Both Kate and I are really looking forward to the big swim on the 25th July and if you need to get in touch with us, please feel free to leave a comment underneath; visit our Facebook site at Justine-Kate Channel-Swim or email at channelswim2011@yahoo.com
Monday, 23 May 2011
Thank you Lady Bay and visitors to Open Gardens
Just a quick thank you to all of the Lady Bay garden visitors that I managed to chat to over the weekend. Everyone showed a genuine interest in the channel swim and made a much needed donation towards our £15 000 target for Teenage Cancer Trust.
Friday, 20 May 2011
NLP
Last night i had my first ever NLP session with Louisa Lera at the Natural Health Centre in Nottingham.
It was so great!
After seeing David Walliams being hypnotised by Paul McKenna before his Channel swim, I thought it may be worth a shot to help with my fears and concerns about our forthcoming challenge.
My main fears are focussed around swimming in the dark and swimming with unknown creatures (not justine.. i know her lol!!)
To cut a long story short.. by the end of the session my fear about the 4 foot long 'sneaky and sly', slimy sludgy brown fish creatures that might swim next to me... had turned into a sausage that was swimming next to me and keeping me company and actually guiding me and helping me through the swim!! I know how mad that sounds... but every time i think of the sludgy brown things.. within seconds they have turned into funny swimming sausages!!!!!
I left the session feeling really happy.. and SO excited about the swim.. and instead of being scared of certain aspects.. i now feel that they will only add to the whole experience!
It really is fascinating and Louisa has suggested that i come back to see her again nearer the swim so that we can work on some other things.
Louisa has also, very kindly offered to donate 10% of her fee for my sessions to the Teenage Cancer Trust, which is such a lovely thing to do. I have been really overwhelmed by the generosity of people we have worked with throughout this project, also this week one of my work friends, Reg has arranged to donate some money raised through a Jamie Oliver party she's having! It it really appreciated and we can't thank people enough!
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
Wednesday, 11 May 2011
AWESOME PHOTO
thanks to Mike from the Channel Swimmer Forum for sharing this photo... i have added a little bit to it.. can you tell what?.... lol
Monday, 9 May 2011
Open Water Training starts...
Friday saw me tentatively dipping my toe into the murky (and cold) waters of Holme Pierrepont for the first time this year!
I decided to go 'sans wetsuit' seeing as I need to start getting used to the cold water.. Justine will be doing the same on Wed night (unfortunately I have a hairdressers appointment lol!!)
I have no idea of the temperature on Friday, but luckily we were blessed with sunshine which always helps!... a real guess would be 12 degrees.. but I am not sure what I am basing that on!!
I tried to block out the other swimmers exclamations as to how cold it was as they were getting in ... in their wetsuits... and just did what I did in Hunstanton; got in and got on with it!! Its a very different mind set when you know you HAVE to do something in order to prepare for the big swim... there really is no backing out!
Anyways.. i lasted the full session which was probably about 50 / 55 mins and was ready to get out then!!... a warm shower and a hot choc.. and no shakes.. BRILLIANT!!! (if only they could put a hot tub / shower on the boat when we swim the channel then that would be ace!!)
I felt confident that I could get back in again another 5 times and do the whole thing again (which will be what I think we will have to do on the big day!) so all in all a good experience!
Monday, 2 May 2011
Our 24 hour swim challenge
so this weekend Justine and I took part in the 2swim4life 24 hour swim challenge... and what a challenge it was!
The aim was to swim a mile, every hour, on the hour for 24 hours... at Guildford Lido
The challenge started at 10am and Justine and I set off at a nice steady pace, me in lane 1 with Colin, Danny, Kim and Cheryl and Justine in lane 2 with 'Her Boys'. The water certainly felt a LOT colder than the 24 degrees we'd been told it would be, which made it hard to keep a steady pace as everything inside was telling us to speed up to try and keep warm! Luckily it was a glorious sunny day, so those first few hours weren't too bad, as we were able to warm up in the half an hour rest we were getting before having to set off again!
We got ourselve into a little routine with the help of our 'Buddies' Emma, Laura and Dani (without them i think we would have lasted about ten minutes.. they were amazing!) we'd swim our 32 lengths (50 m pool) jump out and get dried off and into a dry cozzie and warm clothes.. then back to the tent / picnic blankets to rest up and try eat some food and take on some fluids.. great practise for the Channel swim.
we both found that eating little bits often seemed to work, and i for one didn't struggle with feeling hungry or thirsty at any point... altho i did discover that too much 'go-go juice' makes me windy!!!!
The factor 50 suncream was essential.. and even through that we both have lovely pink faces complete with goggle marks!
Miles 6 and 7 came and went.. and gradually the air temperature started to drop.. this was when we both started to struggle.. not with the swimmming, but with getting and staying warm after the swim.. even whilst wearing thermals, hats, gloves tracksuits and big coats and being inside a sleeping bag and tent
As the hours went on my pace slowed a little from 22:30 mins to about 25 mins by mile 11.
It was after mile 11 that i made the decision to stop at 12 miles. For both justine and I the challenge was about seeing what we could do and learning from the experience. We are still in heavy training and we needed to be sensible, and as more and more little signs of hyperthermia started to show themselves we decided the safest thing to do would be to call it a day and get ourselves warm and healthy! The last thing we wanted was to come away from this injured or poorly!
It was a great decision!!!! My last mile felt great (!?) i did it in 24:30 and i was pleased to be heeading home in a nice warm car feeling proud of what we had achieved.
Things i have learnt from this:
1 go go juice makes me burp and trump... lots
2 its hard to keep a steady pace when your cold.. we must work on this!
3 food that worked well for me were small moist things like philippas delicous lemon cake! also trying to take on small amouts of fluid often (although the regular trips tpo the loo were getting a bit tedious (i must learn to wee whilst swimming!)
4 we both need to try really hard to get fatter
5 we both need to get some seriously warm clothes for the boat
6 our swimming is strong and between us we both covered over half the channel distance (which is what we need to do on the day)
7 support and a positive mental attitude is essential. Our Buddies were awesome in helping sort our heads out and helping us remember to eat and drink
8 travel lodges suck ass
i think thats about everything!... it was a great event and we were swimming with some great people that really helped support and get us through! I will look forward to seeing who finished the full 24!
we'll pop some photos up when we get a chance!
The aim was to swim a mile, every hour, on the hour for 24 hours... at Guildford Lido
The challenge started at 10am and Justine and I set off at a nice steady pace, me in lane 1 with Colin, Danny, Kim and Cheryl and Justine in lane 2 with 'Her Boys'. The water certainly felt a LOT colder than the 24 degrees we'd been told it would be, which made it hard to keep a steady pace as everything inside was telling us to speed up to try and keep warm! Luckily it was a glorious sunny day, so those first few hours weren't too bad, as we were able to warm up in the half an hour rest we were getting before having to set off again!
We got ourselve into a little routine with the help of our 'Buddies' Emma, Laura and Dani (without them i think we would have lasted about ten minutes.. they were amazing!) we'd swim our 32 lengths (50 m pool) jump out and get dried off and into a dry cozzie and warm clothes.. then back to the tent / picnic blankets to rest up and try eat some food and take on some fluids.. great practise for the Channel swim.
we both found that eating little bits often seemed to work, and i for one didn't struggle with feeling hungry or thirsty at any point... altho i did discover that too much 'go-go juice' makes me windy!!!!
The factor 50 suncream was essential.. and even through that we both have lovely pink faces complete with goggle marks!
Miles 6 and 7 came and went.. and gradually the air temperature started to drop.. this was when we both started to struggle.. not with the swimmming, but with getting and staying warm after the swim.. even whilst wearing thermals, hats, gloves tracksuits and big coats and being inside a sleeping bag and tent
As the hours went on my pace slowed a little from 22:30 mins to about 25 mins by mile 11.
It was after mile 11 that i made the decision to stop at 12 miles. For both justine and I the challenge was about seeing what we could do and learning from the experience. We are still in heavy training and we needed to be sensible, and as more and more little signs of hyperthermia started to show themselves we decided the safest thing to do would be to call it a day and get ourselves warm and healthy! The last thing we wanted was to come away from this injured or poorly!
It was a great decision!!!! My last mile felt great (!?) i did it in 24:30 and i was pleased to be heeading home in a nice warm car feeling proud of what we had achieved.
Things i have learnt from this:
1 go go juice makes me burp and trump... lots
2 its hard to keep a steady pace when your cold.. we must work on this!
3 food that worked well for me were small moist things like philippas delicous lemon cake! also trying to take on small amouts of fluid often (although the regular trips tpo the loo were getting a bit tedious (i must learn to wee whilst swimming!)
4 we both need to try really hard to get fatter
5 we both need to get some seriously warm clothes for the boat
6 our swimming is strong and between us we both covered over half the channel distance (which is what we need to do on the day)
7 support and a positive mental attitude is essential. Our Buddies were awesome in helping sort our heads out and helping us remember to eat and drink
8 travel lodges suck ass
i think thats about everything!... it was a great event and we were swimming with some great people that really helped support and get us through! I will look forward to seeing who finished the full 24!
we'll pop some photos up when we get a chance!
Tuesday, 26 April 2011
a quick dip at the seaside
What wonderful weather we've just had... and how better to spend the glorious bank holiday than a trip to the seaside.. well thats what I thought whilst traveling to Sunny Hunny!
We arrived at about 11 o clock and I decided I would brave the sea without a wetsuit, to sea if the cold showers we've been having had actually done any good...
I tried to hide my nerves as I strode into the icy water and just tried to keep calm and keep going .. I knew that if I stopped I would most likely chicken out.. so I kept going...
Then came the point where I had to submerge myself in the water and start swimming...
I have never felt anything like it.. cold isn't the word!a
I felt my breath being taken away from me and had to do a couple of breaststrokes to stop myself hyperventilating ... but once i'd got moving I settled into a nice rhythm. The strangest thing was feeling like I wasn't ever warming up.. even after 20 mins my hands and feet.. and my lips were cold. I decided to keep going for a bit then head back to shore before I got too cold and ran into any problems!
I landed back on the beach easily, and felt pretty pleased with myself... and then came The Shakes!... wrapped up in hat, scarf, gloves and tracksuit I was still shaking all over as my body tried to warm up.. it was just plain weird! Luckily I had read similar things online so was prepared (hence the packing of hat and gloves on the sunniest day of the year!) and after a few minutes my body calmed down and off we went for some chips!
All in all i'm pretty pleased with how it went, but now realise how much more cold water swimming we need to get in before the big day so that our bodies are as used to it as they can be!
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