top of page

swimmingpod series.jpg

Swimmingpod

Swimmingpod is a podcast series from Stanley Ulijaszek, life-long swimmer. I speak with outdoor swimmers of many persuasions, about their swim-projects, how they got into swimming and what the get out of it. Across all seasons and all outdoor swimming pleasures.

The music is Noe Noe, Vienna Beat, and Watercool Quiet, by Blue Dot Sessions.

Juliet Turnbull -‘Open Water - Share the Knowledge’

Juliet Turnbull set up this group to share open water experience with people newly entering open water swimming, promoting positive use of open water. Otherwise known as the Thames Mermaid, she swims in the Thames at Molesey and Thames Ditton almost every day. She has swum the length of the non-tidal Thames across two years, with many swimming achievements.

fiona darrin kath blog image_edited.jpg

Wild Open Swim, with Kath Fotheringham, Fiona Undrill and Darrin Roles

The Wild Open Swim Blog now sits under the Swim Oxford banner, of the Wild Swim series, set in locations of natural beauty in West Oxfordshire. The blog is a celebration of open water swimming all year and the photographs, words and artwork that it has inspired.

Tess and Judy Bird, Swimming in Connecticut

Tess and Judy Bird, both in New England, daughter and mother, both swimmers, sometimes together, most often not.

There's more... Click on the image for podcast

The Sophie Etheridge, Adaptive Athlete, and Swimming the 21 miles of the Two-Way Windermere

An adaptive athlete, Sophie Etheridge developed complex regional pain syndrome after a car knocked her off her bike as she was travelling to triathlon training. Now a wheelchair user, Sophie is tough, determined, an achiever, who won back her swimming identity stroke by stroke, swimming through the pain. In 2021 she swam the Two-Way Windermere, all 21 miles of it.

Tom Elliott and Richard Flint Talk About Swimming and the Making of Swim-Film ‘As You Lake It’

Tom Elliott and Danny Longman swam all the lakes of the Lake District in four days, and Richard Flint filmed them. In this podcast, Richard, maker of the film ‘As You Lake It’, talks about the process of filming them do it, and Tom talks doing it - swimming the lakes of the Lake District.

Dylan Friedmann - A Year (and counting) of Swimming and Dipping Daily in Lake Ontario, Canada

Toronto-based Dylan Friedmann is an inspiration. She undertook, January 1st, 2021, to swim (or dip) in Lake Ontario every single day of the year to raise money for the charity Kids Help Phone, helping with adolescent mental health in Canada right now when help is needed. Air temperature on some of her dips dips to minus thirty Celsius, the water close on zero.

The Second Great Stink? UK Swimming Rivers in a Mess, by Stanley Ulijaszek

The Second Great Stink? UK Swimming Rivers in a Mess, by Stanley Ulijaszek

The Thames, right now is not the universally clean and sparkling river of my dreams. This podcast is about trying to understand, as a swimmer, the problems surrounding rivers in the UK right now – the dumping of raw sewage, of pollution. How did we get into this watery mess? If it were simple, it would have been solved - so what is going on?

Charles Sprawson's 'Haunts of the Black Masseur' at 30 years - A Discussion with John Von

Charles Sprawson's 'Haunts of the Black Masseur' at 30 years - A Discussion with John Von

This podcast, with German nationally-acclaimed playwright, essayist, dramaturge and prize-winning novelist John von Düffel and acclaimed film-maker James Norton, considers Charles Sprawson’s classic book about the history and cultures of swimming, some thirty years after it was first published. Both John and James are passionate about this book, John having adapted it for a German-speaking audience in 2002. The discussion ranges from swimming heroes, to romanticism, and to environmental degradation, as well as James' and John's own swimming passions. The book remains as current as ever, but is about so much more than the issues we discuss. Had we recorded the podcast on another day, it might well have been different. Like open water swimming itself – each day is different.

Duncan Goodhew, Olympic Gold Medalist, and the State of Swimming in the United Kingdom

Duncan Goodhew, Olympic Gold Medalist, and the State of Swimming in the United Kingdom

Duncan Goodhew is a life-long swimmer and champion of swimming in more ways than one. He won Olympic Gold and Bronze in the 100 meters breaststroke and 100 meter medley relay respectively, in the Moscow 1980 Olympics. He has promoted swimming at all levels ever since.
He is President of Swimathon, the swimming charity that brings together swimmers of all ages and abilities with two simple aims: to spread the joys and benefits of swimming whilst raising money for some of the UK’s most needful charity work. He was awarded the Humane Award for administering life-saving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to Lord Sheldon – he learned CPR as an adolescent, with the Learn to Swim Programme. He is one of the founding trustees of what is now SportsAid, a charity which enriches the lives of talented young athletes by recognizing and nurturing their abilities through and beyond sport. He was awarded MBE in 1983 for services to sport. Ever since struck gold and bronze in Moscow, he has been very keen to give back - swimming saved him, gave him direction, from being a wayward and headstrong teenager, to being a champion in every sense of the word, across his adult life.
In this podcast we talk about those early years, about his achievements, and about the important and good work he has done ever since.

Swimming, Leptospirosis, and Me

I was hospitalized with leptospirosis, Weil’s Disease, in August 2021. The risk of this disease sits at the back of the mind of many river and lake swimmers, but it very rarely materialises. It did so in my mind too, until. Until the intense burning and body chills, head and body aches, falling and falling blood pressure took me to hospital and intensive care. The clinical descriptions of the disease do not do justice to the metabolic and physiological roller-coaster I went on. This took me to some strange places in my head, and subsequently made me revisit the risks of contracting this vile disease. This podcast is an account of my treatment-seeking experience, real and hallucinatory, as my condition worsened, into sepsis, and out again, with the expertise and integrated hard work of the medical staff of the University of Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital. Heroes all.

Polar Bear swimsuit 2021.jpg

Pauline Barker, and the Polar Bear (and Penguin) Challenge

Pauline Barker talks about the origins of the Polar Bear Challenge, and how it has expanded. She describes how many people got through the UK COVID-19 winter through swimming, dipping or equivalent challenges. Most importantly, she talks about what’s in store for the coming winter of 2021-22. Winter swimming has probably never been so popular in the UK as it is now, and Pauline Barker, one of the most experienced people in this field anywhere.

Anette Frisch and Mindful Swimming

Anette Frisch and Mindful Swimming

I talked with Anette Frisch about life, work, swimming, the future and the past and it became a podcast. We recorded it when the COVID-19 future looked less certain than it does now. The future – ‘it will come’. Life as normal - ‘It will come’. Anette’s swimming life has been on pandemic pause, and there is air of melancholy to the conversation we have which lights up, glistens, when we talk about outdoor swimming pools and their very special resonance. Anette Frisch lives in Germany, in Dusseldorf. She is one of the most mindful swimmers I know, and this podcast very much became about exactly that – mindful swimming. It wasn’t planned that way, it just happened. Which is part of the magic of mindful swimming – it just happens.

bottom of page