How cold water carried me through midlife - with Lorraine Candy

In At The Deep End

Lorraine Candy is one of Britain's most recognisable media voices. She is the former editor of Cosmopolitan, Elle and The Sunday Times Style, she's also a Sunday Times bestselling author and co-host of the hugely popular Postcards from Midlife podcast. But in this episode, it's not the magazine covers or the bestseller lists that take centre stage. It's the water.

Lorraine came to open water swimming at 47, after a panic attack during a sprint triathlon left her terrified and determined never to feel that way again. What followed was a decade-long journey that she describes, without exaggeration, as the single thing that has most improved her life. In this episode Salim and Lorraine talk about what cold water actually gave her during the hardest years of perimenopause, why community is the most underreported benefit of open water swimming, and how the two of them ended up working together on something many swimmers avoid facing: going faster.

It's a rich, honest conversation about bravery, belonging, and what it means to find a sport that will carry you through the rest of your life.

In this episode:

How a panic attack in a triathlon lake became the start of Lorraine's real swimming journey
Cold water swimming and perimenopause - the mental, physical, and community benefits
Why the open water swimming community is one of the most inclusive and body-positive spaces Lorraine has ever found
The moment she realised she'd been "plodding forever" and the mindful approach to speed that actually worked
Favourite swims: Lake Geneva at sunrise, the Scilly Isles, swimming through a shoal of mackerel in Cornwall
Fantasy swims on the horizon: the Strait of Gibraltar and Alcatraz
Advice for midlife women and teenage girls - why getting in the water might be the best thing you can do for both of them

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Lorraine Candy