Rubber and Rat Pee.............

Ok so the time has come to face down the demons. It's a month to go and there is really no more procrastinating to be done. Time to order the suit. *cue dramatic sinister music intro*

Didn't really expect to get it right the first time, or even the second time, OK four suits later and it's time to panic!! Nobody looks good in ankle to neck neoprene, not even Marc Jenkins....... Ok maybe Marc Jenkins. Incidentally he's married to the only woman in the UK who also looks good in rubber, they'll probably have genetically modified offspring evolved to also look good in it.

................The rest of us mere mortals? Not a hope in hell!!!!

The best you can hope for is that it fits, that the legs are not too long, or the arms too big, that it fastens round your chest (triathletes are clearly lacking in this department....) and that you're sufficiently choked so as your very expensive piece of kit doesn't become a very expensive water scoop. You may also find yourself ordering industrial strength lube........... The kind you really want to buy online rather than over the counter at the chemist!

This comes under the heading "Things I wish I'd known before I agreed"

Halle Berry in cat woman I ain't, neither do I feel any sense of empathy with Ms Berry for what it took to get in and out of all that rubber. Still that's not the reason we're doing it is it?
*tries to sound convincing*

Suit trauma aside for the minute, what most triathletes and hardcore open water swimmers do is jump in bare foot, hell they even jump in minus the wetsuit where possible!
Me? Not so much. Not that I am unwilling to become a hardcore open water swimmer, or that I can't stand the cold, more to do with USFCs (Unidentified Squishy Foot Contacts) *shudder*
Unfortunately as our rivers and lakes have become cleaner, so the chances of coming across another living creature that does not require neck to toe neoprene have increased.
Remember all the screaming hysterical celebrities on that jungle programme? Not cool when you're in a lake full of hardcore swimmers and trying to attract the likes of Marc Jenkins (In the least attractive out fit you'll ever own!) to run from the water screaming like a girl.........

Luckily the nice people at Orca have invented these (the boots not the eel!):

They were on order before the suit was! As I pointed out to someone on twitter, I'd rather swim naked than shoeless.....

FINALLY with a suit that just about fits, shoes to avoid USFCs, tinted goggles for the sun (Yeah that's what's cursed the weather!) and gloves which may or may not make the final ensemble; it's time to take the plunge! (Into the rat pee, Weil's disease infected, fish riddled world of the open water swimmer.)