Channel swim 8: Pros and Cons

So the novelty of pool training has definitely worn off. I’ve had a couple of weeks where,,,

1. We had a houseful of lovely friends round for an early Christmas, which forced me to choose between helping out the family or swimming and then
2. caught manflu from one of those lovely friends (he knows who he is) and spent a week unable to even get dressed without breaking into a massive sweat but still felt hugely guilty about missing swim sessions.

Dragging myself to the pool is no longer fresh and exciting, but at least the swim sessions I’ve been given by Hannah the coach have kept things bearable by mixing things up.

One of the sessions I missed while snotting everywhere and trying to stop my head from splitting through sheer force of will was the December lake swim – the temp is down to 5.2 degrees, dropping rapidly even in a few short weeks, but I’m really worried I’m not swimming enough in freezing cold water to acclimatise, and stay acclimatised, so I was really frustrated to not make this but I wouldn’t have been able to drive to the lake. The Thames has finally slowed it’s flow enough for me to potentially be able to get back in but it’s worryingly cold too.

I’m in Seattle at the moment, and I was finally able to complete a swim session – I coughed a lot more than usual, and then spluttered a lot more when I drank a substantial volume of the pool as a result of the coughing, but I was relieved that the break if anything had given my speed a punch. On the plus side, a body still on UK time made the 5am start for the swim the easiest ever.

Now I need to catch up; I did manage to average 14k a week over this period, but it’s not enough. I need to smash the rest of December but can see a few things that may make that tricky…

While recuperating and gazing blankly at the ceiling I did weigh up the pros and cons of channel swim training with 70k a month now under my belt….

Pros:

1. Huge biceps
   I have bigger biceps and pectrorals than I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve probably been sexually harassing all my friends (all genders) by making them poke them repeatedly. It’s not really suprising, the arms are doing 85% of the work and I’m doing 8-10 hours a week of training, but I’m still impressed; I’m also taken aback by how warm they are (more muscle, less fat?). I suspect sometime in January I’m going to discover a lot of my work clothes don’t fit, which is something that could get expensive.
2. I can eat what I want
   This isn’t quite true…yet. I’ve been hugely naughty since completing the last day of Lou’s food diary and so far it’s not caused too much of an issue due to the massive amount of calories I’m burning off training. I now genuinely believe as the distance continues to ramp I will struggle to eat enough. For now, I need to make a few more healthy choices for the Christmas period, but any other time in my life the lack of focus I’ve had on diet recently would have been catastrophic.
3. Lots of time to think
   There’s not a lot to think about in a pool. Even less now Hannah’s correction of my head position means I can’t casually soak in all thats going on around me as my eyes are now firmly locked on the bottom of the pool. As a result I’ve been having some really weird thinking session as I finally have time to process all the random stuff that usually gets ignored.
4. Pleasant Chlorine fragrance
   Well, my cat loves it anyway. When I come in from a swim he makes a line like a bullet to me and spends a good five minutes nuzzling and cuddling my ankles before deciding to lovingly bite the crap out of them, at which point we fall out fairly quickly.
5. Met some amazing people
   I continue to meet amazing people who are connected to channel swimming in some way or other, heroes who have attempted, completed, or supported a channel swim. But most of all, I’m getting to know some people I already know a lot better as I work through the process. I think I have my first choice team locked down; four out of five choices have expressed delight and stepped up, only one has understandably been unable to commit the window we need covered.

Cons:

1. So so tired
   I’m tired all the time. I spent quite a while in denial about the impact of the activity, blaming instead the early starts, but I cannot pretend now that the exertion isn’t wearing me out too. Physically I feel strong, but it’s not unknown for me to be in bed unconscious at 8:30 at night, usually on a day when I have a 5:30 start to get a swim in before work.
2. Pressure to get the training in is intense
   I get a lot of flexibility from work, but there’s very little at the local pool – If I don’t want to be swimming 8-10 at night (and I don’t, as I don’t want to leave eating till after that and I don’t like swimming while full), I have to decide each night whether to cash the following morning in for some badly needed sleep or to bank a swim session now and ease potential pressure later. It gets harder on a busy work week because I potentially need both badly. The whole decision tree is quite stressful and loaded with guilt.
3. Sleeping in separate rooms a lot
   Jo and I love sharing a bedroom, but I’m finding myself on my own quite a lot – either because I’ve been snoring like a chainsaw and she’s staggered off to the guest room in a desperate attempt to get some rest or because I’ve wearily sighed and made my own way off to try to avoid waking the house up before leaving in the morning. I’ve actually put a phone charging pad and an alarm in the guest room to make things easier. We were both a bit worried about this but friends who have done similar commitments have confirmed it’s normal and actually probably essential.
4. The whole thing is ruinously expensive
   I knew it was going to cost a bunch, but there’s a whole series of minor, but cumulative expenses kicking in now. I asked the doctor we have at work to sign my medical. She looked me squarely in the eyes and told me there was no way she was sharing liability for something that dangerous. In the end I wound up paying £150 for a private sports medical (My doctor was excellent and I am strong as an ox, BTW). There’s a lot of unexpected costs like this that keep popping up. It probably doesn’t help that I’ve just booked a load of accommodation in Dover for next year.
5. I smell of chlorine all the bloody time
   The cat might love it. I don’t.

Next: Channel Swim 9: Snapshots of the holiday season
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