Channel Swim 3 – Thinking about David Walliams

With two of my three ‘A’ races for 2019 done (Blenheim Weekend Warriors and Escape from Alcatraz) and the last just two weeks away (Long Course Weekend) I’m finding my mind turning more and more often to next years channel swim. It suddenly seems a stupidly hard thing to take on, but with almost exactly 12 months until my slot I’m having to think about it all the time as I book accommodation and other stuff connected.

I’ve just watched David Walliams swimming the channel back in 2006. I have never seen the program before, and was delighted halfway through to discover he used my boat/skipper for the challenge. Watching him (spoiler if you live under a rock) try to drag himself onto the french shore was difficult, but aside from that it looked like he had a pretty straightforward swim.

I wish I’d stopped there and not gone on to watch another video….

One thing that is slowly becoming clear to me is that cold water acclimatisation (given I’m going in June) is going to be much more important than I thought. I think I’m going to have to be one of those nutters down the lake swimming without a wetsuit in February as the sea temperature could be as low as 12-13 degrees and if I’m totally honest that scares me quite a bit.

This weekend just gone I decided to try a endurance non wetsuit swim. I’d signed up for the reading Humdinger swim – a six hour OW event and would go in wetsuit free to see how I got on. In my head, I knew if I could maintain 2:00 minute 100m pace I’d be done in 5 hours – if I could manage 2:20 it would be 6. I was surprised to turn up and discover hundreds of people there – I was only expecting a few. I wonder if the organisers had also been surprised as the plan for solo swimmers to stash nutrition on the small jetty very quickly started to run out of space. On the plus side, it was a gorgeous day with the sun beating down and everyone competing seemed very cheerful and ready for the off.

As soon as the safety briefing was dealt with I jumped into the 20 degree water – keen to take my time and adjust before the start seven/eight minutes later.

It was freezing. Although the initial shock was no worse than the same temperature water creeping in through a wetsuit zip, it didn’t go away as the water warmed up like it does in a wetsuit. I held on to the side of the jetty (low buoyancy meant I didn’t float as easily as I was used to) and felt my teeth start to gently chatter. This was not a good start.

Seven minutes later, not a lot had changed. I was still cold. As the horn went, a hundred swimmers took off at 500 mph (I don’t know why, but I’m always surprised when I turn up at a dedicated swimming, rather than multisport event, that it’s usually full of good swimmers). I was in no hurry, picked a spot and started swimming at around 2:00/100m.

By the time we were five minutes in I was starting to enjoy myself. It was still a weird sensation, with my arms feeling noticeably colder than my torso, but as my body started to work, it stopped being an issue, just felt odd. Just over 20 minutes in I finished my first 1k lap, and at a few minutes past the hour I finished the third. Halfway round the next lap I had the cheery thought that I was now a tenth of the way across the channel.

Finishing this lap, I stopped and grabbed a big drink and a couple of gels. I was heartened to see a helper quick to spot me and grab my empty wrappers before they could go anywhere harmful; less than thirty seconds after stopping I was off again. A lot of very strong swimmers were just bombing past – but the lake had quickly quieted as everyone spread out. I did giggle to myself as I kept coming across the same (much faster) swimmers who’s inability to sight meant I kept pulling past them.

I felt strong, really strong, and kept a steady pace (slightly off five hour time but well within six, even with a potential nose powdering break) right up until I’d completed six k. At this point I was aware both elbows were twinging slightly and I started to worry about what they would be feeling like in nine or ten kilometres time. I was still lovely and warm, which was very reassuring – although at no point did I lose track of the fact there’s a huge gap between 20 degrees and 12. Different muscles were hurting to usual – I was assuming at this point that different buoyancy and having to sight (which you don’t do in a pool) was forcing me to bend in ways I wasn’t used to. Nothing was critical, but I was more sore than I’d expected.

To be fair, given that I’d now done triple my longest swim since much earlier in the year, I probably should have been expecting to be feeling worse.

I started telling myself there’d be no shame in pulling out at 10k – I had nothing to prove at this point, and I’d have accomplished my main objective which was to prove I could OW endurance swim without a wetsuit. If I’d set this up as my 6 hour qualification swim, that would be different (and that would have been a sensible thing to do) but I hadn’t got round to it.

Halfway round the seventh lap, I suddenly had a epiphany – I was less than two weeks away from the biggest race of my year. Why on earth was I talking about pushing myself for another hour? And also, I had a triathlon at 7:00 on Sunday morning and I really wanted to see what my new bike could do. Seven K under my belt, I climbed out, in no way upset by my decision.

I could have swum another hour and racked up 10k, and once I’d got there I almost certainly would have talked myself into staying and finishing the fifteen, but I would have wrecked the tri the next morning and if I’d damaged myself before LCW I would never have forgiven myself. It’s possible I might be growing up, a little at least.

I had a nice chat with the organiser, let him know I was stopping (he was surprised, but supportive), took a few minutes to watch the swimmers still flying around (the individual winner swum 27k in six hours) and gratefully took a cracking participants medal as a memento.

What I did do was prove to myself I can swim in OW without a wetsuit for many many hours. I learned that I’m going to have to train in OW sighting without a suit on and that maybe, just maybe I can acclimatise to the freezing cold water before the swim next year.

I think I need to pack in a few more organised endurance swims before the season ends. And I really need to get my certification swim booked in. I guess I can’t stop worrying about next year just yet.

Next: Channel Swim 4: Time to get serious
Previous: Channel Swim 2: Understanding the challenge