#SwimforSusan and the spirit of the open water

I will be joining Kate in swimming for both Jonathan and Susan. The open water community has lost two amazing people and swimmers and Kate and I together will be remembering their determination and sheer love of the deep blue.

Wales

its nearly time... #SwimForSusan

This saturday sees Justine and I attempt our Lake Windermere swim... and I can't wait!

Training has been pretty boring but i feel ready and the recent heatwave has made me desperate to get in the water!

We have shifted our last couple of weeks of training to the pool on account of getting really bad swimmers itch which has been keeping me awake at night... theres no point in training for months for something only to rock up half asleep because you have been scratching all night.. so we have been avoiding all our local lakes!

Recently the open water swimming community has lost 2 inspirational and lovely souls; Jonathan Joyce and more recently Susan Taylor who sadly passed away on sunday nearing the end of her channel swim.  I will be swimming Lake Windermere in memory of both these swimmers, writing  their names on each arm so they are with me every stroke.

Our pilot Colin Hill unfortunately can't make it on saturday so we will  have The 2 Daves onboard the boat and Claire in a Kayak keeping an eye on Justine.

Don't forget its not too late to sponsor us... all money is going to the Teenage Cancer Trust

http://www.justgiving.com/channelingpositivity

Thanks for all the support and messages.. and not least for all the money that has already come in!

k
x

bloomin' freezing!

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

2swim4life

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.

Windermere Awaits......

So a date's been set and Just and Kate are going to brave the cold water elements once again and swim across Windermere on 20th July 2013......yes,  this summer! We've enlisted our hero of the open water swimming world, Colin Hill, to guide us across along with our loyal support team. 

There's a few things that have changed since our channel crossing. Firstly I'm older which to be honest is proving an inconvenience as my body doesn't seem to recover quite as easily as I need it to and secondly our job changes have restricted the length of our OCD morning training sessions. But fear not, as usual Kate has constructed an epic training plan which takes all of this into account! So from now until then it's "go hard or go home"....................

..............I might go home some days.................well I am 40!


Follow our training from this week by clicking on Training Diary

DW Final Blog

Today is Easter Monday and we thought we should complete our blog for the weekend. We didn't manage to post a Day 3 blog so here is the final instalment to cover Day 3 and Day 4.

Day 3 was Easter Sunday and as our last blog said we had made a plan at the end of Day 2 to complete the 38 miles in under 7 hours. We started at 7.15am and set off on a mission of 6 miles per hour. Our support crew of Tom and Phil were on form to keep us motivated and on time - and they did a cracking job! - thanks boys :-)

We paddled the first 6 miles in under an hour, and by 3 hours of paddling we were 20 minutes ahead of schedule. We had a few mad moments including an interesting approach to the rollers at Sunbury Lock which resulted in an almost, but not quite, capsize which even the supporters classed as a "good recovery".

Phil produced the best motivator call from the bank of "Go Girlfriend" which made the lady in the Mr Whippy van next to him smile and made us laugh for quite sometime!

By 30 miles in we had overtaken all the other crews who had set off before us on Sunday morning, meaning we had to keep our stroke rate up on our own without the motivation of chasing anyone down. We have to admit to reverting to a bit of a sing song to keep us going "there were ten in the bed " proved quite inspiring in terms of keeping our stroke rate up and we even found ourselves singing the "12 days of christmas" to the people taking their Easter Sunday stroll by the river!

We crossed the finish line first of the day in a time of 6 hours 52 minutes.

That meant our time to Teddington was 21 hours 40 minutes and we were lying 7th in the Senior K2 Endeavour category.

Day 4 was always our biggest concern. We are not the most stable of paddlers and the tideway is very fast flowing and can be really difficult to paddle. We were worried and slept pretty rubbishly on Sunday evening especially as we had to get up at 3.45am with no breakfast! We were on the water by 5.45 in the dark but we managed through some low points in moral to get to Battersea Power Station with relative ease. Time seemed to go very slowly this morning even though the water was flowing very fast. We approached the finish line with the Houses of Parliament on the left and Big Ben chiming 8am. We were home and dry - literally!

I have to admit to hugging the man who placed the medal round my neck - I think I was the only person to do that as he looked quite surprised!! Our overall time was 23 hours and 56 minutes and we are vey proud. We hope we might inspire you to take a challenge and Challenge your Positivity!

It only remains for us to say a big thank you to everyone for their support and encouragement and all your wonderful donations. We have successfully raise £2155 for the oncology ward at Queens - if you wish to add a donation there is still time - visit our justgiving page at www.justgiving/Claire-Lis. Thanks for reading!

Claire and Liz signing off xx

Day 2 - It Goes On........

So we set off this morning at 7.45am from Newbury, today we had 36 miles and 26 portages to complete. We had made a pact last night that if we improved our speed on the portages we could be home and in the bath half an hour quicker - so we were on a mission!

We were delighted to see some friends of ours at the first support point. Paul and Harriet are amazing paddlers who have the DW record for a mixed K2 over the none stop 24hour race. They ran a tag team support with us along the tow path for 11 miles, keeping us going, and providing us with some great tips and hints along the way. They did a sterling job of feeding us malt loaf, bananas, and jelly babies, sometimes all at the same time!! As a consequence we managed to paddle further today in less time - hooray!!!

Today passed without incident with the exception of the attacking swan at Reading. We are channeling our positivity brilliantly and we have a plan to go even faster tomorrow! We are AMAZING!!!

Day 1 - It Begins........

5.30am and a hard frost welcomed us this morning as we gathered our kit ready for the start. 34 miles from Devizes to Newbury awaited.

As the mercury rose above -5C crews arrived for registration and kit check in the car park of Devizes Wharf. And then all of a sudden we were on the start line...and off.

The first 17miles were incident free. As we neared our nemesis the .... tunnel (where we had fallen in during our last race on this section of the canal) a narrow boat entered the tunnel and all approaching crews were forced to wait so we decided to get out and run.

Fatigue was starting to rear its head now and our portages began to draw out, but we kept up the same paddling pace on the water throughout the day covering around 6miles per hour excluding time on land.

Newbury was a welcome site and the end of Day 1 was quickly followed by a long shower and quick snooze before refuelling ready for an even better day tomorrow.

The Calm Before the Storm

D-Day appears to be upon us! We have our many bags packed, out boat polished and more frusli bars than you would ever want to eat. We leave for Devizes today and start our paddle-fest tomorrow!

Having had sleet, snow and howling winds yesterday we have fingers, toes, arms and legs crossed that we see no more arctic weather till we are home safe and sound!

A HUGE thank you to everyone for their generous donations on our JustGiving page and for all the good wishes. We have topped the £2,000 mark which is just fantastic!! Keep logging on as we will be posting a daily update on how our challenge is going. So off we go singing "row, row, row your kayak gently down 125 of stream, merrily merrily merrily merrily not swimming is our dream"! X

Tapering and Planning - The Countdown Begins!

Having managed through our heavy training week ending with Waterside C on 12 March, our training has certainly changed pace. Whether it is ideal or not the last 10 days have seen us out in our boat only twice due to my work and family commitments (sorry Liz!). It just goes to show that even when you sign up to do something like this you still have to back peddle sometimes.

We have been spending our time doing some well needed land based preparations and guess what, that has even involved some retail therapy! Having received our registration details we found a list of kit which we are required to carry in our boat at all times, if we don't and we fail a kit inspection we get a time penalty! The list includes some logical things like spare food and drink, but also some slightly more worrying things like a survival bag, whistle and torch - incase we get lost!!!

We have less than 2 weeks before we head off so we are really winding down on the miles and winding up on our portage revision! Speaking to the "wise heads" at the Nottingham Kayak Club we should spend our last 7 days doing nothing but eating carbohydrates and sleeping - wouldn't that be a nice thought, nobody has told them that the last 7 days is the first week of the Easter holidays and with 6 children between us to entertain, feed and referee I can't see that happening!

Thanks for reading, don't forget to pop back and see how our last 2 weeks progress and then make a regular trip to the Channeling Positivity site during the event as Justine will be uploading a daily report through Tom and Phil our vital support crew.

Sink or Swim?

Last week we entered into our biggest training week since we set off on our challenge. In April we will be paddling approximately 35 miles for 3 consecutive days with the final day of 17 miles down the Thames tideway. This week we completed 3 consecutive days of 20 miles per day - the longest we have ever paddled for and we did it without too many aches and pains!

Friday involved paddling on the canal going up, down and up again! We added some interesting portages in to keep our legs working and experienced our first "bush wee"! Unfortunately at 15 miles we realised we were 5 miles from home and only had 1 hour before school pick up so had to get a shimmy on to make

sure we fulfilled our responsibilities as mothers and not just our need to paddle!

Saturday saw 18 miles on the Trent and canal avoiding the rowers who seemed to be out in force with the sunshine. Justine had left me in the early hours of Saturday morning with "don't forget Claire, there is never a traffic jam on the extra mile". Liz and I pondered this over our 4hours on Saturday but still weren't sure we understood th

e relevance - any suggestions gratefully received!!

Sunday we went to Pewsey and raced in Waterside C. 23 miles on the Kennnet and Avon canal. The event is part of a series of 4 races on parts of the Devizesto Westminster course. Along side the 23 miles we had a total of 35 portages to complete - that is not a typo, the challenge of the course, so I am told, is the 35 locks you have to portage round, so our portage practice on the canal was invaluable.

What we had not factored into our training was kayaking through a tunnel. On the course there is a 516 meter tunnel - how hard can it be we thought?

Well the answer was VERY!

We entered the tunnel with the marshal shouting to inform us there were "swimmers in the tunnel". Up until that moment it hadn't entered my head that you might fall in in the tunnel! With that thought looming in our minds and the threat of a fast k2 immediately behind us, the dark and narrowness of the tunnel got the better of us and we too became "swimmers in the tunnel"!

So there we were, wet, in the dark and looking at either end of the tunnel thinking which end was closer to swim to - thankfully my brain was still working and as I looked backwards, which was slightly closer, I remembered that if we swam back to the start we would still need to paddle through it again - forwards it was then! Our hero, Jack, came to rescue us in his Canadian canoe and while Liz climbed in I continued to walk through the tunnel with the boat. 20 minutes later we arrived back in the sunlight! Once we climbed back into our boat and paddled on we decided that nothing else that day could be as bad so although we were colder we were invincible!!

We completed our 23 miles including our tunnel swim in 5hours 20 minutes. Not the fastest time on record but we finished! Both Liz and I managed to end up in the water at other points in our journey. For Liz, much to the amusement of a balcony full of people enjoying a Sunday lunchtime pint in the sunshine - the man who took that video needs to donate his £250 from "You've been framed" to Teenage Cancer Trust!!

So, our big weekend of preparation was completed- not without drama and certainly not without enjoyment! We learned a lot to help us in 4 week's time, least of all don't capsize in a tunnel.

Don't forget to visit our justgiving page, see the link just to the right, and make sure you keep our spirits high by donating anything you can.

Two Ladies, one kayak and 125 miles!

The Channeling Positivity Foundation is hopefully is on its way to being a fully fledged and official foundation. Hooray! And of course the fundraising efforts still continue; Claire and Liz have bravely taken on the next challenge to help raise the profile of Channeling Positivity and raise some much needed funds to help us to "inspire young people to lead positive lives". Hopefully over the next few months we will have an official and rather swanky looking web site and of course Claire and Liz's blog about their mamouth kayak race of 125 miles......ouch!!!! So stay in touch and I hand you over to Mrs Claire Kay......................

Last year I watched Justine and Kate plough through their long, gruelling and at times ridiculous training regime to prepare for their amazing channel swim. I followed, supported and help them in their fund raising efforts. One morning walking home with Justine from the school drop off, she had been talking me through the training for the week and recounting how much weed she and Kate had washed out of their cozzies after swimming in the Trent. As normal I laughed a lot and told her she was mad. Then she asked me if there was any sporting challenge I had ever wanted to do. Not me, I do that sort of thing, but I recounted a gruelling kayaking challenge that some friends had undertaken the year before, the Devizes to Westminster kayak race - 125 miles, "well" she said, "you should do it." Despite my protests she left me saying "you should Claire, why not?." "Perhaps I will" was my response.

Perhaps I will - what was thinking! To Justine my armour had cracked, I had signed my contract, she had her next challenge for Channelling Positivity, whether I liked it or not! That was in June last year so what have I been doing? Kayaking, running, oh yes and a bit more kayaking!

I plied my friend Liz with wine one evening and she agreed to join me in a K2. In August we thought we should probably learn to kayak, good idea if we intended to do that for 125 miles! We had both done a bit of paddling with our kids at Nottingham Kayak Club but I think we definitely wore the label, novice!

Now it is March and we are 5 weeks away from our challenge. Unfortunately as the Channelling Positivity Foundation is not yet off the ground we have been unable to fund raise for the Foundation, but are fund raising for the Teenage Cancer Trust and hoping that in the last five weeks we can raise the profile of Channelling Positivity and see if we can help find a benefactor or two to get this charity off the ground.

The inspiration of watching others succeed is very powerful. Experiencing success for yourself can be life changing.

Our challenge may not be as intense as Justine and Kate's channel swim, but for Liz and I it has already pushed us further physically and mentally than we ever expected. We are not as fit or as dedicated to our training as the girls were, and we started from a lower base but we still intend to achieve our goal as "anything is possible if you have courage", so Justine tells me!

Over the next 5 weeks we will keep you up to date with how we are dealing with our preparations. If we can help inspire others to give a challenge a go, we can show that the fundamental aspiration of the Channeling Positivity Foundation is sound and worth supporting.

We're back and looking good!

So it's a new year and I guess that means a new start. Kate and I have been ticking over since the big channel crossing in July, well that is if you consider Kate's evil swim sessions as "just ticking over!!!" Anyway, we haven't decided on another challenge yet but we do have one immediate goal and that's to get our Channeling Positivity Foundation off the ground. So we are in search of a benefactor or benefactors that would be willing to invest some money into the foundation and help us "to inspire young people to lead positive lives".

Having spent some considerable time working on an application to the Charities Commission they promptly rejected my plea for Foundation status as we could not demonstrate financial independence, despite having raised nearly £13,000 for charity. Therefore in order to get their golden handshake we need a minimum of £5000 in the bank......... ....red tape and hoops ring any bells!!!

So I guess Kate and I are just wondering whether any budding philanthropists out there would like to get behind the Channeling Positivity Foundation? If so, get in touch with me - justine.drury@tigersolutions.co.uk

So that's all for now but we are back on track and ready for action!

NEW - TRAINING DIARY PAGE

I am just trying to find time to write up the training sessions we did to prepare for our channel swim... but in the meantime i thought some of you may be interested to know what we are up to in the pool these days.. just trying to keep a decent fitness level really at the moment!

Feel free to have a go at any of them, but make sure you let us know how you get on... any suggestions are always welcome!

Apologies for the dreadful layout at the moment... I haven't had time to work on it at all yet!!

Click here to see what we did on Monday!

Happy Swimming!

k

Channeling Positivity – the journey not the destination! (Just's take)

Masterpiece left Folkestone harbour around 4.30am. The sun was rising slowly and I was ready to embark on the challenge of a lifetime. In fact I’ve never been so prepared for anything in my life; Kate and I had spent the last 18 months dreaming of this moment and now it was here and we just wanted to swim. Kate slowly entered the water around 5.00am and swam to the shore of Samphire Hoe west beach. Our loyal friends and family bellowed from the cliff tops. Then our official observer blew her whistle, which signaled the start of our English Channel two-person relay crossing.

The first hour went by slowly giving me the opportunity to focus and lay demons to rest. The change over happened quickly, I used the ladder to enter the water and remained behind Kate until she was helped out. This would be the last time I would enter the channel in this way and resorted to a good old-fashioned jump into the sea which made us all laugh, distracting me from the cold sea, which was generously pumping out 16 degrees celcius of heat!

The swell was bigger than expected and I had to work hard to maintain a good stroke rate. It was like being on a fairground ride, just one that restricts your oxygen! The 10 minutes sign was held aloft and I was ready for my hot chocolate and fruit bread. I thought I caught sight of Kate vomiting over the side of the boat, which placed some unexpected doubt in my mind. The 10 minutes dragged on but finally I saw Kate standing by the ladder in her trusted pink cap and smothered in sudocream. She must be OK I thought?

When I got out, the crew attended to my every need and then I quickly learned that Kate wasn’t feeling so good. I then heard a burp, which echoed across the sea; it was Kate being sick in the water. This wasn’t good as I was witnessing something that I have never seen before, Kate struggling in the water. Emma, one of our crew, turned to me and said “Wales, I know you’ve got more in your locker” I nodded and agreed that from that moment on I would swim like a welsh woman possessed; I wasn’t going to let my buddy down.

The hours passed and the super tankers and ferries cruised by, in fact one a little bit too close for comfort, causing me to tread water for 10 minutes until it eventually acknowledged our presence. Despite all my bravado I was extremely scared and cold! Kate commendably swam through her sickness and gradually started to feel better by her third hour. The “rocket girl” was back!

The atmosphere on Masterpiece oozed positivity and we laughed and joked constantly. It slowly dawned on me that I was relishing every second and the thought of jumping into cold salt water and swimming for an hour was exactly what I was born to do. We read the motivational comments that all of our friends and family had written.

France seemed to be getting closer but we ignored the temptation to get excited. I was told to swim my fifth hour like it would be my last. Strangely I didn’t question this; I just nodded and jumped in. Suddenly I was drifting further away from our boat, wondering why they weren’t following me. I then heard the shouts “head for that white house” I stopped, looked up and there was France. I very quickly reached the rocky shore and clambered on. I held my arms aloft, blood dripping from my legs. We’d made in it in 9 hours 58 minutes, in fact we’d smashed it. Kate joined me further down the shore and the two gendarmes made sure we didn’t outstay our welcome. Our journey finally over and our destination truly overwhelming.

A Kate’s Eye View

_{Friday July 22^nd saw myself, Justine and Emma hooking up a caravan to Justine’s van and setting off on a 5 and a half hour drive to Dover. Everyone was in good spirits and once we’d manoeuvred the caravan (leant to us by Kimberley Caravans, complete with giant stickers announcing to the world that we were going the swim the Channel!) off Justine’s drive we were good to go!}

We’d put together a few cds of motivational tunes that kept us entertained for most of the journey (although the Nottingham to Dover drive is not one I’d choose to do often!)

Stopping at the service station for a much needed coffee and wee break, Justine expertly parked the Van + Caravan in a ‘long load’ space… only to get back to the car and find a big yellow piece of paper stuck to the windscreen… yep… that’s right, clearly someone didn’t consider Van + Caravan to be a ‘Long Load’ … Great!

So… we have Emma marching around the car park determined to find the culprit and give him and earful (and probably worse) .. Justine taking photographic evidence of the length of the Van + Caravan and declaring that she wasn’t going to pay it, and ‘what are they gonna do… take me to court?!’ .. and me suggesting that we go onto money saving expert.com to find out how to protest the ticket!

We left the services in a bit of a rage.

It then dawned on us that we didn’t know how much the fine was.. So I opened the ticket .. Only to find that it was a ‘pretend’ ticket.. Just warning us not to do it again!

Very funny indeed!

_{The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful and we arrived at Varne Ridge caravan park to a lovely warm welcome from David & Evelyn.}

To our delight Mark Preston, his family and his buddy Ryan were also staying at Varne Ridge. Mark and Ryan were in Justine’s lane at the 24 hour swim we did earlier this year so it was nice to see some familiar faces! Mark told us he hadn’t yet been able to get started on his Channel attempt because of weather and tides… time was running out for Mark as his buddy Ryan was going to have to head back home for work commitments, and as any channel swimmer will tell you, your buddy is SUCH an important part of any swim as its their job to make sure you get fed and watered throughout the swim!

Also on our site were a few Australian solo swimmers, including Geoff, who had completed his swim the day before, despite having to do a 15 km detour to try and beat the tides near France.

There were also 2 junior teams over from Australia, along with their families and coach Pauline. The Barracudas were a great bunch of kids and what an experience to have at such an age!

After struggling with officially the World’s Worst Awning Instructions we thought we had cracked it and were about to start patting ourselves proudly on the back for a job well done, when Evelyn popped over and said to us ‘girls.. That don’t look right… I’ve never seen one with poles on the outside’ So it was back to the drawing board. Luckily it was past 4pm which, it would seem, gives us the 1 hour window where Justine’s brain is firing on all cylinders ;-) and Emma and I just followed Justine’s instructions until all poles were on the inside and the awning looked like a proper awning!!

So we were all set up ready for a good nights sleep … (despite a few hiccups that were sorted by David!)… and with our jim jams on we settled for an early night.

Then came the storm

It was a storm like no other storm I’ve heard before… ever!

_{It was terrifying. We were woken to loud thunder and the crashing of lightening that sounded like it was right on top of us. I screamed and was nearly in tears I was that scared. We even invited Justine to come share the one bed, coz obviously under a duvet is the safest place in the world! Justine declined the offer (we later found out she was too scared to move!) and we tried to get some sleep once the storm had calmed down!}

When we got up in the morning we were fully expecting to find the site filled with charred shells of caravans but the only damage seemed to be that the storm had totally bent one of the tent poles of our awning… thank god we’d moved them onto the inside hey!!

3 cold showers later (the storm had also tripped the electricity in the shower blocks!) we were ready to head to swimmers beach to buy some lights in case we had to do any night swimming on the day.

Now, our previous experience on swimmers beach hadn’t been a little mixed as we’d gone to do some training there a few weeks previously, only to be told that our relay was ‘impossible’ and that we’d left it a bit late to come practise in Dover. Not exactly confidence building especially considering this was said with no idea how much we had been training, or our previous swimming credentials! Luckily Justine and I are both tough cookies (despite the storm shenannigans described earlier lol) and actually turned this around to motivate us to show em and prove them wrong!

Anyway, we bought our lights from the lovely Michelle (who likes my hair!!) and went off to go buy some provisions to keep us fed while we waited for our swim to be confirmed.

Our buddy and physio Dani arrived on Saturday evening full of beans and excitement… this was great and just what we needed!

Our friends Karen & Lisa arrived in their motor home on Sunday, along with Louise, Jess, Sally, Mike and Legs (our photographer for the swim) who were staying in a campsite down the road. We also went to Dover Station to pick up Tracey who had travelled all the way from Scotland to come and help us on the boat. Tracey is a Sports Psychologist and it was great to have such an awesome support team with us for what was sure to be the biggest challenge of our lives.

Dave (Justine’s husband) Emma Lou, Mai and Efan popped round to see us and do a bit of investigating on where best to wave us off from on the day.

It really was a special moment when I realised that all these people had come for us… to help us and support us. It made me realise just how lucky I am to have such great friends and family.

After a visit to Samphire Hoe (where the swim was due to commence) we realised that our supporters would have to try and see us off from a cliff edge as they would not be allowed access through the tunnel at 4:30am when the swim was due to start. We were glad that we had done our homework and got it all sussed our before the day, or else our friends would probably have missed seeing us off.

We had a lovely day in the sunshine (me in the shade.. Damn that ginger skin!!) with all our crew and friends.

So… its Sunday… the weather is lovely and we’d had a few messages on facebook from Pearl (our pilot Fred’s wife) saying that things were looking good for our planned Monday morning departure, but Fred would phone to confirm at 7:30pm. My word, half seven was a long time coming!

To keep ourselves busy, Justine and I went online and spent some time reading messages of support from friends, family, colleagues and other channel swimmers that had become our ‘internet buddies’ throughout this whole journey. We also went online to see how our sponsorship was doing. We were blown away by the generosity of people. It really was an emotional few hours, and the tears would randomly flow as we read the kind words people had written about us. Even as I type this the tears are flowing remembering how much this all meant to us.

_{We were feeling good and were pretty certain that Monday 25}^th _{would be the day. Then I went to chat to some other swimmers on the site. Mark told me that his swim (which had been postponed several times now) had again, been cancelled. Mark was due to set off the same time as us. This worried me so much. If Mark was being told he couldn’t swim, then surely we wouldn’t go either. Looking (again!) at the weather and wind reports, Monday really did look like the best day… and we just really wanted to get this blooming swim done!}

So it was back to waiting.

Then we got the call… WE WERE ALL ON FOR MONDAY!! We all cheered. It was really going to happen!

That night we all slept quite restlessly but we had expected that and tried to ‘bank’ some sleep hours in the day.

_{3am Monday 25}^th _{July the alarm went off and we all got up and started getting ready for this once in a lifetime experience}

Me, Justine, Emma, Dani, Tracey and Legs all took a steady and nervous drive in the van to Folkestone, to meet our pilots Fred and Harry (Fred’s handsome son!) and load the boat up with all of our kit.

We had SO much kit it was unbelievable… we were covered for all eventualities! 7 plastic boxes full of warm clothes, food, drinks, and gubbins, all labelled up to try and help the crew find things if needed!

Our CSA observer arrived… another female.. Ros. We were wondering if there had ever been an all female team AND crew before?

We all boarded the boat and started the journey to Samphire Hoe. I covered myself in Sudocream (nappy cream) as it has a high zinc content to offers great protection against the sun. We had decided not to grease up as its quite messy and there is no scientific evidence to suggest it actually keeps you any warmer

As we reached Samphire Hoe, we looked up to the cliff top to see (and hear!) our friends and family that had got up at stupid o clock to see us off… it was such a welcome sight and gave us a massive boost just when we needed it!

I was due to start the swim, which meant that I had to get off the boat and swim to shore, whereupon I would raise my arms above my head to signal the start of the swim and then get back in and start swimming. I started the swim just after 5am. When I entered the water I remember thinking how the Trent had felt colder than this the week before when we were training. This gave me a really good feeling about the swim.

CSA rules state that each swimmer must then swim for 1 hour alternately until they reach France. A 2 person relay is considered as difficult as a solo swim as the stopping and starting make it very difficult to maintain a good body temperature, but we had trained hard and acclimitised hard so that our bodies were really ready for this!

I started swimming back towards the boat and tried to find my rythmn. It was so hard. The waves, although not massive, kept breaking my stroke and I felt like I was being thrown around and up and down for the entire 60 mins. I made good progress despite this. The boat was on my left had side, which meant that I have to breathe bi laterally so that I could see the boat and not drift off in the wrong direction. Thank goodness we’d both trained ourselves to do this, as my natural stroke is very lopsided and ‘lollopy’ breathing every 2, and always to the right, so it was a good job we’d practised breathing to both sides! Because of the buoyancy of the salt water and the waves, it was quite hard to keep a decent leg kick going as it often felt as though I was kicking fresh air. My stroke is quite high in the water at the best of times!

Unbeknown to me, my ‘Luck be a lady’ swimming costume (hideous creation I found in the bargain bin!!) was right up my bum and my first 60 mins of swimming were spent exposing my entire white bottom to the whole of the boat! (this was soon to become the least of my worries!)

Seeing Justine and the crew on board when I breathed was really comforting and helped calm me down whenever I started to get overwhelmed by how tiny and insignificant I was in the middle of this massive expanse of water.

_{With around 15 mins left of my first leg I started to feel really sea sick. I battled on and tried to convince myself it was all in my head. Then I saw Emma take out the 10 mins left sign.. Which soon became the most amazing and welcome sight for each leg we swam!… after what felt like 20 mins came the 5 mins left sign.. And then after what felt like 3 hours I saw Fred drop the steps over the side of the boat ready for Justine to get in,and me to get out. This was a pattern that would soon become ‘normal’ each time in my head the last 5 and 10 minutes seemed to last forever!}

_{At the end of my first leg I climbed back on to the boat and asked for a ginger biscuit to try and help with the feeling of sickness… I was wrapped up trying to get warm, and emma handed me an unopened packet of biscuits… I was feeling AWFUL and I just looked at them.. Looked at my hands wrapped up in sleeping bag and gloves.. And threw the biscuits back to emma declaring ‘how am I supposed to open them’ Luckily Emma is very tolerant and I had warned all the crew that there may be times when we would be a bit snappy and mean, I just never thought it would be over a packet of ginger nuts!}

_{I tried to eat the biscuit (once Emma had opened the packet!) but I was really struggling.}

_{Then all of a sudden I found myself with my head over the side of the boat being sick. This continued for the next 2 hours. At one point whilst being sick, I started to feel movement down below and I feared an explosion from both ends. I quickly went off to find the toilet on the boat. I was mortified. I had to get Fred to explain how to work the toilet after telling him that I needed a ‘massive poo’ and I was worried it wouldn’t fit in the toilet. Seriously it was so embarrassing but I remembered being told that the pilots had pretty much seen everything so tried to tell myself that while I was sat on the loo!}

_{Ros, our CSA observer was also feeling a little unwell, and was being sick over the side of the boat for most of the journey. I felt quite relieved I wasn’t the only one!}

_{My first hour on the boat seemed to last forever as I wasn’t speaking much, and was focussing on the horizon as Tracey had told me this would help. It really did help but it took a lot of effort and at some points I felt my eyes roll into the back of my head (maybe sleep… maybe drifting in and out of some form of consciousness) I didn’t tell anyone until after the swim as I didn’t want anyone to worry!}

_{Justine finished her hour, swimming strongly and I prepared myself to get back in the water. I was looking forward to getting off the boat so couldn’t wait to get swimming. Unfortunately the sea sickness continued while swimming. At one point I stopped and Emma held up the ‘smiley face’ sign (we had mad several signs to help with communication between the boat and swimmer) which meant ‘are you ok?’ I gave Emma the thumbs up, just seconds before doing the loudest burp ever. I think maybe people in France heard it.}

So … poo… wee.. vomit and burps. Oh the glamour of the Channel!

_{I put my head down and carried on swimming, all the time thinking about our reasons for this challenge; to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust. While I was being sick and feeling sorry for myself, I thought of those young adults who are suffering with cancer and having to have chemotherapy where they can be sick for days afterwards. This put everything into perspective for me and helped me get on with the job in hand.}

_{The second leg seemed to pass fairly quickly and it was soon time to get back on the boat. Oh Joy!}

_{The water had felt colder on this leg than before, possibly because of the sickness and lack of fuel in my body, so it was harder to get warm on the boat. I got myself in our amazing ‘people shaped’ sleeping bag and stuffed some hot water bottles in there for good measure!}

I forced down a piece of crystallised ginger. HIDEOUS… but it really seemed to work! By this time Dani was also struggling with sea sickness.. But was still cracking on with helping Justine with whatever she needed! What a star!

_{Emma & Legs were busy keeping me warm and trying to feed me and keep me covered in sudocream but the smell was making me feel sick so I was resisting having more put on my face (I’d pay the price for that later when I returned to England looking like Rudolph!)}

_{Tracey was a constant motivator on the boat and when swimming. Always there waving us on and keeping us going. We really had an amazing team with us!}

_{At last I was feeling human again. It was like that feeling you get the morning after the worlds worst hangover.. You know the one where you wake up feeling normal, with no headache, or no sick feeling .. And you feel glad to be alive again!!?}

_{My next leg felt amazing.. I was back on it!}

_{My pace picked up and I felt I was cutting through the water with ease. The sun was on my back and the sea looked clear and almost blue! There were a few really cold patches that chilled me right to my core, but luckily we swam through them quickly (apart from on one of justine’s legs when she had to stop and tread water for a few minutes to let a MASSIVE tanker go past!)}

_{I think it was on this, my 3}^rd _{leg, that we were joined by (I later found out) Chloe McCardel, an Australian solo swimmer who was attempting a 3 way swim (E-F F-E E-F) She was swimming at a great pace, escorted by The Viking Princess and her crew. It was great to have a distraction, something else to look at. The crew of our boat and hers were waving and shouting. It was amazing! Unfortunately on her way back to England (after reaching France) Chloe had to stop her attempt due to hyperthermia. I felt honoured to have shared the same bit of sea as her!}

The rest of the swim is a bit of a blur… following Masterpiece (our boat).. And looking ahead at The Viking Princess… passing and dodging a few jelly fish.. Swimming over a REALLY big one and trying not to freak out about it!

_{Eventually France seemed to be getting closer and the White Cliffs of Dover seemed to be getting further away. I tried not to look.. But it was impossible not to!}

Time spent on the boat was taken up looking at messages on face book.. And texting people about our progress. Who’d have thought 10 years ago that in 10 years time I’d be sat on a boat updating people on a social networking site, through a mobile phone!? I also found time to write a note to Justine. The funny thing about a 2 person relay team is that after virtually living in each others pockets for the last 8 months, all of a sudden we’re doing this challenge… but never getting the chance to actually speak to each other throughout!!

My note told Justine how great she was looking in the water and that Dave Haller (her coach a city of Cardiff many moons ago that I knew through my welsh swimming days) would be proud of her as I’d even seen her lick her legs at one point… (a standing joke as Justine has the worst leg kick I have ever seen ;-) )

_{It was lovely to get a reply to my note the next time I was out of the water .. Addressed to Rocket Girl!! (so named because Justine says I swim like a rocket!!)}

_{Before long I was sat on the boat after my 5}^th _{leg when to my surprise Fred started to lower the smaller boat that would be used to escort the final swimmer in to France as the bigger boat has to stay a few hundred meters from the shore.}

Oh My God… we were nearly there!

Fred was rushing me and Legs into the boat so that we could catch up with Justine as it was looking like the hour would just tick over in to my leg for the last few minutes.

Unfortunately the engine on the smaller boat decided it didn’t want to play with us so Harry rowed us in a bit closer then I got the nod from fred to get in and get swimming.

_{Head down and towards the rocks at Cap Gris Nez. I felt brilliant. Every stroke taking me closer to that dream.}

Justine had already finished (unbeknown to us on the little boat, she had actually finished within her hour in a time of 9 hours and 58 mins)

_{As I was meters away from landing a huge wave lifted me up and dumped me unceremoniously on a massive rock. Ouch! I kept swimming and climbed up the rocks so that I was officially in France. We’d done it}

_{It was a very strange feeling landing in France. The picture I’d had in my head was one where Justine and I would be hugging and random French people would be cheering and congratulating us. The real picture was very different to this!}

_{Justine had a couple of French policemen coming over to her… I couldn’t see where she was so was just stood balancing on the rock with blood pouring down my leg and arm (from the rock dumping!) waving to errr… no one!!!! So I got back in the water and swam back to Fred and the crew on Masterpiece… escorted by yep.. Another policeman in a boat!!!}

Back on the boat was the best feeling ever. We’d only gone and swam the bloomin channel!!!

_{Hugs and kisses all round when Justine finally got back on the boat! And then the 2 hour journey back to Folkestone}

_{As we neared Folkestone Harbour we heard a huge cheer. Stood on the dock side were all our friends and family… it was an even better sight than the 5 mins left sign… and the French coast!! we got onto the little rowing boat and Harry rowed us to the side… we felt like heroes returning from war! Lots of hugs and even more tears.. And a well deserved pint… (although our mouths were a bit messed up from all the salt water!!)}

_{The staff at the Mariners pub were great and made us feel really special, donating money to the Teenage Cancer Trust and getting us a drink in on the house!}

_{Our crew were just amazing, and we could NOT have done it without them… Legs .. Now known as (Sea) Legs took some brilliant photos as well as doubling up as buddy to anyone that needed dressing or feeding. Tracey and Dani made sure Justine was kept in tip top condition and did an awesome job! And Emma basically has put up with me and my tiredness for the past 8 months… and been a constant support and motivator throughout the whole thing.}

_{We couldn’t have picked a better Pilot than Fred. He really knows his stuff… and it was due to Fred and Harry that we smashed this swim in less than 10 hours. Putting us second fastest this year (at the time of the swim) Not bad for a couple of open water ‘novices‘!!}

_{When we got back to Varne Ridge David and Evelyn had put a big banner on our caravan that read ‘congratulations on swimming the channel’ everyone came out of their vans and came to give us hugs and talk to us about our swim. I really hadn’t expected this .. It was just fantastic. I would recommend Varne Ridge to any channel swimmers as it was great to share stories and feel the genuine support of the other swimmers. (other campers on the site were also successful… Mark got his chance on the Tuesday and totally nailed his solo swim… and the 2 junior Australian teams both completed their swims later on in the week)}

It was a very emotional day, but I had expected to feel more tearful… little did I know that this was yet to come.. After feeling a bit like a robot on the Monday… by Tuesday I kept feeling myself welling up at random stuff!!… Especially when we went to the White Horse pub in Dover to write on the walls alongside other successful channel swims for the past 40 years… by Wednesday the tears were flowing even more… and its pretty much been the same ever since. Its now Saturday!

_{All the way through this we had maintained that it was the journey not the destination… but hey .. It was one hell of a destination!}

Thanks to everyone for following our story... this is not the end!

k

xx

We did it!

Just a quick post to say that Kate and I completed our 2011 English Channel crossing on Monday 25th July in a time of 9 hours 58 minutes! We smashed it!!!!!!!!!!!

Our pilots, crew and supporters are simply the best in the world - FACT ; we are both overwhelmed but very proud. Kate and I will post a write up of the journey as there are some very humorous moments!

I intend to have some celebratory drinks at my favourite pub - The Lady Bay on Friday evening (29th July) from 4 ish......there's some serious catching up to do! Please come and join me and hopefully Kate will make an appearance too (unless she goes camping?)

Kate Vines - thank you from the deepest part of heart for making my dream come true!

Let the good times roll and bring on the next challenge!!! Just x

The Final Countdown

So it Sunday evening, it's 17.05pm and Kate and I are getting our thoughts together. We've just had a conversation with our fab pilot Fred and it seems that we depart from Folkestone harbour at 04.15 tomorrow morning and commence our swim from West Beach Samphire Hoe at approximately 05.00am. We'll have final confirmation by 19.30pm tonight.

Kate and I continue to be blown away by the messages of support and generosity from all our family and friends; it's means so much to us and I know that the Teenage Cancer Trust is equally grateful. We love you all x