out in the wilderness (part two)

When I titled this post 'out in the wilderness' it wasn't a reference to Windermere or the Dart 10k or open water swimming at all. Oh no. I was talking allegorically about a place where I found myself.

Perfect conditions at Totnes for the start of the Dart 10k

Naturally this is a place you can swim to.

Two weeks after Windermere came the Dart 10k (Jewel in the crown of the OSS), so called because it takes place in the river Dart between two points separated by a distance of 10 kilometres.

It's tidally assisted. This means that when the tide goes right out a fair proportion of the water in the river gushes out into the estuary, taking with it everyone who happens to be floating (or swimming, or whatever) in that water.

Unless, of course, you swim like I do and trying to go faster actually nearly makes you go backwards.

Anyway. A couple of sentences about the OSS or Outdoor Swimming Society. A group dedicated to promoting everything outdoor and swim related. With an old fashioned sounding name. Capable, too, of dividing opinion in OW circles.

Some season ticket holders at Parliament Hill Lido blame them for the increase in 'fair weather swimmers', who clutter up our pool on days when we should have it to ourselves. On the other hand, I, and others like me have met loads of lovely people and received huge encouragement through the OSS 'December Dip' and Facebook page

Last outing for these bad boys

Founded by a blonde lady called Kate Rew. A person who I have never heard say anything nasty about anyone said he didn't like her.  I didn't bother to ask him why.

My mother always told me that people would be the way I found them to be. My mum always was and continues to be a very canny lady.

I took my flip flops off next to Kate as I was getting into the water at Dittisham. She very kindly ran them over to my car in the far corner of the massive car park and there they were waiting for me on my return many hours later, poking out from underneath the car.

My friend Jez, however, was not so lucky with his flip flops. I am though, about 98% certain that Kate Rew had nothing to do with the disappearance of his brand new Havaianas, and their apparent substitution with the manky old trio pictured just here.

Clearly still not committed to my pre channel winter training schedule, I have been finding long swims to do each week as a justification to keep me out of the pool. Even the stunning PHL hasn't  been able to tempt me back.

Apropos of which, last week I drove to Brighton to meet Simon, another channel aspirant (a good swimmer though), to do a swim with him, from the peace statue in Hove, under two piers to Brighton Marina and back, known as the Mark Radcliffe 10k. Mark says it isn't his 10k, but it's too late to change the name now.

The pier is a bloody long way from the Marina

When I say swim it with Simon, it's true we were in the same stretch of water at the same time. But he was miles in front of me almost from the start. He was kind enough to stop and wait several times, but I think he was getting a bit cold, bless him. in the end he took off.

I caught up with him sitting on the beach at the Marina wall chomping  cashew nuts.

Saw him again some hours later waiting for me to give him a lift back to his car.

Every swimmer (I suppose and gather) has a swim every now and then they would like to forget.

One where you feel like you're sinking, can't find a rhythm, can't breathe properly, you talk yorself into aches and pains, you can't remember how to swim. Right from the start you suspect that you will never finish. You may even wonder why you are doing it at all.

The Marina is a bloody long way from the Peace Statue.

The Mark Radcliffe 10K was a little bit like this. More so the Votwo 10k at Eton the week before, propping up the back of a weak field, whom I might have seen disappear from view if only I could sight and swim at the same time. The Dart 10k the week before that and so on. 

The only comfort to be taken is that I ground every one of those swims out and didn't give up. But as long a swim as any of these last 8 or 9 have been, they all are dwarfed by the English Channel.

Having swum all the way out into the the wilderness, my best hope is that some small part of me remembers what I love about water and I can swim back some time before June.













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Last year I swam one 10k race at Eton Dorney and I still maintain that it very nearly finished me

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.

thinking about swimming the (english) channel

A few things worth considering. Here's one. Friday morning, I got a call from Alexia saying to meet her in Dover at 8 that evening. We'd be meeting for her swim at 10pm. Huh? Tonight? For some reason I didn't think that you'd be expected to swim in the dark.

I was terrified of the dark when I was little. It's another thing I have to meet head on and get over.

It's one thing to say you're going to swim the channel. It is another quite a few things from saying that, to actually landing in France. For me it is and will, I suspect, continue to be, a steep learning curve. My preparation for swims is usually to turn up and just get on with it.

I usually find out later what I should have known before I started.

Dover Marina 10pm Friday night

The suspicion that I can't just wing this channel thing crept up on me while watching Alexia swim.

She is what I would call a proper swimmer, not a wannabe, a dabbler or a paddler like me. Ever since I bumped into her in the 10k pen at Eton Dorney just over a year ago, she has been gearing up to where she was on Friday morning. Ready to swim the channel. Whatever it takes.

She isn't the best at following orders though, as evidenced by her almost immediate disappearance into the darkness upon entering the water at Shakespeare beach. Luckily the skipper had a P.A. to remind her in his most endearingly diplomatic terms, "Oi! Try following the boat!"

I learned a couple of other things on Friday/ Saturday morning. These might sound asinine, but I'll share them anyway, if only to demonstrate my naivety; the channel is a really long way to swim and it consists almost entirely of water.

Just another piece of water. Just like your local pool. A bit wider is all.

The other night it resembled a mill pond, albeit a really wide one with no mill, no ducks and no obvious edges.

I sat out on the foredeck waiting to give the ever grateful and gracious Alexia her feeds.

Daybreak in the separation zone

While I waited, the inky, silky grey black sea spread out wide and open before me. The high moon broke through the mottled cloud and it's light gently shimmied across the vaguely rippled surface.

The low hum of the diesel engine was out of earshot here at the bow. The deep stillness only broken by the rhythmic slapping of the swimmer's stroke, and the distant rumble of thunder from a storm that seemed like it would never reach us.

Sitting underneath the vast sky, the gentle sea spread broadly all around, peace descended. I was filled with the awe you only get when you feel at once insignificant, humbled by, and yet intrinsically linked to everything around you.

The thought that such moments could be rare for me when our roles are reversed  entered my mind. I smiled inwardly.

The storm wheeled around to the west, the night grew pitch dark and slowly at first, the surface of the water was peppered with tiny splashes.

In sight of France

The plish of raindrops all around grew loud in the darkness. I remembered I'd left my coat at home, fooled by the pristine forecast.

Not that that would bother me if I was swimming. I took cover. Alexia rallied on.

I saw the sunrise over the separation zone before I took my turn to sleep. It was a clear and beautiful light. When I woke up the fog had come down and it was steadily raining. Alexia swam on, annoyed to see me eating the sandwich I bought the night before. I was oblivious, having just woken up. I thought she was trying to splash me because she was pleased to see me.

I can only guess how deep Alexia had to dig into her reserves of grit and determination, how many times she wanted to give up, how many times she had to just get her head down and carry on.

It was a privilege to be part of Alexia's crew, who of course are worth a mention here. The swimmer is totally dependent on the pilot, boat, feed plan, moral support of a great crew. It is a team effort, you'd never make it alone.

Maximum respect to Alexia for a great swim (the girl did good) and to the awesome team that was assembled to make it possible.

I had plenty of time to consider if 'because it's there' is a good enough reason to carry me through my channel swim to completion.

It's probably fair to say that time will tell.

the breakfast of champions

It's 5.57 on Saturday morning. My shoulder pings, my back twangs, my sinuses are blocked, the rest of me is having a neuralgic meltdown. I had a really tough week.  All I can think is, "why didn't my alarm go off" and "I want my coffee." I know Jeremy will be outside the house in roughly 33 minutes.

I get the Aeropress, make coffee. (Sumatran Java pure Arabica in case you were wondering). With the remains of the hot water I make rooibos tea for my flask. Sit down for several minutes.

I mix two heaped tablespoons of powdered barleygrass and one of spirulina, organic of course (enough to send a small elephant into a healing crisis). Scrambled free range eggs with double cream on soya and linseed toast. En route to Dover we stop and eat McDonalds.

Some would say my feeding strategy is unorthodox. Inconsistent it certainly is. Ultimately I want to do these long swims carb free. A hangover from a winter of ice swimming, I haven't overcome the cravings for cake and bread. Carb free apparently means no cake.

It's the first Crunchie that does the damage

We arrive at Dover harbour about an hour before (the scheduled start of) the swim. A few words about the swim and the organisers, the British Long Distance Swimming Association (BLDSA).
The Champion of Champions is really three races, a 5 mile, a 3 mile and, finally a 1 mile leg. Each has a time limit, which, in theory seem entirely reasonable.  They are 4 1/2 hours, 3 hours and 1 hour respectively. On the day, though, for me, one swim merges into another and the times go out the window.

BDLSA swims operate under channel rules, which you may know means (for boys) only swimming trunks, one, and only one, silicone hat, and goggles can be worn. You may also use earplugs and a lubricant to prevent chafing (but not as a thermal insulant).

Let me qualify what follows, by first saying that I love the BDLSA. They are old school. First and foremost, they are supporters and enthusiasts of 'real' swimming. Unburdened by frippery, such as technological know how, advance knowledge of buoy position, course layout and so on, they are the 'real deal', northern, gritty and down to earth.

Eschewing fussy preparation, Leslie is happy (15 minutes before the start) to conduct the race briefing at the same time as the course markers are anchored in an increasingly strong and gusty south westerly breeze. We can see his lips moving, but the wind is whipping away his words before all but those closest to him can hear them.

So it's a cross between Chinese whispers and a Mexican wave of instructions rippling up and down. At last we all agree, we are going to swim 5 one mile laps.

In the run up to the swim I fully expect to finish the 5 miles in under 3 hours and I am thinking that once the 5 mile is out of the way, then, and only then, I'll think about the 3 mile. In the event, the opportunity for a mid swim picnic in the sun vanishes, what with the wind, the shoulder, the chop, the late start, the buoys which seem to have a mind of their own.

Did I mention the mental and physical exhaustion? More than about 5 times so far? Well if the moaning in this account sounds repetitive, imagine what it sounds like inside my head. Awful. This is even before I start a swim.

We all gather for the briefing, then are sent back to our stuff because the course isn't quite ready. Soon we'll meet for briefing take two.

Dover Harbour at 8 am lulls us into a false sense of security

Post briefing, we huddle at the the bright, but windswept and nippy water's edge. It's a little disquieting to see the buoys as they move up and down the harbour (sometimes attached to a boat, sometimes not). Leslie orders us in to the water, then shouts, " there's been a change of plan, swim around the safety boat, then up to the far buoy, around and back down the pier wall ten times.

The guy in the safety boat tells us no, swim round the longer course 10 times. Everyone is getting cold(er) now so there is a collective decision to swim now and worry about the distance later. For the first half a lap I have to stop 5 times because my goggles steam up and I can't see anything. As I fiddle I see every swimmer who wasn't already ahead go past me.

At last I settle into a rhythym and manage to complete the first lap. At the last turn buoy by the pier, I have to shout my number to the lap counters who are high on top of the pier. I can do better than that; I shout my number and gargle dirt-brown salt water.

For the first four laps the sea is relatively well behaved and after the bad start I catch up with a few swimmers. I'm swimming ok, (for me) despite having decided that I would protect the right shoulder and sacrifice the ability to pull very much on that side.

As part of my preparation for the Channel swim next June, I want to complete this swim even if it's cold, (12.5C on the day) I'm in pain, I can't swim properly (even less properly than normal) and I'm knackered. That might sound perverse and masochistic to some, but to me it makes perfect sense.

I swam for a couple of hours on Thursday night after a hard day of physical work, which heaped exhaustion on top of just plain dog tiredness. Great for my plan to 'swim while tired', but not good preparation for the 9 miles plus of the Champion of Champions.

5 or 6 laps in it's ok but I start to wish I took a feed with me- those 'half mile' laps are taking their toll. 7 laps on and I properly hit the wall, many times. The wind has picked up and the leg across the diagonal is getting harder, the right side breath is mostly water and it is my default when tired.

After rounding the last buoy for the 10th lap the kayaker tells me I've only done 9 laps. The derisory snort I let out could be misconstrued as a mere watery snuffle. So I make light of the situation, shout, "ha! no it's 10" and head for the shore.

I'm so hungry, if you go near my chips, chances are, I'll eat you too

A mere 4 1/4 hours in the water. I make very short work of a bag of jelly babies, squash, water, several raw chocolate bars, dash for the shower. In the changing room two swimmers shiver and eat fish and chips. One tells me, "look in the mirror". I look at my face and can't recognise the wild eyed, sun dried, traumatised, salty, kipper face staring back at me. "That's what it does to you", he says.

They offer me a chip and say they won't go back in. It was 7 miles, not 5 they say. Maybe because I look so savage and don't just stop at one chip, one surrenders his fish and chips. I slink off back to the picnic table jealously guarding my catch. Philip tells me to get dressed and warm up. I do, but I finish my chips first.

About 3 seconds later I am being called to yet another briefing. I am shivering and very, very tired now. Leslie says that the second lag will be a mere 4 laps instead of 6, and the third an almost non existent 1 lap instead of 2. Because they fucked up the circuit (my words, not Leslie's). Yay. Excuse me for not being hugely enthused. Maybe a little relieved.

The wind is picking up now. I spend the longest ever 4K emptying my left goggle 10 or 12 times per lap. The abiding thought in my mind is, when will the energy kick in? It has to happen soon, etc. I stagger out, knocked down by a 6" wave. Get up, fall down. My left eye is puffed up and is totally bloodshot- I can't see anything out of it. The energy never comes.

Guess what? It's briefing time. Just the 1 lap sprint. I put new goggles on and stagger shivering to the water. I manage my fastest lap since lap 2 or 3 because I know I can get out and not get back in afterwards. There are several others still in the water when I get out.

Job done. Only 6 hours 36 minutes in the water. Easy as that.