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GB ICE VIKING - FENWICK RIDLEY
Ice swimmer, adventurer and fellow Feral Friend Fenwick Ridley has been busy! Here he tells us more about his recent ice swimming events...
I am so chuffed and powered by my recent ice swimming events, which included six winter events and a stack of personal bests, trophies, and medals. It all started with the GB Champs 2022, followed by the World Champs 2023 in January, then on to GB Champs 2023, Holland, and Austria. I finished off in Scotland last weekend for the Scottish Winter Champs, where I pushed through exhaustion and went up against some of the best Ice Swimmers.
So far, in international competitions, I have loved Austria the most, specifically the Wörthersee Ice Swim event. It was an official IISA International Ice Swimming Association event held at Wörthersee lake in Krumpendorf, where I managed to break all my times in 4.9°C water temp.
My times were as follows:
1k - 15min 36sec
200m - 2min 44sec
100m - 1min 15sec
50m - 36sec
50m fly - 37sec
There was also an Ice Mile event the day before that I completed to gain my first official ratification. People who know my training and what I have been achieving in the low temps at my stunning lake H2oTrails (Sweethope) knew that this mile was going to be easy for me. As previously mentioned, I have been looking to pass 3k under 5°C, but these distances can only be ratified starting with a mile before attempting bigger under IISA rules. My Ice Mile was awesome, with nice flat calm 4.9°C water, and I switched to cruise and did a comfortable 30min, which I normally would do a lot quicker. For any record attempts, it has to be a pool setup as this was a course layout. The world record in age group is about 25min, and my current 1k is about 15min, so it's not going to take me 10min to do the extra 600m. So, I have my heart set on breaking some personal bests and age group World Records.
Moving on to my last swims in the Scottish Winter Swimming Championships, I managed to beat my 450m time from 2022 by nearly 10sec with 7min14sec, earning me GOLD 1st in age group, and 50m front crawl at 33sec, a personal best getting me SILVER.
In all, I have beaten my World Championships times, and now I'm going to switch up my training to beast mode. I know I can do even better than this, and also I know I can destroy those times even more. I aim to shape myself more and push the short course racing even more now. This winter, I also ended up getting branded the GB Ice Viking, which kind of suits me haha.
Full Power, Fenwick Ridley 🇬🇧 GB Ice Viking
P.S. While I was away in Austria, I took some time to travel about and swim in some incredible places, which I will show on my YouTube soon.
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