Qualification time

I remember watching David Walliams in ‘Little Britain’s Big Swim’ as he is about to start his qualifying swim in Croatia, and thinking how ridiculously impossible it seemed to front crawl constantly for 6 hours with occasional 30 second breaks for feeds. Here I was 10 months after first getting into a pool in adulthood about to attempt the same thing. I had swum for the time period before at Crystal Palace and at Rottnest but never in colder water, and never with so much riding on it. I understood if I didn’t qualify for the Channel now I could do it again in Dover Harbour, but I was not sure my confidence could take another big hit if I was pulled out. I would definitely go on to swim for at least 6 hours in Dover a few times over the summer, but I didn’t want the extra pressure of HAVING to finish again.

My roommate Simon had pulled himself out of the 6 hour swim the year previously and had ended up doing a relay swim across the Channel instead of a solo, he is a far better swimmer than me. He then resorted to a year on his famous ‘Dr Pepper’ diet, putting on some weight or ‘insulation’ and came back to attempt the swim again. I have massive respect for this, I think I would struggle to train for another entire year to do the same thing.

Greased up and ready to go

The weather on the day of the 6 hour swim was not good, not bad, but nowhere near as good as we had had it on the previous 2 days. The waves were a lot bigger than they had been and the wind was definitely more noticeable. We had a briefing on the Channel before the swim, which ended up over-running  by about 20 minutes, so by the time we started I had managed to work myself into quite a nervous wreck. At the end of the brief we all darted off to our rooms for last minute preparations, sun cream, nervous toilet breaks etc.

Slowly walking in, wasting vital seconds of the 6 hours!

Standing at the start line I looked at my watch, it was about 1130 and all I could think was I will now be swimming until 1730, madness. Then I thought that will probably be half of what it takes to get across the Channel, if not a lot more. Everyone shook hands, wished each other good luck and started our stop-watches and we were off.

The first hour is always the longest, and it was no different today, it was dragging. I felt ok and was swimming reasonably well but you just have no concept of time at all for the first hour, you literally don’t know if you have 5 minutes left or 50 minutes. The first feed finally came and everyone was in reasonably good spirits, the water didn’t feel anything like as cold as the day before and we were all reasonably happy. The second hour flew by and still spirits were high. 

Round the Pylon

We were then told that for the next 2 hours our course would be increased to swim around a pylon further out into the sea. This pleased me, as it broke the swim up a bit. Getting to the pylon however was not pleasant. The waves were massive it seemed, and the reef that the pylon was attached to seemed to be about 5cm under the surface so you had to take a really wide berth around it. It was knackering, and ruined any rhythm that I had built up getting to the pylon in the first place, it did however make the next 2 hours go a lot quicker.

At the 3^rd hour feed we noticed one of our swimmers had got out, we found out later that the cold had got to him and he had had enough and left. Another example of all the factors you have to take in when Channel swimming. He was one of the best swimmers there but really suffered with the cold and possibly psyched himself out before even getting in the water. He had also pulled himself out of the 3½ hour swim the day before but I was sure he’d do well today, it was a real shame for a nice bloke.

The 5^th hour was the hardest, not particularly from tiredness but mentally it was draining. I knew if I got through this hour then the 6^th wouldn’t be a problem as you have pretty much finished by then. I was beginning to feel the cold again, and my legs were shivering causing my hip flexors to cramp up. It was surprisingly painful. I stopped and rolled myself up trying to stretch off when Mia appeared in the boat next to me and asked if I was ok, I told her I was fine and she gave me a Milky Way chocolate bar, that was a real high point for me, amazing the little things that please you in certain situations. My morale was lifted and I swam away loving life. The 6^th hour was just a case of running down the clock, there was no way anybody was getting out now, we could all see the end in sight.

Looking good at the end

Simon and Freda

Swimming towards the end I started seeing people get out, it was over. 6 hour swim complete. I was so pleased that Simon had finished after his previous attempt, he didn’t only finish it but absolutely smashed it. The last couple of hours he was absolutely flying round and looking extremely comfortable. Morale was so high amongst everyone that finished. Hannah, who at one point looked even colder than me had really cheered up over the last hour. She was about the same speed as me and often we had ended up swimming alongside each other which made it easier somehow. It’s bizarre but you don’t really notice what you're doing when somebody else is swimming next to you, you just sort of go through the motions without thinking about it at all.

Nick, Freda, Mia and Karen all seemed genuinely happy that we had finished which was nice. One of the nice things about Channel swimming that was often commented on was the comradery and it was really obvious at the end, everyone was just as pleased for everyone else as they were for themselves.

The next couple of days were spent doing easy swims and chilling out around Gozo and Comino islands. It was a needed rest, although I didn’t feel that tired during the swims they had definitely caught up with me and I suddenly just wanted to sleep.

The end of the trip had arrived and all goodbyes were exchanged. Everybody was wished good luck for their upcoming swims. Not everyone was training for the Channel, although most were. We also had Tom who was swimming Lake Zurich, who had already completed a 2 way Channel relay (He was one of the Man-fish) and John who was swimming the Strait of Gibraltar. 

It turned out most of us would be seeing each other in a couple of weeks anyway as the season got underway in Dover on the last weekend of April, run by Freda. Then we would start experiencing some proper cold water and I was actually looking forward to it…