SwimOut SwimOut Podcast

Mikey and Vicki discuss the wonderful world of swimming communities. They chat with Rachel Jones who edited Toes in the Water - stories of lives changed by wild swimming. Vicki goes to Mamma Swim and finds out all about their group for mothers who want to swim in the open water. Mikey talks to fellow swimmers at Brighton Swimming Club- the oldest swimming club in England. Bill and Jeff share with us about their project iSwim4 which is for people recovering from substance addiction and Vicki finds out about a film called Rave On For The Avon and its maker Aggie Nyagari and star Meg who decided to become Mrs Avon.

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Amy Ennion and Vicki explore training for the big swim. They discuss their approaches to training and talk to Shannon House Keegan who works with people remotely. Vicki goes to meet Ray Gibbs who films you in his tank Swim Canary Wharf. Amy discusses training camps with Anna McCarthy, a regular at the infamous Irish swim camps and Mandy Bodemeaid from Dover Channel Training tells us all about their training weekends. Plus we hear from Mark Sheridan about a pool based group which provides support and inspiration and Jonathan Cowie tells us about his struggles with his sofa.

This season has seen a bumper crop of swimming records, so Vicki and Amy have sought out the record-breakers. We have Andy Donaldson who swam all seven of the Seven Oceans in just one year and Sophie Etheridge chats with Jackie Cobell having taken her Longest English Channel Swim mantle away. Jasmine Harrison, who has two Guinness world records, talks about her adventures. We grab a chat with Anshuman Jhingran, the "Little Boy from Mumbai", who snapped up two records in his first year of marathon swimming and we join it all up with Julian Critchlow who gathers in all the English Channel facts and is himself a record holder. It's going to be a smashing episode.

Mikey and Vicki bring you a cornucopia of tales about Mercedes Gleitze, the first British woman to swim the English Channel. With a dramatized section and interviews with her grandson Andrew Pember and bathing historian Anna Maria Mullally the program celebrates this iconic swimmer. We also find out all about the “Swimming a Long Way Together” project, a tribute to Mercedes created by Vanessa Daws. We bring Mercedes' story to life and delve deeper into who she was and the legacy she has left.

In this edition of the SwimOut podcast we explore how swimming can boost our wellbeing and soothe our worries.

Join Mikey and Vicki with special guest Amy – AmySwims as they talk about the challenges they have with how they look. We speak to Gill – Stoma Chameleon about her Channel crossing and Jamie from Blue Mind Men, a mental health swim for men. We find some great swimsuits which bring us joy, made by Usual Objections  and for the more environmental feel-good factor we talk with Angela from Swim Wild Wye who campaigns to keep her river pollution free.

In this episode Vicki meets Chloe McCardel who is the Queen of the Channel - she has swum the English Channel forty four times which is more times than any other person. Also she holds the record for the longest ever sea swim at 124.4 kilometers, taking 41 hours in the Bahamas. She is swimming royalty but also a passionate supporter of Women's rights, always ready to call out injustice.  

Vicki spends a day with Chloe in Weymouth finding out about her swimming, her past and what she is up to in Dorset this summer with her new boat Channel Queen.