Swimming

Downtown Toronto Swim Club

One of the best decisions I made back in 2012 was to join the Downtown Toronto Swim Club. The club was extremely welcoming to me as a new member and someone who hadn’t been swimming regularly for years. I quickly built up my endurance and received many many tips on improving my stroke from the Coaches. If you’re look for a swim club in Toronto I recommend the DSC without hesitation.

Toronto Island Lake Swim

Update: The Toronto Island Lake Swim stopped in 2018 and it is showing no signs of starting again.

Once I started swimming regularly I decided to enter in the Toronto Island Lake Swim. It’s a race off the Toronto island with several distances along the end of the southern edge. I had some concerns with swimming in Lake Ontario but several of the DSC members swam off the beaches regularly and dis waded my concerns. I really enjoyed the race and swimming 1.5K in open water is about the right distance for me.

My swim times

Year	Distance	Time
2013	1.5K	39m 25s
2016	1.5K	50m 16s
2018	1.5K	48m 28s

Polar Bear Dip

In 2016, I decided to do the Toronto Polar Bear Dip on New Years Day. I went with my family and kept a large robe on until I was nearing the time for dip. I put this under swimming but it really doesn’t involve much swimming. If you never done the dip, it really involves a painfully slow march into the water until you get deep enough and clear of the 200 other people doing the dip at the same time. Once you do your “dip” then its another slow march to get out of the water and clear of the crowd. Once you get out you need to get warm and dry quickly… There are no changing facilities so we got back to our car as quickly as possible and did it there.