Channeling Positivity: 2013

so Wales and i have been training hard trying to get as much open water swimming in as possible... the problem is, its blooming freezing!! Temperatures are struggling to get up to 15 (which is pretty tropical) in our local rivers and lakes... but in Windermere temperatures have been reported as 9c ...

so we have had a think and weighed up all the pros and cons and decided that we really want to make the distance .. and don't want to risk getting pulled out with hyperthermia! We are both carrying less fat than we were for the channel and despite eating everything in site, this doesn't seem to be changing. We are also doing everything we can to get acclimatised, but at the moment even an hour is a real challenge. So we have decided not to rule out wearing our wetsuits on the day.

I know this is frowned upon by some members of the ow swimming community but this is something we do for fun and to try to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust ... so if we feel like rubbering up.. we're gonna blooming well do it!!!

7 weeks to go.. so a few decent weeks of solid training and then we can start to rest up:-)

its been a long slog so far and has proved to both of us that we don't enjoy training for this kind of event... we both find it really boring!!!! so the next challenge may well take the form of another kind of relay or something a bit less isolating!!

catch you later

x

So, April 26^th 2013 saw my return to Guildford Lido to attempt the 2swim4life 24 hour swim (swim a mile every hour, on the hour, for 24 hours... simples!). Those of you that have followed our journey over the past few years will know that Justine and I attempted this challenge in 2011 and found that after 12 miles we could do no more due to the cold and the fact that we were mid training cycle and didn't want to risk any illness or injury before our channel swim.

Those of you that know me will know that I HATE not achieving what I set out to do... even when there are sensible and valid reasons why... which is exactly why I entered the 24 hour swim this year... to try and beat it!

Training before the event had been a bit more hap hazard than I would have liked due to an impending house move and weekends clearing the loft instead of banking some decent miles, or getting valuable rest days. The British weather had also scuppered my plans to get acclimitising in preparation for this event. I had done a few ice swims in january, but since then I hadn't managed to get outdoors at all!

I rocked up to the pool on Thursday to set up our pop up tent and was delighted to bump into a few familiar faces and meet several people that I know through various swimming groups on facebook. The weather was holding out but it was still colder than our 2011 attempt which concerned me a bit, but I was feeling relaxed and ready to give it my best shot. This time round I knew exactly what to expect so knew that it would be no picnic, but I had learnt a lot from my previous attempt which stood me in good stead for this one.

So it was back to the hotel for a goodnights sleep... this time we opted for the Premier Inn, which was spitting distance from the lido. It was a good decision, I slept really well and woke up feeling fresh.

9:30 am marked the start of my first mile, which apparently I swam pretty fast! I had decided before starting that I wasn't bothered about knowing my times for each mile as I didn't want to put any pressure on myself to pick up the pace etc when I started to feel tired. I felt comfortable in the pool, but it was cold, so my pace was probably faster than it should have been to try and keep warm. With an event like this its about finding the right balance between steady enough to maintain, and fast enough to keep warm.

The second mile Paul Bates joined me and Michaela in our lane (as we were the only 2 swimmers in a lovely big, wide end lane!) The miles went on, every third mile I threw in a bit of backstroke and breaststroke to break things up a bit... it seemed to do the trick as I found myself looking forward to every 3^rd mile, in addition to every 4^th mile where my friend Paul Smith would join me for his relay leg!

By mile 6 I was struggling to get warm between miles... I was wrapped up in the tent and still shivering … I made the decision after mile 7 to put my wetsuit on. I knew from my previous attempt that I would have no chance of making it if I didn't make this move as it was only going to get colder! The water temperature, I hear was around 18c in the day... which sounds warm but it didn't feel it!

I was hardly eating or drinking, but again, my previous experiences of this event when I have obsessed about food intake, had shown me that I just needed to eat if I felt like it... so thats what I did! I never felt hungry and didn't cramp up like last time! My total food intake for the whole event was;

Half a tube of Pringles

Half a packet of cookies

2 pain au chocolats

A banana

A muller rice

6 capri sun drinks

and a hot chocolate

I ate like an absolute machine when I got home tho!

Once the wetsuit was on I started to feel much happier... I am going to share this next bit of info for anyone who does this event in 2015 so I apologise in advance! Once the wetsuit was on, it obviously made going for a wee a bit tricky... so what I ended up doing was going and standing in the mens showers after my mile and having a wee in there! Between miles I was keeping my wetsuit on and just pulling the the top half down as I couldn't face the battle of getting it on and off in the 35 mins 'rest time' I was getting. Its worth pointing out, again, for anyone planning on doing this even in 2015, that because of this a lot of my warm clothes ended up getting wet from the folded down bit of my wetsuit... so take WAY more clothes than you think you are going to need. I ended up going home in my onesie as it was all I had left at the end!

After mile 12 I had a bit of a wobble... I was in the tent and said to Emma (my 'buddy' (a person that is there to make sure you are safe, and warm and alive throughout!)) that I didn't think I could do it. I felt tired and cold and kept thinking that it would be so easy to just go home. This event isn't like a marathon, or a channel swim where you are going from point A to point B, and because of this its really easy to stop and call it a day. You need to be mentally tough (or just mental!!) to fight these voices and keep going. Emma knows exactly how to motivate me, i'm not someone that responds well to an ass kicking, so she simply said that I was doing really well, and she would support me whatever I decided to do. I decided to keep going and take each mile as it came.

As the sun disappeared and nighttime fell so did the air temperature … it was getting so cold... there was frost on our tent boxes!. Emma started filling my hot water bottle so I could try and get warm again between miles, but it would take just 20 seconds on the poolside waiting to get back in the pool for my body to resume 'the shakes'. As the miles went on, fewer and fewer people were lining up to start their miles as hyperthermia, injury and sickness was effecting many of the swimmers. I was the only swimmer left in my lane from mile 16 onwards... apart from when paul was doing his relay leg.

I was still making each mile in under 25 mins and managing to throw in a few lengths of drills to try and loosen off my arms that were starting to feel like lead weights!. My leg kick was non existent (mainly because of the wetsuit making me a bit too high in the water!)

I got to mile 20 and knew that there was no way I wasn't going to make this.. the sun was coming up … it was still cold but psychologically seeing the sunshine makes a HUGE difference. The thought of ever having to do this challenge again was also motivating me as I knew that if I didn't do it this time, I would only bloomin enter again till I did it!!

I finished mile 23 and spent my rest time in the hot tub as Emma started to pack the tent away and put things in the car (I was SO glad she did this as I couldn't face packing all this stuff away after swimming 24 miles!!) In the hot tub I started to take stock of what I was about to achieve... I was blown away that I was about to complete this hellish challenge!

Mile 24 was a steady plod until the last length when I tried to up the pace a bit for a strong finish! I hit the wall (real one not mental one!) and looked up to see all my friends clapping and saying well done.. it was a feeling like no other... I had done it (and despite the best effort of my wetsuit, my neck was still (only just) in one piece!)!

It was an amazing event with amazing people and I would happily go again, but probably just to buddy someone! It exhausting, its painful, and its pretty evil to be honest... but its more than worth it when you touch the wall for the final time!

I recommend this event to anyone attempting a channel swim or a channel relay... if you can survive this I think you can survive anything. Its definitely much harder than our 2 person channel relay that we did in 2011.