Swim break experience at Watergate Bay

A guest blog by Lorraine Candy

It’s not often you hear swimming described as flying but then it is not often that you get the chance to perfect your front crawl with a teacher who coaches Olympians and considers swimming a performance art.

Salim Ahmed’s motivational methods encourage you to enjoy the process as much as the end goal: which in my case is to swim front crawl faster. I’d been dying to try his 2-day course at Watergate Bay hotel for some time having first seen Salim in action at Shepperton open water swim Lake, in Surrey. Why does everyone get out of the water smiling, I wondered and now I know.

His retreat includes three tutored lessons in the 25-metre infinity pool overlooking the beautiful Cornish beach and two theory sessions in the hotel’s chic boardroom. You also get a beautiful Coastal walk, and we were lucky enough to get a dip in the sea pool at Trevone Bay, one of my favourite places in North Cornwall. There are scones and cake too!

And this was a rare solo trip for me but I made the most of time away from the family (I have four kids, it's a lot!) resting between swims and walks in the hotel's many break out spaces with sofas, sea views and excellent refuelling treats.

This two-day break also gives you something invaluable following your post-swim clinic debrief and that’s access to advice from Salim for the rest of your swim journey once you get home from Watergate Bay. He calls himself the AA for open water swimmers and he’s not joking; I am still contacting him months later to check on my swim times and ask for advice.

So, what did we learn at Watergate? As a recreational swimmer, who has done a few outdoor events but only learnt front crawl at 45 years old it was a chance to work on my technique (from hand entry to rotation and everything in between) and to get a better feel for the water. Salim films you on the day so you can refresh your memory later on and see what’s happening with your swimming.

I only want to speed up so I can stay in the water longer and do bigger events, I am not aiming for a pool time to rival Adam Peatty but if that is your thing then this break would work too. Salim tailors his advice and plans to the swimmer. I was amazed that a beginner front crawl swimmer was able to do two lengths non-stop by the end of this weekend at the same time a triathlete training for a competition learnt to make small tweaks to improve her body position in the water too.

The relaxed vibe of the sessions, and the patient way Salim explained the process meant we were all able to take the information in and remember it – it’s not always this way with swim coaches. And we all left with a personal weekly training plan.We practised swim drills with floats, fins and kick boards and I benefited from watching more experienced swimmers in action.

I also made new friends on this trip, which is the joy of travelling alone, and marvelled at the way conversation flowed freely at dinner and how everyone got their swim needs met. There was some learning out of the pool too with a tailored Pilates class from Natalie Carrick in the hotel’s small studio. Natalie also joined us in the pool so we could join the dots on how important the core is to a good swim position which made this weekend even more unique.

Credit to: @shane_overthefalls

The location of this gorgeous hotel on the beach was the perfect setting to get into a swim mindset; it was such a treat also to have the pool to ourselves. We were fuelled well with magnificent breakfasts and dinner in the hotel’s restaurants.

And miracle of miracles I am swimming faster: this retreat kick started my journey to getting my times up and my mindset in the water to slow down. And I got to see the sunset across one of best beaches in the UK.

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