The 8th World Winter Swimming Championships were held in Jurmala, Latvia betwen 20th and 22nd January 2012. I wanted something slightly 'different' to do for my 40th birthday so we made the trip out to Latvia. The atmosphere was second to none, and it was really refreshing to be part of something that was more about the sport than of winning. I had wanted to swim in the 450m Endurance race, which was by invitation only. In order to do this, a condition of entry was to also enter the head up breast stroke which was one length of the 25m pool which was cut out of the ice in a river which came into the city via the Baltic Sea.

When I saw that they also organised a 25 and 50m free, I quickly signed up for all 4 events. I knew that I wouldn't be the fastest there but I later confirmed with the organisers that I was the only swimmer out of 1088 international swimmers to complete all 4 distances. This achievement was very important to me, as both the 25 and 50m free were only a couple of hours before the endurance race so I knew that it would add to the callenge by lowering my core body temperature before the start.

All in all, we had a fantastic time, and it was all good training for the 1-mile ice swim and the Bering relay.