FAQs

Swimathon will take place on Friday 26 – Sunday 28 April 2024, and the more flexible MySwimathon version will take place between Friday 19 April and Sunday 05 May 2024.

Swimathon is designed to suit all levels of fitness, ability and age. This is your swim – from 400m to 30.9k, there is a Swimathon challenge for you! We’ve consolidated all Challenge types for you to read more here

Swimathon takes place on the weekend of 26 – 28 April 2024. Venues across the country have signed up to host sessions throughout the weekend, for you to complete your specific Swimathon challenge at. You can meet other swimmers taking on Swimathon and all join together to complete your distances. Medals will be awarded at the session following your swim and your venue will upload the results to us.

MySwimathon runs from 19th April - 5th May 2024, overlapping Swimathon weekend.

This option allows you to swim in your own time, wherever suits you, and submit your own results. This is useful if you don’t live near a venue hosting a session or aren’t able to join any hosted session times near you. It also suits if you prefer to swim independently!

To complete your MySwimathon challenge, simply head to a venue during standard recreational hours, and book in as per their prefered method for recreational swimmers. You keep track of your distance and time, and then log that into your Swimmer dashboard to submit your results! Medals will be posted out once they are submitted.

The below figures are based on a 25m pool:

30.9 Kilometres > 19.2 Miles > 1236 Lengths

Triple 5K > 9.37 Miles > 600 Lengths

5 Kilometres > 3.1 Miles > 200 Lengths

2.5 Kilometres > 1.6 Miles > 100 Lengths

1.5 Kilometres > 0.9 Miles > 60 Lengths

400m > 0.2 Miles > 16 Lengths

Swimathon is held in over 400 pools across the UK. Visit our Venues page to check out where these pools are and to find your closest one.

If you can’t make the Swimathon weekend (26 – 28 April 2024), a pool isn’t close enough to you, or if you just fancy a bit more flexibility to your Swimathon challenge, take advantage of MySwimathon or MySwimathon Lite! This entry option allows you to swim any distance (one of the set challenges or make up your own), any time and at any venue of your choosing between Friday 19 April and Sunday 05 May 2024.

Please note if you enter under MySwimathon the leisure centre you wish to swim at will charge you to enter the pool.

Swimathon entries are set on a Super early bird, early bird, general entry and last chance structure.

Individual challenges: £15 Adult, £11.25 Concession

Team challenges: £30 Adult, £22.50 Concession

Triple 5K: £30 Adult, £22.50 Concession

30.9: £15 Adult, £11.25 Concession

There is a £2.50 Support Swimming Fee added for entries at hosted venue sessions, which is given as a grant to your select Venue

After a particularly challenging 18 months, pools and venues across the UK are in desperate need of help to be able to continue to function as the heart of their communities. Given the scale of our Swimathon audience, we think it only right to utilise our voice to inspire support from our regular swimmers, those that use and keep venues running on a day-to-day basis. For 2023, £2.50 will be added to every venue-based entry in our Support Swimming campaign, which will go towards supporting Swimathon venues after such a tough year, with all of that fee going to the pool you register to swim at.

Here's a rough guide to help when entering your Swimathon speed:

400m: 30mins+ (Slow) > 20mins (Medium) > Sub 10mins (Fast)

1.5k: 1.5hrs+ (Slow) > 1hr (Medium) > Sub 20mins (Fast)

2.5k: 2hrs+ (Slow) > 1.5hrs (Medium) > Sub 1hr (Fast)

5k: 2.5hrs+ (Slow) > 2hrs (Medium) > Sub 1.5hrs (Fast)

Click here to see all of our available challenges

To secure a team entry, select any of the team options when registering and complete the form to create your team. All team members will then need to be invited by the person who created the team, to register their own details and join the team. You can invite people to join your team via the instructions on your dashboard – share the link with them so they can see the dashboard and click ‘join team’ - then they can register their details.

Entries will close at 1pm on the 23rd April 2024, but many pools will sell out quicker than this so we would advise entering as soon as you can!

This year there is a tiered pricing system. The best time to enter is during the Super Early Bird period when prices are the lowest.

Swimathon accepts Mastercard, Maestro/Switch, Visa and Visa Debit.

You are more than welcome to swim in as many organised Swimathon sessions as you wish over the event weekend. For each swim you wish to do, you will need to create a new registration, paying the entry fee for each place. Make sure to log out of your first registration before creating your second one. You can do this by clicking your name in the top bar. We then suggest that you only use one of your fundraising pages when sending your link out for sponsorship. You can mention in your 'personal message' that you are taking on more than one challenge.

Returning by popular demand for a second year in 2024 will be MySwimathon Lite: our FREE entry option... where fundraising unlocks rewards!

Extending on from our MySwimathon ethos of ‘Your swim, your way!’, we have removed all barriers for entry to bring you a free version of MySwimathon. All you have to do is fundraise £50 through your JustGiving page to qualify for your exclusive Swimathon cap and medal.

If your local venue is not an option on the search list, the venue has not yet registered to host sessions in 2024. However, if they know that there are swimmers interested in joining at their venue, they may wish to do so. We recommend heading to the pool to let them know there is interest in their local area and they can still get in touch with us and register to host in 2024.

If they cannot host, this may be due to timetable clashes or staffing requirements. But you can still join! We recommend the ‘MySwimathon’ option, where you can swim anywhere, anytime between 19th April – 5th May – you would need to attend the venue during standard recreational hours and track your own results to submit online. So, there are options available to you if your venue does not register to host a session at their pool.

For MySwimathon Challenges, this is only limited by the bookings you make at your venues during their recreational hours.

For Venue-Hosted sessions, most venues host a 3-hour session for swimmers to complete their distances, some may be able to offer more time, and some may be restricted to less time - so look out for this when selecting your session so you know how long you have to complete.

Venue-Hosted session times are set by the venues and may be limited due to staffing or other bookings they have in place. If you require longer than the specified session time, we recommend speaking directly to your venue to arrange that.

Teams can be made up of 2-5 people.

Click here to view the Swimathon rules.

Swimathon welcomes all ages and abilities.* It doesn’t matter if you can swim one length or one thousand, Swimathon has the challenge for you!

* Under 16s must be entered and accompanied by an adult.

We allow swim aids to ensure our challenges are inclusive to all swimmer abilities. However we recommend getting in touch with the venue directly to see if they have any limitations on the specific type of swimming aid used, as you will be sharing the lane with other swimmers completing Swimathon.

The great thing about Swimathon is that you don't even have to get wet to get involved! Many pools require volunteers to log laps, record times, support and encourage their swimmers. Check back here soon to find out about our volunteer programme.

If you can aim to arrive at your sessions half an hour before the swim time so you have enough time to get changed and be ready to swim at the start of the session time. For example, if your sessions is 8am-11am, you will start swimming at 8am.

All swimmers will receive a medal for completing their challenge. Those taking part in an organised Swimathon session will receive their medal immediately after their swim. Those taking part in the standard MySwimathon will be sent a medal via post after uploading their challenge time online. Those taking part in MySwimathon Lite will be sent a medal once they fundraise £50 on their JustGiving page and upload their challenge time online.

Please note, 5k medals will only be given to those who complete the individual 5k challenge.

If you are taking part in the Triple 5k or 30.9 challenges, you’ll receive our exclusive Triple 5k or 30.9 medal respectively.

All swimmers will receive a cap to wear when taking on their challenge. Those taking part in an organised Swimathon session will receive their cap at the venue. Those taking part in the standard MySwimathon will be sent a cap via post when they sign up. Those taking part in MySwimathon Lite will be sent a cap once they fundraise £50 on their JustGiving page.

All swimmers will be able to download their personal certificates from their dashboard after the event.

Instructions on how to submit your result will be shared in due course.

Cancer Research UK and Marie Curie will receive at least 70% of the total funds raised by Swimathon. The Swimathon Foundation will receive the balance of the funds raised by the Swimathon participants which it uses to fund its operating expenses as the owner of the Swimathon Event and to offer Swimathon Foundation Community Grants to promote swimming participation in communities around Swimathon hosted pools.

Yes! This year we have more fundraising rewards than ever before. Fundraise anywhere from £1 all the way up to £1000 (and beyond!) through your JustGiving page for exclusive Swimathon 2024 rewards!* Find out more about the incentives here.

Team fundraising is based on raising an average per team member to receive your exclusive Swimathon rewards. Terms and conditions apply.

* Fundraising for Swimathon 2024 closes on 31 May 2023. Please note that only online fundraising is counted towards your qualification for a fundraising reward. Offline fundraising sent to the charity PO BOXES will not be considered for incentive rewards.

If you qualify for a digital reward, this will be sent out to you via email within 24 hours of hitting your fundraising goal. This will happen from January 2024 onwards.

If you qualify for a physical reward, these will be sent out fortnightly from April onwards. Please note that the incentive fundraising deadline is 31 May 2024.

Please see terms and conditions for full details of fundraising rewards.

You can check if your JustGiving page has been set up by logging in to JustGiving. Once logged in, you can check if the JustGiving page you set up is connected to the Swimathon 2022 campaign. If you are unsure, please contact us on info@swimathon.org and our Customer Experience team can check for you.

Unfortunately we cannot link your JustGiving page once if it has already been set up. You will have to contact JustGiving directly.

You can do this directly from JustGiving. Log into your JustGiving account and your Swimathon fundraising page will be there. When you are on your Swimathon fundraising page, there will be a ‘Share’ link which will allow you to share via Facebook, Twitter and email.

The donation for Cancer Research UK and Marie Curie you can make before the payment page of your registration will not be added to your JustGiving page when you have set it up.

If you wish for the donation to count towards your fundraising rewards, please set up your JustGiving page first and donate the amount directly on that.

You can do this directly on JustGiving. Log into your JustGiving account and go to your Swimathon fundraising page. When you are on your Swimathon fundraising page, there will be a ‘Create a team’ button. Further instructions can be found here.

The official charity partners of Swimathon 2024 are Cancer Research UK and Marie Curie. Participants of the event should fundraise for Cancer Research UK and Marie Curie only.

If you are taking part in Swimathon and want to collect money in person, click here to download your sponsorship form.*

Don’t forget that you can pay in any cash you have collected into your JustGiving page using a credit or debit card.

*Please note that only online fundraising through a Swimathon JustGiving page is counted towards your qualification for a fundraising reward.

Cheques will need to be made payable to either Cancer Research UK or Marie Curie and sent to one of the below addresses:

Swimathon Team, Cancer Research UK, PO Box 1561, Oxford OX4 9GZ

OR

Swimathon Team, Marie Curie, PO BOX 23897, 14 Links Place, Edinburgh, EH6 9AB

There will also be the option to pay in offline income at your local Marie Curie charity shop.

All offline income paid in either charity will go towards the total income raised and split as follows:

Cancer Research UK and Marie Curie will receive at least 70% of the total funds raised by Swimathon. The Swimathon Foundation will receive the balance of the funds raised by the Swimathon participants which it uses to fund its operating expenses as the owner of the Swimathon Event and to offer Swimathon Foundation Community Grants to promote swimming participation in communities around Swimathon hosted pools.

Keep your eyes peeled for our Training Zone featuring the 10 week and 5 week training plans coming later in the year.

As per our Terms and Conditions, the entry fee for Swimathon 2023 is non-refundable and non-transferrable.

As stated in the Terms and Conditions, if you have registered as an individual entry, it is not possible to change this to a team entry. You will need to re-register as a team and contact Swimathon to cancel your individual entry. If you have registered as a team entry, it is not possible to change this to an individual entry. You will need to re-register as an individual and contact the Swimathon team to cancel your team entry. A refund will not be given for your first entry.

You can complete this via your dashboard. Log in using the link in your confirmation email, and scroll down to ‘Change Competition’ to switch to a different distance challenge.

Head to your dashboard – you can do this via the link in your confirmation email.

Scroll down to ‘Selected Sessions’ where you can see your session and venue listed and click ‘Change’

This takes you back to your registration form – click through to the venue selection page and re-select a new venue. Click save once you are done

If you are having problems completing this, please contact info@swimathon.org

Unfortunately, there will not be a Swimathon T-Shirt this year

Swimathon recognises its responsibility towards the planet and is committed to doing everything we can to reduce the impact of the event on the environment. Read our full environmental sustainability policy.

Since August 2021, our venues no longer have restrictions in place at their centres across the UK. We have here with many of our venue providers and outlined some key elements on how centres are currently being operated.

Most indoor pools are ventilated. Get in touch with your local pool to find out for that specific venue.

Click here to see the full Terms and Conditions for the Duncan Goodhew swimming lesson competition.