Swim Marathon | 13 miles

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 or family members and share the experience.

Looking for a fun challenge to keep the kids active? Join the Swim Marathon! An engaging solo challenge or fun for all the family! 

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.

How many lengths?

• 420 laps of a 50 metre pool
• 840 laps of a 25 metre pool

Included

• Guidance from Outdoor Swimmer
• Strava Club and Facebook group to meet fellow participants
• Swim Marathon swim cap (once you've raised £20)
• Exclusive Swim Marathon medal

To celebrate your fantastic achievement and as a thank you for completing this epic challenge, every swimmer who raises over £100 and completes their challenge will receive an exclusive Swim Marathon medal.

Fundraising materials

WaterAid's Events Team have some great fundraising ideas and inspirational stories to help you along the way! You can also receive some goodies including:

• Tins and buckets
• Banners
• Tablecloths
• Stickers
• T-shirts
• Sponsorship forms
• Leaflets
• Posters 

WaterAid

Help spread the joy of water.

In the UK we're so lucky to have clean water in abundance to help us live healthy, happy lives – for swimming as well as drinking, cooking, washing and growing food. But for almost 1 in 10 people around the world that just isn't the case.

Right now, 703 million people don't have clean water close to home.

Instead, they have no choice but to spend hours every day fetching water that isn't even safe. They're forced to cook, drink and clean with dirty water that makes them sick.

But together, through our love of water, we can change this.

When communities like Tsarafangitra in Magagascar get clean water for the first time there's a tremendous sense of joy. They know that from now on there's a chance for children to stay in school and get an education, for families to make a decent living, and for the whole community to lift themselves out of poverty. There's the possibility of a healthier, happier life.

You can help spread these joys and possibilities by taking part in Swim Marathon and bringing clean water to people around the world.

Age

Swim Marathon is great fun for all the family! 

Young people under the age of 18 can be registered for the challenge by a parent or guardian. All entrants under the age of 18 must be under the supervision of an adult at all times when completing their Swim Marathon challenge.

Entry fees

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