Neil Gilson: Six Things You Need To Know About Ultra Swimming 

Neil Gilson started swimming ultra distances only after his son was diagnosed with PANDAS, an extremely rare autoimmune condition. After a lengthy struggle with multiple doctors to find the right diagnosis, it was by luck he and his wife saw a television program discussing the condition. The whole experience gave Gilson, a retired international swimmer, a reason to get back in the water.  Unexpectedly, his reconnection with the water didn’t just raise money and awareness for PANDAS charity, it was also the remedy he didn’t know he needed. 

Now, with a few ultras under his belt, Gilson shares six things about ultra swimming that go beyond the magnitude of the miles. 

When Gilson did his first ultra swimming event—a 24hr swim in Scotland—he thought it would be a “one and done”. Fast forward a few years and Gilson has swam the Bristol Channel against the current and is training to swim the 88 km across Lake Geneva. “It's a bit addictive,” he smiles. “It’s, it's strange. I just thought it'd be a one off four years ago. But it’s an addictive hobby. You just keep looking for the next big challenge.” Not only does he have an eye on the Lake Geneva course record but he ultimately wants to do a “there and back” of the Bristol Channel. “You start off with a challenge and then you think, ‘I can go better,’ and then you just want to go bigger and bigger.”

Swimming an ultra event means a lot of time in open water and that means a myriad of uncontrollable variables including temperature, tides, daylight, animal life, and weather. But Gilson says that’s also half the fun. “I love open water. It’s great: every swim is different, isn't it? You can't predict what's going to happen. At the end of my Bristol Channel, I had dolphins swimming around me and it was amazing,” he says. “You get so many different elements and it makes it exciting and less boring.”

“An ultra swim is something you can't take lightly. You have to be prepared to push yourself and go distance in training. You can't just walk into it,” Gilson says about taking on an ultra swim event. “A long swim is an hour or two hours, but after 12 hours, I've still got another 12 hours. People might not fully appreciate what you have to put in to get out.” Put simply, Gilson says it all comes down to hard work. “You have to put the work in 100% and just not give up.” 

He adds that it isn’t just about the physical training, it’s the mental preparation that must be considered as well. “You have to be prepared to take your mind and your body to places where they've not been before. If you're not prepared to do that, then you’ve probably push yourself too far, if you see what I mean. You probably already found your limit.”

If you’re swimming an ultra, it will get hard. It’s that inevitability that Gilson finds intriguing. “I enjoy putting myself to the limit and seeing where I can take it, what my potential is, and what my limit is,” he says. “You learn that until you do something that pushes you, you think you know your limit but actually it’s just mainly your mind telling you that's your limit. It's not actually your physical limit. You can push way past that feeling. I think once you know that you're just trying to learn what is my physical limit then? What can I, where can I, how far can I go?” 

“A lot of the time it’s your mind saying you need to stop or something is so bad when really it's a protective mechanism. There’s always that little bit further you can push—and I think you take that forward in life as well.”

When Gilson is pushing the limit of his physical and mental capacity, he draws strength from his purpose to help him through. Gilson competed at an international level in swimming during his twenties and after he retired from competition, he stopped swimming until his son was diagnosed with PANDAS. With the aim to help other families and raise awareness and funds for charity, Gilson had a reason to get back into the water and a greater purpose behind each ultra.

“When it gets hard, a lot of the time in the last swim, I thought about the reason why I was doing it and that sort of pushes you along. It helps as well knowing that your family's gonna be there at the end—my little boy will be there at the end. It all sort of drives and helps you push through.”  

Having a greater purpose didn't just help Gilson complete ultra swims and help the PANDAS community, it concurrently gave him something he had been missing since he left swimming. “From a personal point of view as well, having a reason to get back in and train has been really good,” he says. “When you're competing, you always have that goal in your head and you always have that next focus to drive you on and I lost that. That’s what I struggled with when I stopped swimming. This has given me that back. I did it for charity, but it also filled the void.”

“The thing that you get from swimming is a drive that nothing else can. You can't describe it to anyone,” Gilson says. Especially in sports that require so much dedication and discipline, Gilson says it instills a certain type of mindset that, “When things are tough, you can push through.” All the lessons Gilson learned and honed as a swimmer gave him the qualities to achieve success in the water, at work, and at home. 

“When I was 18 and all my friends were drinking and going out, I wasn't in that mindset. I was always thinking about swimming or I've got to get home for swimming in the morning. I always say to my kids, "You need to get into a sport because it makes you the sort of person that you want to be in the future–and I don't think you ever lose that.”