25/08/2011

Get Back on the Horse

Another year in Speedos, Crocs and Vaseline
I thought I’d best put another post on here due to the quite depressing nature of the last one. 

First of all I’d like to say thank you for all the kind messages I have received, it’s been really nice and surprising. I am not feeling too bad at all anymore, and am currently in the process of booking my boat for 2012. After swimming 12,600m in 4 hours in the pool on Wednesday, I still have the bug to get across to France.

The water temperature is not going to be a problem next year, and hopefully I’ll get a bit more self-belief between now and then. This will be helped by a massive year of training. The goal is to get as close to 4km an hour as possible, this is a big ask. But 3km an hour was a big ask not too long ago and now I average well above that, apart from when it mattered.

All this extra drama will just make it a far more absorbing book anyway, nothing interesting about somebody being excellent at swimming and getting across in 8 hours. Far more exciting to see somebody splutter and vomit their way to France.

Thanks a lot again for all the support, this time next year I’ll be a Channel swimmer!

21/08/2011

Where Did It All Go Wrong?


As a lot of you will probably already know my Channel swim did not go according to my master plan. I only managed to complete 6 hours. To be fair at least an hour and a half of that wasn’t really swimming, it was just moaning and trying not to cry. I don’t know what happened on the day. It was a nightmare and I expect a lot more from myself. This won’t be a post of self-pity, or making excuses, but instead will hopefully help me sort my head out. It will maybe also highlight any little pieces of positivity from the swim, or give advice to those thinking of attempting it. They say you learn a lot more from failure.

Checking the light
The swim was scheduled to start at around midnight on Friday 19th/Saturday 20th August, and we arrived at Dover for about 11o’clock. I had already been up for 14 hours as I had failed to get any sleep in the day, due to unbelievable nerves. This is something I definitely need to work on. I was literally gagging and nearly being sick with nerves for the entire day – and the day before, as initially I was going to swim then until the weather deteriorated. So this wasn’t the best preparation.

Getting greased - I was already looking nervous
We had a bit of a hold up at the harbour. Paul couldn’t get the boat ‘Pace Arrow’ in, as the harbour gate hadn’t been opened at the correct time. We eventually boarded at around half past midnight. I had a lot of people to see me off, which in hindsight I don’t know was a good thing. My focus was off a little bit and I probably put a bit of extra pressure on myself to please everyone that was there. This is obviously easy to say when looking back, the chances are it made no difference at all.

The swim started at 1am on the dot – I had been awake for 16 hours and had at least 14 hours of swimming ahead of me (so I thought). I would have had to be awake for at least 30 hours. Again this is not an excuse, some people’s swims alone are longer than this – Jackie Cobell swam her solo in over 28hours last year. That is an incredibly tough woman.

It was pretty dark
At the first feed after 1 hour I wouldn’t say I felt fine, but it came around pretty quickly and I was swimming well. I managed to get the peanut butter sandwich and Maxim in me without a problem and cracked on with the swim. I didn’t say anything though which made Simon on board think something wasn’t quite right.

My second hour was a bit of a nightmare. I completely lost my head. This has happened to me before, but not since I was suffering from the cold earlier in the season. It had never happened to the extent that it did on this swim. It was horrible. I also swallowed a fair amount of water as the waves picked up a bit, it wasn’t rough – far from it – but it was no longer smooth.

My head was slowly imploding
I was desperately trying to picture myself walking on the beach in France, meeting my family and celebrating. All I could see however, was an image of me sat on the boat with my towel over my head, crying. I couldn’t get this image out of my mind, until it felt as though it was actually happening in the water below me. It no longer felt like it was in my mind. This was very depressing.

At my 3 hour feed I was literally nearly in tears, I didn’t let anyone know as I was still swimming ok. My stroke rate was slowing slightly but nothing too dramatic, and I was still covering a fair amount of ground, but my head had completely gone.

The next hour was the beginning of the end. My stroke rate dropped massively and I was no longer moving forward, just drifting to the side. I was starting to realise the dream was over. I wasn’t doing myself any justice at all, this was really killing me, I knew I was capable of much more than I was showing.

I have always been told to swim from feed to feed. This is excellent advice and should be followed. I was thinking purely about the entire task, and this was destroying my confidence. At 5 hours all I could think was that I had no chance of getting to France, I should have been thinking “I only have 30 minutes of swimming until my next feed”. My heart and hips dropped and I was suddenly incapable of swimming. Frustratingly I wasn’t too tired but just couldn’t do anything.

Simon got into the water and tried to get me going. He couldn’t have done anymore and I cannot thank him enough – that goes for the entire crew and Pilot. I had just given up in my head and there was no telling me any different. I hate myself for this. I always said that the worst way to get out of the water was if you just gave up, and this is exactly what I did.

Paul put down the ladder at around 5 ½ hours and told me it was up to me if I wanted to get out. I asked for some painkillers and swam on, but I had it in my head that it was completely pointless. I wasn’t moving forward and my stroke was no longer a stroke. I was swimming for a maximum of 2 minutes and stopping. It was terrible. I was almost in a completely upright position and I had only covered around 7 miles, and I had covered those in the first 3 ½ hours. It really was never going to happen, and at just under 6 hours I climbed onto the boat.

I swam until the Sun came up , but I had already lost it
I am not ashamed to admit that as soon as I got onto the boat I started crying. I wrapped my towel around my head and just couldn’t stop. I was basically re-enacting the exact vision I had had in my head for the past 4 hours. If you imagine something enough it will be so – apparently.

After the trip back to Dover I met back up with my family and again started crying. I haven’t cried for a long time and now I couldn’t stop, it was weird. I spoke to the crew and apologised for my performance. Everyone was incredibly kind, both at the harbour and on Facebook etc. and I am very grateful for that. I am not going to be so kind to myself, although at the same time I need to get over it and not dwell on it too much.

Simon trying to get me going - but he had no chance
I realise it is an enormous task to swim the Channel, but I was certain I would achieve it. I MASSIVELY underestimated the psychological side of the swim. I cannot emphasise this enough. My swim was completely and utterly destroyed by my head. I felt like I had a complete mental breakdown. As soon as I started thinking negatively my stroke went to pot, my hips and stroke rate dropped and I was completely inefficient in the water.

For anybody looking to do this swim make sure you spend time sorting out your mental preparation. I was told this beforehand and just glazed over it. I should have spent far more time concentrating on it.

I’m obviously still upset about how things turned out, but I am more determined than ever to complete the swim now. Everything in life is a lesson, and I seem to be having a fair few of them in my swimming. It would be nice to not have to learn a lesson once in a while and just get it done!

Thanks a lot to everybody on the crew for putting up with me and for staying up for a night watching me on a hiding to nothing. Especially as there was a lot of seasickness going around on the boat.

Thanks also to Paul Foreman, my pilot, who couldn’t have done anymore to keep me in the water. By rights he could have pulled me out a couple of hours earlier when it became clear I wasn’t going anywhere – he gave me every possible chance of sorting my head out and getting going again. I just didn’t do it.

I will have another go, and I will swim the Channel. At least I get to write a blog for a bit longer, and it will make a far more interesting film…



“It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; Who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knows neither victory nor defeat.”   

- Theodore Roosevelt (sent to me by my mate after the swim)

19/08/2011

The Phone Call


I just got the phone call, tonight I swim the Channel.

I have been told I will be setting off at around Midnight GMT so hopefully, unless I take a horrifically long time, I will finish in the light. It would appear that my countdown clock in the top corner of this page was exactly correct.

If you want to follow the swim my girlfriend will be posting regular updates on my twitter page - Tex_James. You can also follow my spot tracker here.

After receiving this news I immediately visited the toilet and produced this…
It must have been something I ate

16/08/2011

The Boy Done Good


Lorcan's distinctive straight arm recovery - I often see this flying past me at a rate of knots
Still my favourite picture of him

Yet again I get to write a congratulatory post on here. This time it is for 17-year-old Lorcan ‘Piglet’ Rowley, who swam across the Channel last night in a time of 13hours 5minutes. This is an excellent effort made even greater by the fact that he started at around 1 o’clock in the afternoon, so had a good 6 hours swimming in the dark. It was also a spring tide so he had a bit more water movement to contend with, not a problem but it sounds cooler.


Well done Piglet!

Just me now from our Swimtrek group – crap.

15/08/2011

The End is Nigh


Another 4 hours were chalked up in Dover Harbour this Saturday, again not great conditions but I managed to swim 10km anyway. Obviously I will be wanting to move a bit faster than this on the day, but the conditions will pretty much dictate what speed I’m going to do.

Our training ground - looks really inviting
I remember my first weekend in Dover when I was looking forward to getting to the stage where a 4 hour swim wouldn’t hurt anymore, and I’d still feel fresh afterwards. I have never reached this stage, 4 hours still feels like hard work. Luckily after talking to other swimmers on the beach afterwards I am not alone. Everybody is still finding it hard graft. It’s just a matter of gritting your teeth and carrying on. What I have done is become a lot faster. I'm covering a much greater distance than I was at the start of the season. I'm still not in the same league as a few of the swimmers down there, but I'm certainly not out of my depth.

It was another day where swimming from right to left was fine, but upon turning at the harbour wall and heading in the other direction, it became a far tougher challenge. It is really hard work swimming against the current. You can’t really judge the waves as they are rebounding off of the wall and the concrete steps near the beach. This makes breathing that little bit trickier. When breathing is tricky, swimming also becomes tricky. There aren’t many things in life that are made easier by not being able to breath properly. Apart from maybe suffocation. That would be really hard to achieve if you were breathing easily.

I wanted to get out for pretty much the entire time I was in the water. I wasn’t cold or tired I just wanted to get out. Every time I swam in for a feed I thought about finishing, but every time I actually reached the shore I decided there was no way I was finishing early. My mind set now is completely different to how it was during my darkest days in Dover. It does help that the water is that little bit warmer.

After the swim Chris and Si came down to give Freda and the beach crew some flowers to thank them for all they have done. It was a really nice moment, and really good to see them both again. Si is going to have another crack at the swim someday, once he has fixed himself (shoulders, hips and body in general).

Sunday was a completely different day. I went flying.

Simon never lifted his hands from this position
Keith (a member of the ‘Just Swim It’ relay team) has a Private Pilots licence and a share in a 4 seater plane, and he felt like flying. Ange, Simon and myself jumped at the chance to go as well. We flew over Dover harbour and across the Channel to France. It was an excellent way for Simon, who had swum the Channel the day before, to fully comprehend what he had achieved. It was also a good opportunity for Ange and me to see what we have still to do. It looks very simple from 2,000ft up. It was also good to see Simon who can now no longer move his arms. Why do we do it?

Everything looks better from the air
It was an excellent day and a nice way to finish (almost) my training. I’m into the taper down period now, with just a few short swims this week. I imagine I will have 1 more swim in Dover Harbour of around 3 hours before my attempt at the big one next week. Fingers crossed for good weather and some sunshine. This at the moment appears to be a massive ask…


Good luck to Lorcan, the final member of the Gozo group bar me, who is making his attempt as I type. Everybody needs an element of luck obviously, but this chap will have no problem. He is a superfish.

13/08/2011

Holliday... Celebrate...

Another Channel swimmer - awesome effort
It is with great pleasure that I announce the successful Channel swim of Simon Holliday (see what I did now with the title? very clever), of Gozo fame and many other posts on here. He completed his swim last night in a time of 15hours 2minutes. This was an excellent swim in, what I am led to believe, pretty bumpy conditions – winds up to 22mph and waves reaching almost 3metres. He kept on going even when relay teams were being pulled out of the water due to the swell.

Congratulations Simon, I am absolutely chuffed for you!

There are just 2 of our Gozo group to go now, Lorcan and myself. Lorcan will undoubtedly smash it, and I plan to do the same. Mine will be a much, much slower smash, but a smash none-the-less. There is also Ange of course, who although not on the Swimtrek trip with us, has managed to worm her way into our group with her constant excitement. Due to this she will also get a post on here. She is incredibly lucky…

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…

03/08/2011

Triumph!

The newest member of the Channel club
This is another short post to mark another Channel swim. This time it’s Chris, my fellow Gozo swimmer, who has today completed the crossing in an excellent time of 13 hours 33 minutes. Massive congratulations to him for a well deserved success. This man has been completing 7 and 8 hour swims in Dover harbour since the end of June!

That’s 3 of our Swimtrek group to have attempted the swim now, not including our guides Nick Adams, who smashed the swim in 10 hours 22 minutes, and Karen Throsby, who conquered the Catalina Channel in 14 hours 11 minutes.

We have managed 2 successes so far, and one heroic failure (not that failure feels like the correct word). Just 3 more of us to go in the next few weeks, the pressure is well and truly on… 

We're Gonna Need a Montage...

Now that I am into my final 3 weeks before the big swim (weather permitting), I have started reminiscing about how truly awful I was in the water 14 months ago. I could swim 1 complete length of my local 33 metre pool before having to stop for a good minute or 2 to get my breath back. This had nothing to do with fitness, just terrible, terrible technique.

So I spent some of today watching this technique in great detail in the dvd's I got from Tri'n'swim WELL, and felt it necessary to make a video. This happens to me quite a lot.

The following video is intentionally cheesy. All classic 80's montage scenes are, so don't judge me...



Due to the Guardians of everything, I have had to change the soundtrack. Well done copyright, another master crime prevented.

Incidentally if you want to watch this with it's original soundtrack just press play on the bar below the film and mute the actual video. I'm an evil genius, who will shortly be in jail no doubt. This is far worse than the phone hacking scandal.

01/08/2011

Love Me Tendon

After my 50km week, I have had a disaster this time round managing only 17km. This was partially due to support swimming for Hannah taking up a couple of days (which was an excellent experience), and also due to my right wrist injury once again rearing its ugly head. My weekend in Dover was supposed to be my ‘Big’ weekend, with a 7 and 6 hour swim. The weather was perfect both days, but my wrist was not.

The cheap mans ferry shot
On Saturday I entered the water knowing I had 7 hours ahead of me, and didn’t feel too phased. I was swimming very well (for me), and maintaining a good pace, comfortably staying with people who usually leave me for dead. After about an hour however, my wrist really started to let me know it wasn’t quite right. With each stroke I could feel the tendon straining, and could almost hear it creaking.

I decided at 90 minutes that I was going to get out at the 2 hour point, the pain wasn’t so excruciating that I had to get out, but I really didn’t want to reach that stage with so little time remaining before the big event. Whilst I was swimming in for the 2 hour feed I thought about just carrying on and swimming through the pain, but really feel I made the sensible decision in getting out and not pushing myself, or my wrist, too hard. There would be absolutely no point in completing a 7 hour swim in the harbour, only to injure myself so I can't even attempt the Channel.

I exited the water and made straight for the physio to get a massage on the wrist. This really helped, and gave me a decent amount of confidence that it isn't going to completely destroy the dream. After the session I was told to heat and ice the area for a couple of days, and that I would be fine to swim again the next day. It turned out that another swimmer, Tom, had pretty much the exact same problem. His swim is on the same tide as me so it will be interesting to see how this turns out. Nick Adams also had the same injury before his swim and he managed to get across in 10hours 22minutes, so all is definitely not lost (he does have the advantage of having several fish like qualities).

Sunday was pretty much the exact same scenario, the only thing was this time I was overly aware of any pain I felt in the wrist. I probably could/should have kept going for longer than I managed, but paranoia takes over and makes it very hard for me to push myself any further. I could do without this right now.

It is such bad timing, I don’t want to miss any training, but REALLY don’t want to get injured. I have to have faith in my fitness at the moment and just train until it aches and no more. This is so much easier said then done.

If you are in Dover and feel a bit of an injury coming on I couldn’t recommend Zoe (the sports masseuse) enough. She really knows her stuff, and both times I have walked out of the treatment room feeling a lot better than when I walked in. I’d rather not have to visit her obviously, but I foresee it becoming a regular occurrence from now until my swim.

On Saturday I also got to visit the 'White Horse' pub in Dover, where channel swimmers regularly sign their names on the walls. Hannah was to make her mark after her successful swim mid-week, and ended up picking a spot right next to Cameron Spittle, so I now have a crew corner. 

I really have to get my name on that pub wall…