You have heard tell of The Swimmer Lite well .... (and keep this under your peaked Parker hat) Saturday with the most dazzling of difference was The Swimmer Driver, well for me anyway. The morning or should I say yawning started at stupid o'clock, that's 6am. Off we sped in what was later referred to as the support car, that's me Jonathan, Katy and Woody to darkest Hampstead for what can only be described as sporting madness....that's the running bit not the swimming. Arriving as planned at 7am at Starbucks (ssshh) in Hampstead where The Swimmer diehards were congregating...some even preparing for the run stocking up on nicotine.

Nicotine to go go go

Also to be marvelled at was the razzle dazzle of the day glo running gear that would get polystyrene spinning in her "the world turned day glo" grave.

Glo faster

Car packed to bursting and off we all set....me with my trusty iphone navigating the way and The Swimmer Crew forming a day glo snake hot footing it to Hampstead ponds agreeing to meet at Parliament Hill lido. What you need to understand in my world this lido is on a big old watery ley line to the future on account of its aluminium base. Before I even had time to settle in the car park, drink any of the whiskey I noticed in a bag, eat the ginger cake or more importantly spend the money I had been entrusted with they appeared all crazy eyed clambering to sample a swim in the future. So off to the future, even I ran.

Its a fare cop

Next stop the Serpentine.....again I beat them which gave me sometime to marvel at the tranquility of the Serpentine and the poshest looking ducks I think I ever did see. Next stop home territory.....Brockwell lido....unless doing the ultra which involved a swim at Tooting Bec and a run meeting up with the rest of The Swimmer Crew at Brockwell. If you ask me ordinary Swimmer or Ultra it's all a run far to far. 

The Serpentine..the calm before The Swimmer

Thankfully I just had time for a sun kissed swim in the lido before my support car duties kicked in. The whole driving lark was a gas, and not in the American petrol sense more in a laid back gas experience you get at the dentist. Impossible to pick the highlights as the whole adventure was a highlight, a mad crazy sport enthused bunch of people and not a sweaty smell from any one of them...phew....bobble hats to go, cake, coldwater, the comforts of a warm car, newspaper and tunes what's not to like...and of course Jonathan's, possibly illegal swim wear.

How many ruc sacs can you get in a VW?

The morning was a Triumph, or should that be VW Golf.