. I had been excited to see a tiny sole in the rocks when I swam a few days ago, but this was next level. Between looking out for wildlife and being dazzled by the shimmer of sunlight in the water, it was the most entertaining and meditative swim. I also saw—separately—a lone beach shoe and a pair of goggles, but they were too deep to retrieve.

Yes, almost a year on from supporting the Jitterbugs Channel relay team, swimming continues to be my entire personality. My Instagram posts are basically just alternating pictures of Coco and the pool and/or sea, with some food and travel pics thrown in for good measure. I don’t have much more than that to show for myself, swimming-wise, other than some Garmin stats that I pay far too much attention to (it was blessing in disguise when I forgot to take my watch to the pool the other day—I just swam without thinking about how fast or far I was going).

But the very idea of “having something to show for myself” is problematic in ways that I’m only gradually coming to understand. I do not believe that anyone has an obligation to “live up to their potential” (whatever that even means), but there is definitely a Type A/perfectionist/overachieving part of me that thinks if I’m not somehow maximizing my abilities (whatever that even means), I’m failing. In terms of playing music, that thinking manifests as guilt about not practicing enough to improve my technique. In terms of work, it manifests as shame about not putting myself out there enough to get more and better jobs. And in terms of swimming, it manifests as embarrassment that I haven’t completed any big events or prominent swims.

I do realize that this is all hooey. I play the fiddle well enough to join in sessions and blissfully lose myself in the joy of making music. I do my job well enough to keep the work rolling in, including work that I enjoy and am really proud of. And I swim well enough to find it a relaxing and fun thing to do. There really doesn’t need to be anything more to it than that, and yet I repeatedly find myself entering swim events (like the Pier to Pier, coming up in just three days) and then backing out at the last minute—or, in the case of the recent Swim the Lake festival at Ardingly Reservoir, entering the event, attempting to do the swim, and then freaking out and not completing it. And we already know how my shot at swimming a Channel relay went…

But that Ardingly swim was a turning point, I think. I’m dealing with a fear of deep open water that I’m very much trying to get over, and the Ardingly swim was something of a test to see how I’m coming along. The test showed that I’m not as far along as I’d like to be in that regard, but it also showed that I might be aiming for the wrong thing. Ardingly was technically a race, though neither I nor any of the people I was swimming with approached it as such; it was just supposed to be a nice evening swim in a lovely location. It was also a very small, low-key affair. But it’s run by the Mid Sussex Triathlon Club and it had all the usual trappings of a race—competitor numbers written on hands, mass start when a whistle blew, almost everyone in wetsuits raring to go—which added a little edginess to the proceedings. I was already nervous about the swim itself, and this just made it worse. I certainly understand how some people get a buzz from that atmosphere, but I’m quite jumpy at the best of times, so whistles and whatnot aren’t great for my nerves (see also the klaxon on the boat during a Channel relay).

At Ardingly, I got through the start and swam a few hundred meters before my brain decided NOPE and my breathing got out of control. So I swam to the nearby safety kayak, and the nice woman paddling it told me to hang on to the end of it while I got my breath back and then swim again whenever I was ready. I got my breath back soon enough, but then I looked across the reservoir to the next the buoy I was supposed to swim to. It was not a (physically) difficult distance for me to cover, but when I thought about what it was going to (mentally) take me to get there, I realized that I just didn’t have it in me. I probably could have pushed through, feeling stressed and scared the whole time, but for what? A finisher’s medal, and avoiding the indignity of being taken the very short distance back to the start in a little boat? Admittedly, I could have done without the latter, because trying to get into the stupid boat was by far the worst part of the whole thing. But I considered it a win just to have gotten in the water at all that night. I didn’t want or need to put myself through anything more.

I’m grateful to have had that experience because it made me start to think seriously for the first time about what kind of swimming I really want to do. And after today’s glorious, languid solo swim, I’m starting to formulate an answer. Right now, I really want to do the kind of swimming where I’m the one who determines where I swim, when I swim, how far I swim, how fast I swim, who I swim with, and what the general vibe is. I acknowledge that I’m a good swimmer, but I also acknowledge that this doesn’t mean I have to “achieve” anything. I feel an internal pressure to push myself to achieve more, and I certainly have FOMO when I see the swimmers around me achieving more, but trying to become this different type of swimmer isn’t motivating me right now, it’s just stressing me out.

I’ve cut out part of an article from the December 2025 issue of Outdoor Swimmer magazine, which I keep posted by my desk. The title of the article is “Where does swimming fit in your life,” and it’s about training as an amateur (but serious) swimmer and keeping things in perspective:

“…keep sight of the fact that swimming is probably your hobby. It should add to your life and wellbeing. … Taking swimming seriously also doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with it. … If this means you don’t quite reach your full swimming potential, does that really matter? Surely it’s more important to enjoy your swimming and the role it plays in your life, rather than being the best possible swimmer you could be.”

I have not fully internalized this yet, but I’m working on it. So when I say I have nothing to show for myself, it both is and isn’t true. I have no finisher’s medals, no certificates, no ratified swims. But I do have all the swimming I’ve done since I first started getting into this swimming lark, some of it in the pool, some of it in the sea, some of it fun, some of it downright miserable, and all of it worthwhile just for its own sake.