Swim Marathon

How to get started

• Register

  Sign up for the half marathon or full marathon challenge and create your personalised fundraising page.

• Pick your swim spot

  Whether it's a leisure centre, open-air lido or a safe natural spot, work out where you'll be completing your swims.

• Plan your swims

  Work out how many laps you'll do and how often, to make sure you can cover your chosen distance. Getting into a routine will help you stick to the challenge.

• Share your progress

  Tell friends and family how you're getting on, and make sure to send around your fundraising page so everyone knows how to sponsor you!

How often should you swim?

If you already swim regularly, the advice from the experts at Outdoor Swimmer is to set a weekly target of the same distance each week and each session space the distance out evenly.

If you haven't been swimming regularly, start with a small amount of swimming at the beginning and build up over time as your fitness improves.

It's also important to have a rest day once per week, so a maximum of six swims per week is suggested.

Pairs & teams

Swim together! Sign up to the challenge with a friend and share the experience.

How to keep track

• Use an app

  Download an app like Strava to track your swims.
  You can either link this to a waterproof smartwatch if you have one, or manually add an activity every time you swim. If you use Strava, you can link this directly to your fundraising page, log your swim distance and keep your sponsors up to date with your progress. 

• On your fundraising page

  Track your progress AND keep sponsors up to date.
  If you don’t use Strava you can still log your distance using a manual feature on your fundraising page.

• Keep your records offline

  Prefer to use a good old fashioned pen and paper?
  Use our downloadable distance tracker (PDF) to make notes of all your swims, then update your fundraising page to let your sponsors know where you’re at with your challenge. 

Whether it's a leisure centre, open-air lido or a safe natural spot, work out where you'll be completing your swims.

So good to do something that does so much for others and have a lot of fun along the way. Doing the marathon swims has encouraged me to keep the effort up and with encouragement from my swim buddies, we’re hoping to keep the swims going until Christmas. Neil Osbourne

I’ve had a long history of anxiety and depression I knew this pandemic was going to be very challenging on that front. 

Swimming has been my life line. I decided I needed to do something positive to have a focus over the coming months. I did some research and found that Wateraid UK were looking for volunteers to swim a cumulative marathon. It seemed a little crazy at the time as I was, up to this point only a little more than a “dipper” of a swimmer but .. nine weeks later I finished! Rach O-Sullivan

I am a heart failure nurse in Brighton and during the last lockdown I was redeployed looking after covid patients in a cardiology unit. It was a very exhausting three or so months.. I have been sea swimming throughout. It has been my stress reliever. I need a challenge to make the time for myself and this is to a very worthy cause. So, thank you. Ana Frappell