out in the wilderness (part one)

Way back in February I sent emails to loads of different pilots to see if any of them had slots for next year. Generally people seem to book a couple of years ahead. I had replies from several, who usually had quite a few slots available in 2015 and maybe one or two not too very good slots spare in 2014. Neil Streeter got back to me with an offer of two slots in 2014.

Beautiful North Sea with Tynemouth swimming pool in the front

I was told Neil was a good pilot so I plumped for slot 3 on the first tide of the year, June 20th to 26th. Emma said it might still be cold, 14C maybe. This tide is usually only for relays or the hardier solo swimmer," she said. It's got my name written all over it I thought.

Paid my deposit. More or less forgot about it. Plenty of time to worry about that later. I was more occupied with Ice swimming at the time.

Since March I have spent the year gradually pushing up the distances, training first for 2Swim4life, After getting my arse kicked by that, the Speedo 10k At Dorney lake.

All this closely followed by the Champion of Champions. Most of this year I have been in one of three states; swimming/ aching, resting/ sleeping/ aching or recovering/ aching.

With no lovely freezing water to take away my pain.

When you get into marathon swimming you are entering a world of pain.

Denham lake doing a fair impression of the Taj Mahal on a misty morning

And lots of it. Interspersed with odd happy moments. When you and the water share an identity. You surrender to it. You breathe with the rhythm of the planet. Under an endless sky. You belong. And there can be no moment more perfect than this because you are here, it's now and there is nothing else.

Well, whatever, that's what it's like for me.

How ever far or long I swim what happens inside is  more significant than the distance covered or the time taken.

Neitzsche was right when he said in Twilight of the Idols that what doesn't kill me makes me stronger. (Syphilis was the exception that proved the rule for him when it took his sanity and his life, so I don't want to draw too many parallels with him and me).

This year has had a familiar pattern. The training lagging behind the swims coming up. It's a kind of self imposed Zen torture. Stretching myself mentally, physically and emotionally beyond the normal constraints of my comfortable little world of doing just enough. Always a step behind.

So suffice it to say by the time I got my rowers and qualifying swims accepted for BLDSA's Windermere swim, there wasn't much time left.

In the three weeks before Windermere  I managed to swim more than 50k in lakes, including14k one day and a couple of 10k races thrown in for good measure.

Windermere was going to be the first time I'd swum over 10 miles in one go (half a channel with no salt to help you float) and a chance to practice my feed routine.

Windermere, as docile as a little lamb- there'll be no 3 ft waves today

In my support row boat I had the dream team. The lovely Alexia (channel swimmer) and the even lovelier John (mild mannered IT man and experienced swim crew, feeder and paddler and all round good guy).

My buddy and arch nemesis (in his head anyway) Jeremy had the ever memorable Ella, Sarah (rowing the pacific next year) Dotty Weldon and Helen in his boat.

Windermere was shaping up to be a cross between The Wacky Races and (for the crews) a floating picnic, with no toilets or bushes to go behind for the best part of a day.

With any organised swim I always say that the waiting is the worst part. And with the BLDSA there is always a little bit more of that than most.

By the time we got into the water I was a nervous wreck, cracking more weak jokes to hide it than you'd hear in a week at a fringe festival.

The support boat leaves from a different place so the first bit of confusion is where you have to find and join your boat (if you had been listening to the briefing).

It seems appropriate to mention Zoe Sadler here as most blogs about long distance swimming I read lately seem to.

After swimming out next to her to find the boat I decided that It would be a good idea to keep pace with her as she just completed a two way 10 days before in 13 hours.

And I thought she would do a one way in less than half of that time and I wanted to too. It was going well but unfortunately she got out after a few hours so I found myself on my own.

I had planned to get to the Hotel we stayed at on Friday by my third feed. I have no idea how far it was from the start. I don't know why I decided that. I was disappointed not to see it until much later.

The first third of the swim was the worst for me. Alexia had told me I wasn't to sight at all, then they kept the boat in front of me so I had to keep sighting to find the bloody thing.

I was on the verge of having a tantrum and refusing to swim further when it occurred to me to ask them to stay next to me.

When we got up to the cold bit in the middle Alexia told me Jez was 100m ahead and did I want to carry on catching him up. First I thought how is he ahead of me? Then I thought I don't care one way or the other. Then I remembered the week before how he had drafted me for 2.5 k and then overtaken me two laps from the end and I'd been too tired to catch him. I decided to see what would happen.

English Channel Dungeness

As we cleared Belle Isle I saw Jez's boat on my left. He had spat the dummy at that precise moment. He'd seen his crew pass round that last round of cucumber sandwiches and it had sent him over the edge.

I left him to it.

The wind was picking up and coming down the lake. Out in the open a wicked north easterly was blowing some big chop diagonally across us. It was getting pretty wild and it was then that my brain just hit alpha and I stopped thinking about any of it and just coexisted with the rough deep water.

Big raindrops fell and the sky turned dark grey. And I loved it. When the guy on the rib came up to us and said, "tell him he's only a mile to go", I couldn't believe it. I thought there were 3 more.

Having said that the last mile across the deeps was the hardest mile of them all and not just because it followed the other 9.5. Every time I looked up the wind had blown me 50 feet away from my boat. I had to swim at 90 degrees to stay with it. It was weird.

Paul Smith and Louise Barber were the welcoming committee on the beach? at Ambleside and had some business in town the following day.

I will say this about Windermere. It is quite a big bit of water.

I crewed for Alexia on her channel swim. Afterwards she said, "We're quits now."

I told her she still owes me a Windermere.