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| Lining up for the first plunge of the day at Highgate Men's pond |
In The Swimmer, John Cheever's celebrated 1964 short story, Neddy Merrill decides to swim home via a dozen or so of his
neighbours’ pools. Of course, to link this chain of water, he has to run across
lawns, through woods and down busy roads.
Inspired by Neddy’s watery journey, two south Londoners, Will Watt and Jonathan Cowie, came up with the idea of The Swimmer, a relaxed half-marathon that takes in a number of London’s finest parks and open-air pools. Starting in Hampstead in north London, the route heads down through the centre, crosses the Thames and ends up “back home” at Brockwell lido, near Brixton.
After months of admiring it
from afar, I finally signed up for the October Swimmer. It’s a brilliant event
and I’ve written up the day – or rather early morning – for the Guardian’s
running blog: The perfect joy of swimming and running through London.
Inspired by Neddy’s watery journey, two south Londoners, Will Watt and Jonathan Cowie, came up with the idea of The Swimmer, a relaxed half-marathon that takes in a number of London’s finest parks and open-air pools. Starting in Hampstead in north London, the route heads down through the centre, crosses the Thames and ends up “back home” at Brockwell lido, near Brixton.
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| Running across the Heath |
Continuing the theme of transplanting great sporting feats to the streets of London, someone has also invented a London version of the Bob Graham Round. Heights of Madness is a run that takes in all the inner London boroughs - 41 miles, 12 summits in an amazing six hours. Now if they combined this with the Swimmer...
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