08/08/2011

What a Difference a Day Makes


This weekend was possibly my penultimate weekend at Dover before my actual swim. I am struggling to believe how quickly this year of training has gone, it has absolutely flown by. I keep getting asked if I am ready. I’m not sure you can ever know you are completely ready until you are standing on the beach in France, what I will say is I am as ready as I’ll ever be. I have done the training, I haven’t bluffed my way through it, and soon (hopefully) it will all pay off.

The glamourous world of Channel swimming
I arrived at the beach on Saturday, to pretty lovely conditions, expecting a relatively short swim. I was rewarded with 4 hours. This may not seem like a short swim but it really is, it’s basically two feeds (we don’t get fed until 2 hours in), then the last 2 hours is easy. After a little speech from Stuart Branch, conqueror of the Channel in mid-week, we were off.


A pointless video

This week I decided I was going to swim as hard as I could for the first 2 hours, and then chill out a little bit in the second 2. What actually happened was I swam hard for the first 2 hours, and then kept up that same pace for the entire time. The secret to this swim was peanut butter sandwiches.

I have recently decided that I am a man who is powered purely by protein, carbs don’t appear to do that much for me, which is why I have been getting so hungry on my swims. All I have been consuming is carbs, with no protein at all. Suddenly, with just a couple of tiny peanut butter sandwiches inside me, I have become a swimming machine (a slow machine yes, but the ZX Spectrum was a machine. I'm faster than that). I didn't even experience slight hunger throughout the entire swim. This is excellent news for me, hunger really has been my Achilles heel so far.

Enjoying my greasing a little too much
My wrist also didn’t hurt at all. I saw my friend at Lambert Performance in the week. He appears to be some kind of witch doctor. After a few stretches and getting into some awkward positions I felt fine. There wasn’t even any pain when he pushed directly onto the injury with his thumb. If you’re in London and want to be fixed, pay him a visit. It is well worth it.

So on Saturday I ended up covering 12,250metres in my 4 hour swim, this is including feeds which take about a minute, so I was smashing out over 3km an hour. On Sunday I had another 4 hour swim, despite Freda promising it would only be a 3 hour dip (I knew that was too good to be true). This time I only covered 10,500metres. This wasn’t due to bluffing though, this was due to basically having to swim up a waterfall.

The conditions on Sunday were not great. It was fine swimming from right to left, but when you turned around at the wall it was horrific. If you have ever swam in an endless pool on full power, on the back of a flat-bed truck driving at 60mph round an off-road circuit, you will have some idea of what the conditions were like. It was hard work. You literally had to punch through the waves to get moving, to be fair I quite enjoyed it. After 3 hours my enjoyment had waned a little I must admit.

Actually looking warmer than Ange, this is a first
At one point the heavens opened and it absolutely poured with rain, this was a real high point. It genuinely was a high point, it flattened the sea out a bit and was just interesting. There was no chance of getting bored on this swim. As soon as the rain stopped though the waves returned, my shoulders were not happy with this.

After I had finished my 4 hours, I watched a man who still had a couple of hours to swim. He was basically swimming on the spot, he couldn’t beat the current. It was very strange to watch, especially when people swimming in the opposite direction glided past effortlessly. It’s all good training though, as I imagine there will be a spot or 2 (or 7) where I cover very little ground on my Channel swim.

I got back on Sunday to a message from my friend over in Australia who said I had been on TV, due to being around whilst ChloĆ« McCardel attempted her triple crossing. Only for about 2 seconds (after 5mins 31secs), but still it looks like I have finally cracked Australia!

Ensuring I didn't spend 1 second too long in the water
Thanks again to everybody that has sponsored me so far, I am nearly where I want to be, just need another £1,000(ish). If you do fancy sponsoring me then just click the Help for Heroes logo on the top right of this page, or here if it's easier. All sponsors are very gratefully received…

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