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| My current state of mind |
I have after much
thought come to the conclusion that I may well have to cancel my attempt at the
Channel. This is not a decision that I have just made over night; it’s just basic
common sense.
It turns out after 2
years of training I am a crap swimmer.
When I am accused of
being weak I will take it on the chin. The fact of the matter is I have swam
over 1.3million metres in the last 2 years, over 280,000m’s of that has been in
Dover harbour. That disgusts me just writing it. Over a quarter of a million
metres in Dover harbour. Despite all this I still cannot get my head around the
Channel. It has completely and utterly broken me.
I have destroyed any
kind of fitness I had, going from 14stone with around 10% body fat, to 13st
10lb probably around 30% body fat. I am feeble. This is not a sport in which to get fit.
I spend every week dreading
the weekend, then when it comes I generally don’t complete whatever swim I am
given and then feel terrible. So basically I feel bad all the time.
Don’t get me wrong I
have never been the most happy go lucky man on the planet. I would never
successfully audition for Jedward, or be invited to hang around with Alan Carr
(both of which I would sooner tear my eyes out than do, so I don't mind) but I
am naturally a reasonably happy chap. The misery I have become is something
else.
My typical
Saturday/Sunday goes like this:
Wake up 6am, struggle
to eat breakfast, and usually fail halfway through. I then proceed to gag for
15 minutes through extreme anxiety. I say goodbye to my girlfriend who is still
tucked up in bed, fair enough it’s still not even 7o’clock on a weekend morning,
then get in the car and drive to Dover.
The drive is horrible,
as I become more and more anxious all the way. I want to turn around and go
home at pretty much every single junction, I begin praying for some kind of
major road incident giving me a reason to head home. If the weather is good,
then it gradually deteriorates as I get closer, if the weather is bad, it
gradually deteriorates.
My favourite quote of
the moment is
“I
have found lately that if you can see France it is going to rain, and if you
can not see France it is raining.” Eric Hartley
By the time I arrive
at Dover I have my first good bit of the day when I see everyone. Everybody has
the same haunted look on their face, apart from 1 or 2 who claim to love it and
feel everyone should know, although I’m pretty sure they don’t.
This does not feel
good.
After checking in and
getting a number you are told how long you are going to be in the brown piece
of salty spew behind you. This is about the time I start dreaming of a
dislocated shoulder, or a severed head. Then I queue up to be covered in
Vaseline, I enjoy this bit.
After a quick brief from
Freda (a genuine super hero who I constantly disappoint), we hobble down the
pebbled beach before slowly immersing ourselves in our freezing home for
anything up to 7 hours. This is depressing.
25-30minutes later I
am swamped with thoughts and excuses to get out and they stay with me until the
2 hour feed. At this point I stare blankly ahead whilst drinking my beaker of
Maxim before turning round and once again heading to the harbour wall.
I hate myself for the
next hour.
On the 3 hour feed I
have my ultimate test. I know if I head back out after this feed I will
generally complete the swim, however turning round at this point is so much
harder than it would appear. I have failed at this point more times than I care
to remember, as have many others.
When I do head back
out to sea I feel good for about 5 minutes, before having an almost
unbelievable urge to cry. I am yet to actually cry at this point but it is
definitely getting closer. Instead of crying I swear very loudly between every
breath, I’m not sure if this helps but the urge eventually goes away. Once this
urge has passed I just drift through the rest of the swim, completely numb and
reaching acceptance that the majority of my day is going to be spent somewhere
that I hate, doing something that I am also slowly learning to hate.
This is a sport that
makes you feel like a complete and utter loser if you only complete 4 hours in
freezing cold water, outrageous. It’s like feeling like a failure if you
complete a marathon in under 3 and a half hours, I know this and yet I feel
like this.
When I do complete a
swim I do admittedly feel good, but I’m not sure that feeling out-weighs how
absolutely horrendous I feel when I don’t complete a swim. That feeling is one
that stays with me throughout the entire week.
In short I am unsure
that I want to continue putting myself through this, for what seems to me at
present, an impossible feat. I am constantly told how I have to believe that I
will complete this swim, I cannot believe it. All I want to do is curl up in a
ball and for it to be over. I admit to being completely broken.
To all those that have
completed this challenge, I take my hat off to you. You are genuinely amazing.
More so the people that aren’t world-class swimmers, just regular people who
seem to be made of steel. The Channel is something that is very easy to
under-estimate since David Walliams swam across it, and lots of people now
think they could do it.
People often say to me
that they could swim all day – NO YOU COULDN’T!, it is a complete, and excuse
my language here, head-f**k. The only people I will accept this statement from
are Kevin Murphy, Alison Streeter, Penny Palfrey, Dianna Nyad, Steve Redmond, Jackie Cobell and Nick Adams. There are undoubtedly others but these people make me feel
incredibly humbled by what they have achieved.
Anyway undoubtedly
I’ll head down to Dover again next weekend full of shame and apprehension, as I
am too scared and disgusted with myself to cancel my swim. I will once again go through the motions,
wishing my life away, and letting everyone down.
I genuinely apologise
for this being such a morbid and horrendous post, but there are plenty of
swimming blogs out there full of joy and record breaking swims, the niche I am
looking to fill is the 'complete and utter despair' swimming market. I assume there is a market for this?
Another reason for
writing this is for the swimmers out there who think they are the only people
that feel like this, I absolutely guarantee you that you are not. People don’t
like to talk about it as it brings them down, which is fair enough, however due
to this everybody thinks everybody else is fine and breezing through their
swims. They are not, they are suffering just as much as you, they just keep going.
If by some miracle I
do get to France (increasingly highly unlikely) then it will the greatest
achievement of my life, no doubt about it. I’m really not sure it will have
been worth the 2 years of absolute hell though.
I may never find out…
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