A Day swimming Loch Ness by Katy Jones

Monday 17/8/26: Message from Karen at 04:00 to tell us the only road up to Loch End start was closed and she had had to beg to get through, and advised we do the  same. Panic about the swim turned to panic about not being able to start the swim. We headed off and my plan was to cry and flash my cossie/boobs to get let through. Lucky for everyone the roadworks had been moved by 5am.

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Arrived at Loch End and I was having serious doubts that my 2 years training wasn’t enough and I’d dragged the whole family up to witness me have a mid swim breakdown. The air temp was decidedly fresh with a thick mist hanging over the Loch, cripes, and I hadn’t even stuck a toe in

Standard Katy smile stuck on and the “I can do this” mantra playing as I stumbled in. Temp was ok, not great, but I thought just get going, you’ve swum in colder than this (not that I’d even asked what the temperature was, that would be the action of a fool). My god hours 1-4 were nippy with clouds and chilly air, but you don’t ever say this out loud, because it’s “hot, hot, hot” regardless. At the start of a swim like this thoughts of the vastness of the water you are swimming in are equally inspiring and overwhelming, and the reality that you are doing what you have trained for can make you quite emotional.

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Hours 5-8 I just sucked up the temperature, even though the north wind was whipping at my back and arms, and also spinning the boat in circles, and I started to become very aware of the litres of ribena swishing around in my belly, but hey, my feeds have never caused me issues before so best to ignore the swishiness. The wind was pushing me, yay, but in a way that buggared my hip and started to make my stomach turn even more. By this point cruise boats had passed and shouted good luck, how could I let these complete strangers down? So big smile and waves all round, I’m blooming doing this. Hours 8-9, I was not great, my sickness was awful, I’d swallowed loads of loch water for 5 hours, and my hip was soooo painful. This slowed me down and I got cold again. I was done. I don’t say this lightly, I felt so ill. I had imagined crawling on to the boat and lying in a pool of sick, and that seemed like the better option.

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I told Karen I felt sick, I nibbled a banana, then I vomited approx 4 litres of ribena and loch water in 3 bouts. Karen’s eyes were on stalks, she said she’s never witnessed anything like it, and she was a paediatric nurse dealing with vomming children all day long. Had any Nessie hunters been out on the prowl, they would have assumed the ribena slick I was surrounded by was a Nessie kill zone. BUT by some miracle I suddenly felt 100 times better and decided not to give up (Karen wound not have let me anyway). Plan B, no more liquids as Dave reckoned the loch had risen a few inches after my vomming extravaganza. So bananas only, yum. At this point I was thinking of all of my swim friends and how I would explain feeling poorly as an excuse for sending 2 years of training down the toilet. I developed a breathing pattern to tackle the waves from the right, basically skip breathing when a wave was suspected. I’m now awesome at holding my breath, but also have a crick in my neck. Dave was helping by telling me to just make it to the next headland. Do you know how many flipping headlands there are in Loch Ness, 100,000,000’s. Karen was saying it was like I had been resurrected as I was swimming like a new woman. I just wanted it done. I hated Loch Ness, which was awkward because I have collected my own souvenir shops worth of Nessie tat. Fast forward to 2 hours left, that’s only a baby training swim, how hard could it be. Cue more headlands

.It was now torrential rain, and guess what I was fudging cold again. Who knew Loch Ness was cold?!?!?!? Head down and swim, and swim some more, and Dave suggested a last 1k sprint, he’s such a joker. At this point I knew I was going to cry at the end. I had given it my all after really thinking I wasn’t going to make it a number of times. But I did it. I left literally every part of me in that water, and I swam Loch Ness. The end was not glamorous, some slipping on stones, big puffy eyes, and having to immediately sit down because I thought I was going to decorate beautiful Fort Augustus with approximately 6 half digested bananas. Apologies to the lovely American lady who was congratulating me and asking Q’s whilst I was mumbling thank you and wondering how upset she’d be if I threw up on her shoes.

I can’t thank Dave and Karen enough for seeing me safely from one end to the other of Loch Ness, on a swim that means so much to me and was honestly the hardest swim I have taken on, but still managed to include smiles and laughter.

Length 36.2km, time 13:16:40, water temp 14.5-15.8, Beast Level MEGA.

Thank you friends and family for putting up with me for the best part of 2 years when one half of my brain has been completely taken over by this swim. I know I’ve been a pain in the ar$e!