In this episode Caroline is joined by Zoë Forbes.

We first met at my first ‘real life’ job after graduating and she has enriched my life ever since. We bonded over our mutual love for swimming and I finally, gently persuaded her to join me for an outdoor swim, In January! Straight in at the deep end, but she took to it like a duck to water. Zoë became a central character in our community, bringing her belly laughs and wicked sense of humour.

In 2019, Zoë got the news that she had both cervical and ovarian cancer and has since gone on a monumental journey fighting this with humour, unbelievable courage and bravery. Her attitude to 2019 blew me away and I can’t tell you how happy I am to be able to swim with Zoë again, and hear her wonderful laugh float down the river.

In this episode we discuss Zoë’s journey and what our beautiful, local swim tribe did to help her through. I hope that she will inspire you as much as she has inspired me.

Topics we cover are:

Shivering and after drops, swimgasms, Zoë’s first swim, Cancer, cold showers, our river swims, changing in cars, flashing in car parks and the beaver moon (yes, it is a real thing). At about 33 minutes in we go back again to chatting about some really heartfelt stuff: the support Zoë had during her chemotherapy and radiotherapy, counselling, community and friends. If you don’t want to listen to the whole pod, listen to this bit!

We discuss the kindness of people, coping mechanisms - Wig of the week, stepping off the treadmill of life, being looked after, having a renewed vigour, baldness, laughing, isolating and shielding in Covid, meeting people at certain times in your lives, shared common goals and identities, brain freeze, the differential between water and air temperature and finding what kit works for you when swimming in the cold.

*Important safety announcement: we discuss diving in. Please do not do this without the supervision of others, permission of lake owners if you are at a ticketed venue and also if you are not acclimatised. I spend the summer teaching people not to dive into cold water due to cold water shock. This is real, please do not do this without experts around you. Thank you*

We do say a couple of b@llocks, sh!s and minor swears so apologies for this. We do not mean to offend, this is just us.

Please note that this episode was recorded in December 2020 when there was no Lockdown 3.0 restricting travel.

Zoë Forbes

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