River Arun 3.8k Swim 2025 – Race report
21 June 2025
River Arun 3.8k Swim 2025 – Race report by Dana Robertson.
This is a brilliant event which I’ve done a good few times.
It’s great if you are looking for a) river /open water experience, b) mass race start experience and b) a longer wetsuit swim in prep for an Ironman.
Chi Tri was well represented by myself, the de Laceys and Ben W. – and as usual it was a very well attended event, with swimmers of all ages and abilities.
It’s always really well run by Raw Energy Pursuits, super organised and lots of safety spotters out on the river and its banks.
Overall event vibes were good!
My goals were to:
a) See how training was paying off
b) Practice pacing
The Race.
Er, yeah…
Horn went and mass start shot off at quite a pace (see pic) – it’s always pretty exhilarating!
It is challenging and VERY good experience for mass start chaos experience, with people swimming over the back of your legs and coming at you from all angles in the first quarter of a mile – until the pack stretches out and it all calms down.
But pack chaos doesn’t really bug me, so it was all good.
However, my swim was a very much a tale of two halves…
First quarter mile was wayyyyyy too try hard and flappy, inefficient stroke and breathing nothing like as practiced – and I just compounded it by then even more over trying as I got cross with myself.
Needless to say pace went out of the window.
At half-way stage I tried to Zen out and get back to simple and long stroke, feeling stronger as I went – then going on to enjoy the rest of the swim a lot, which is always great coming in under the bridges at Littlehampton.
Time 54.44
So, OK-ish, but was disappointed in swim performance to be honest, given the messy first mile.
But that was the purpose of this race, to sort the kinks out before Julys Ironman – so we’ll see how that goes!
Ben did well with 56:09, Matt did really well with 57:28 swimming the whole event with an open wetsuit as his zip bust creating enormous drag in the water for the whole race and Lilly with 58:54.
To find out more about joining Chi Tri click here!