Channel Swim 1: Establishing a baseline

Swimathon, Local pool, 12:30 March 30th 2019

As the whistle went we dove into the pool and started swimming. There were three lanes of swimmers – my lane was full of Triple 5k swimmers, but I was the only potential channel swimmer. With three three hour sessions today and tomorrow, the idea was to swim a 5k in each one. I’d done some maths and decided to try to swim 15k across the two consecutive three hour sessions today – I’ve swum 10k in under four hours before, but that was in a wetsuit (I’m 15-20s faster over 100m when wearing a wetsuit) and I knew it was going to be tight.

 I’d not made as many of the winter training sessions as I’d hoped and open water swimming had been restricted to a few short sharp sessions – this was going to hurt, but 15k is nearly halfway across the channel so if I could manage a non wetsuit swim right now, I’d know I was in better shape than I expected. 

After what seemed like a lot of lengths I glanced at my Garmin. 750m done. Only 14,250 to go. This was a stupid challenge to take on.

The seed had been planted last year, at the last swim of the season at the local lake; the temperature of the water was dropping rapidly and was now hovering at around 11 degrees. Despite that, there were a lot of swimmers in the water and a surprisingly large number of them were wearing no wetsuit – just trunks.

Chatting to Hannah as I’d finished my swim I’d mentioned them in passing.

‘Oh yes, they’re training for a channel swim next year’ she’d casually replied. ‘You’d be great at that.’

I’m pretty sure she would have said the same to anyone stood alongside her, but for me that tiniest of nudges was all it took. I started to wonder what was involved; how much training it would require; how much money it would cost. It was too late – I was done for.

I used to swim a lot when I was younger, and I distinctly remember telling my parents I’d like to swim the channel when I must have been about eleven. They were supportive in that ‘give it five minutes and he’ll have forgotten all about’ it kind of way. It took a bit longer than five minutes, but forget about it I did. Hannah had inadvertently brought it all storming back. Over the next couple of months I’d done some research into what was involved (there are a lot of rules and regulations in place, and it is very expensive) but had stumbled across a couple of things that really made me sit up and pay attention. The most interesting fact to me was that despite people swimming the channel since the late 1800s and only managing to climb Everest sixty odd years ago, twice as many people have summited Everest as have successfully swum the channel, and people still die regularly attempting it.

Having spoken to a number of people I had reached out to a channel pilot and am millimetres away from having a confirmed slot booked for summer 2020. I needed to know how far away I was from the fitness and endurance required and the swimathon seemed like an ideal early opportunity to gauge where I was – a bonus was that if I could swim half the distance now in 6 hours, I could probably establish 12 hours as a reasonable target time for the whole thing.

The most critical issue is that you aren’t allowed to swim in a wetsuit, it has to be trunks and I needed to know how much of a difference this would make.

Swimathon, Local pool, 15:29 March 30th 2019

I’d been swimming for three hours and was ever so slightly ahead of my target pace with almost 8k completed. I was tired, and weirdly my left elbow really hurt. I’d also discovered that it’s important to shave when swimming this sort of distance on a non wetsuit swim as every now and again as I breathed my shoulder was lightly brushing my chin – several thousand strokes later and I could tell my shoulder was being abraded by my stubble. I’d managed to grab a quick squirt from a drinks bottle and a gel every half hour or so and was still feeling fine. I knew I was on for the full 15k; at this point I knew it was going to really hurt to maintain the pace, but I still thought it was possible. 

The initial part of the swim had been slightly frustrating – I really wanted to maintain my own comfortable pace but also didn’t want to hold anyone up – this meant I held myself at the end of the lane as the other swimmers passed me; I was going quick enough that this wasn’t a major problem for all but one of the swimmers who was going blazingly fast but found myself fighting the temptation to swim 10% faster and not have to wait; however after around 100 minutes the other swimmers had started to finish their 5ks and I was able to stretch out and find a really good rhythm for the remaining 80 minutes. Before too long I had the lane to myself – the swimathon team who knew what I was trying to do had been brilliant and protected me from non swimathon swimmers who wanted to share the empty lane.

15k does lead to some completely insane numbers. I had to cover 600 lengths of the pool we were swimming in; Nutrition is an important factor at this duration and I’d arranged a couple of bottles of rehydration fluid and some energy gels at the end of the lane to eat and drink as I went but was still planning to hop out to eat some food at the half way point. 

I’d been worrying about cramping as I turned and pushed away from the walls, a problem I’ve had with long pool swims before, but the rehydration tablets seemed to be preventing that as a problem. As the other swimmers returned I dragged myself out and bolted a couple of bananas and an energy bar – I knew I wouldn’t have a lot of time left over at the end especially if I slowed down. A few minutes later I was back in the lane, comfortably front crawling up and down. I only had 280 odd lengths to go.

I’d read a couple of books and blogs from people who’d successfully swum the channel and quickly identified that there are two ‘certifying organisations’ – the older Channel Swimming Association and the newer Channel Swimming and Piloting Federation. Risk attempting it with anyone else and not only will your (presumably) successful swim not count officially, you stand a very good chance of being boarded by French border patrols who take a dim view of any boats just dicking around in the middle of the busiest shipping channel in the world (they haven’t allowed swims to go from France to the UK for years), and will not allow you to continue.

Each of the official organisations have a handful of boats and skippers but there seemed to be no way to choose between organisation or pilots – I needed more information before being able to make a choice. Meanwhile I was starting to pull together a feel for what was going to be required in terms of the financial and training commitments and had the full backing of my lovely family.

Swimathon, Local pool, 15:50 March 30th 2019

I’d barely found my rhythm again when I noticed the lights around the pool had gone off. I assumed it was part of their shift from day lighting to night lighting, but a length later as I reached the end of the pool my swimathon counter had put her hand down and told me I had to get out – an alarm had gone off and they had to empty the pool of swimmers for everyone’s safety while they worked out if they had to evacuate. Luckily we didn’t have to flee the building in our swimming trunks, but it did take nearly forty minutes to clear us to go back in the water. I’d anxiously been doing the maths as time ticked away and although I knew I’d be able to make up a twenty minute gap (maybe) forty minutes had pushed the full 15k out of reach. I would have to come back tomorrow anyway to finish things off.

Achievable target gone, I felt the energy and determination drain from every muscle in my tired body. I got back in, finished off the 10k and decided then to head home and check how I felt. Not great, as it turned out; dizzy and a bit sick. I definitely could have swum further – I know my body fairly well and I’m pretty confident I could have done the full 15k, but I really don’t think I would have had anything left afterwards. Ah well, at least I now knew where I stood.

One thing I learned, which was not really a surprise but had been driven home hard, was that doing 400 lengths in a pool was bloody boring. Training for this challenge was going to be soul destroying and I was going to need to think hard about how I kept it interesting. 

One thing I already knew – this was going to be a massive challenge and I’d need to train properly over a serious chunk of time; I’d actually found a bunch of people who had managed to succeed despite not really delivering on what should have been required in terms of training, but I knew there were probably loads of light trainers who hadn’t finished (or even started) and who weren’t shouting about it in the same way. I also knew the boat skippers were booked up in some cases three years in advance and if I wanted a slot 2020 was the most likely window providing I got moving.

I knew I needed more inside information to be able to start making choices, confirming a slot and really committing to making this happen in 2020. Fortunately a friend knew a guy who’d been through it all and was willing to share his insights. We arranged to meet up.

Swimathon, Local pool, 11:59 March 31st 2019

I was back for the final 5k – I’d made things much more challenging for myself by booking a 10k trail run at 9:30 that morning – by the time it had started slightly late and I ran it at a quick but comfortable pace I didn’t have the time I’d expected to reset at home. I did discover that if you’ve spent four hours in a pool your feet are still softer than you might expect the following morning was limping a little with a blistered instep. Overnight my sore elbow had calmed down and I felt good – even though I was expecting to be severely dehydrated I felt ok on the run and good as I got to the pool. As we started our final block of swimming the lack of a time target I was racing took all of the pressure off and I was able to swim strongly and comfortably. As it was ‘only’ 5k as well, I was less worried about fuelling, other than making sure I kept rehydrating.

We hammered up and down as a group, and I was delighted when the two lovely fastest swimmers who I’d been chatting to made sure they hung around until I’d finished so we could all congratulate each other. I was frustrated I hadn’t been able to swim the six hour block, but you have to roll with the punches. The final swim block was absolutely fine (I was thinking I could have comfortably done 10k this day as well), and I’d established that my relaxed pace seems to be very constant regardless of how tired I may get physically which is good for planning, but – man – 200 lengths is still boring.

Next: Channel Swim 2: Understanding the Challenge