Channel Swim
Just over 2 months has passed since I swam the English Channel. Back to school runs, work, laundry and life, but that hasn’t changed how I feel when I think about what I did! It feels like only yesterday that I swam it and I still get emotional when I think about what I accomplished. I’ve had time away from the pool, the ocean and structured training. I needed it. I wanted time to recover both mentally and physically but also to think about my journey, what I achieved and what I wanted to do next.
I’ve tried to share some of the past two years with you below. The road to the channel wasn’t smooth and it certainly took a year longer than originally planned but let me tell you it was well worth the wait! I also had a village supporting me on this journey but I want to separately share my thanks to those who helped get me to Samphire Hoe so below I guess is somewhat of a journal the lead up to my swim day (not all otherwise I would have been writing a book).
In August 2020 I was turning 50. I wanted to celebrate my 50th by giving myself a gift, something significant, something to really celebrate my 50 revolutions around the sun. For sure, I could have celebrated my milestone in a number of different ways, but this was a gift to myself, for me.
I had thought about different challenges and while they were all appealing none really took my fancy and I always wandered back to swimming the English Channel. On a family holiday in the summer of 2018 after several cross-channel ferry trips, I was having dinner with my family at the White Horse Hotel in Dover. This was the original hotel that every channel swimmer came to write their name on the wall (or the doors, the stair rails etc) after their successful swims. Our table was against a wall and on that wall were the names of two guys I had played water polo with in Perth during the 90’s. They had swum a relay sometime in the late 90’s and there I was just staring at their names. Coincidence that we were sitting at the table next to the wall with their names on it. Maybe, but I took it as a sign that this was what I was meant to do. Stu sat and just looked at me, knowing what would come next…..#joswimsthechannel!
I took my time to consider how my new challenge was going to impact my life and that of my family. I very much needed my family to sign off on this. They are the most important people in my life and home life was going to descend into ordered chaos for some time with me training, working and trying to be mum all at once. So, once they were onboard, I put together my ‘team’. I searched the Channel Association page for pilot boats and coaches – both absolute musts if you want to swim the Channel and also put my support crew together– in addition to my family, I asked Kate and Leyla to be my support team during the lead up to the swim and to be on the boat on swim day.
I put my bike on its rack and my running shoes in the cupboard at the end April 2019….my cozzie, cap and goggles were all I was going to be needing hereon in. The plan was for Leyla to prep me with a focus on endurance and lactate threshold work and at the end of Oct I was to switch across to endurance swim training with Tim.
I already knew from one of my early conversations with Tim what I needed to focus on to successfully swim the channel:
- I had to accept that I needed to put on weight – Tim was very upfront about this and told me that if I couldn’t do this then I should forget swimming the channel;
- I had to let go of things I couldn’t control; and
- Nail all of the things I could control.
If I could do these then I would be well placed to be successful on swim day.
What could I control? Cold water acclimatation, nutrition together with physical and mental preparation. What couldn’t I control – COVID 19, channel weather conditions and hypothermia! And of course, on swim day there would be nothing that I could control other than my own mental rollercoaster so I had to learn to give up being in control. Control on swim day belonged with Tim and the pilot boat captain. I was prepared to fight tooth and nail to stay in the water if the decision was made to pull me out, but ultimately I knew that that decision was never going to sit with me and giving away that control when you are the one used to being in charge was very difficult.
By the way, Item 1 took care of itself, thanks to menopause and also some of my endurance nutrition combinations – marathon swimming is not for the faint hearted when it comes to nutrition to fuel your body!
My nutritionist told me that to swim the channel in June, when the temperatures are still fairly cold (early June this year the water temp was still 13/14c) the ideal swim weight is around 70-75kg. The extra padding is to help protect from hypothermia and also to provide fuel for your body to burn rather than eat into your muscle on swim day. While I accepted that I needed to gain weight, the reality is that it is not as easy as that. As I gained weight, I really didn’t like it. I spoke a lot to my nutrition team about this and I got to a point in my mind that I had to accept that I was preparing my body to help me succeed and I eventually embraced the process. Menopause certainly didn’t help my mind set either and most days I felt like all I did was look at food and I put on another kg. But I needed to let it all go and parked the weight issue (and my head space on that) until after I had completed my swim – I would then be in a position to do something about it!
Over the 2 year’s I worked with my nutrition team to find the right combinations of nutrition that worked for me. I trialed these during my long swims and we tweaked them until we found what worked me for – no gut rot, no reflux and they fueled me the right way. Nutrition was always going to be key on swim day and I knew that if I nailed this then I was well on the way to making sure I would complete the swim
Obviously cold water acclimatation was always going to be hard in the middle east but I did what I could. I had cold showers for 2 years – some colder than others depending on where I was showering! I had ice delivered to my home pool and swam in it while on training on a tether and for 3 months before my swim I swam in an 8c plunge pool at the Intercontinental Hotel here in Abu Dhabi. I also experienced cold water swimming when I spent a week at a swim camp with Tim and his squad in May 2019. During our open water swims, we swam in temps ranging from 13 – 15 – man the water was seriously cold and yep I cried during some of these swims. Had I not been swimming with a group I think I would have definitely quit and got in to the support boat! But those swims taught me a lot about cold water swimming and also taught me how bloody tough I was!
Missing my July 2020 window was quite likely a blessing in disguise. Hindsight is wonderful and I truly believe that the extra time training and tweaking my nutrition held me in good stead for swim day. Not to say that I wasn’t gutted not to have gotten my swim away as originally planned, but hey it was only a swim and with what was going on in the world (and still going on) missing my swim was a minor blip!
I tweaked my training second this time round – with a focus on doing more open water swimming during the cooler temps in the UAE with a switch back to the pool as the weather warmed up. The longer open water swims really helped me work out my nutrition strategy and also prepped me not only mentally but also physically. The wheels most certainly fell off some days and there were plenty of sessions where I didn’t hit any high notes whatsoever, but each session taught me something. We can’t always hit the right training numbers that’s for sure but each session teaches you something and that’s another card you put into your back pocket for the actual day. Trust when I tell you there were plenty of times I cried in my goggles, physically hurt, was absolutely sick of being in my own head for hours on end and felt like absolute rubbish (again menopause did not help me here either). But there was always a bright light in those training sessions where everything sucked – turning my mind to thinking about how I would feel when I landed in France. I visualized my finish so many times in my head that I knew how I would feel (well how I thought I would feel anyway) when I landed in France long before I did the swim. I could feel and taste it and it was one of things that I could pull out of my back pocket and use to bring me back from a pretty shitty period during a long swim session.
As I started into my second year of training, my menopause symptoms were getting worse. I had noticed changes the previous year but nothing that significantly affected my heavy training load. Boy what a difference a year made. I was sluggish, very grumpy, putting on weight just looking at food and very very lethargic. I couldn’t get out of my own way. I had to manage my training during this year and build in rest periods for recovery. I didn’t go the Dr and talk about my symptoms until early May as I was actually starting to doubt that I would even have the energy to swim the channel as I was so fatigued. Not training fatigued a very different fatigued that had a grip on me day in and day out. I felt like there were days I couldn’t get my head off the pillow. So as the encouragement of a very wise soul I finally went to a GP who specializes in menopausal women and got myself sorted. I only wish that I had done it a year earlier. I also had to communicate with my coach about how I was feeling and talk about my poor training returns as I wasn’t pushing any high notes at all….I had very much flatlined in my sessions due to feeling fatigued all of the time. Tim was great and if I needed a rest week, he was ok, if we needed to dial back some sessions then he would. He worked with me even if it took him some time to get that he was working with an aging old bat! He had always told me that he ‘could get me across tomorrow if we wanted to’ so wasn’t overly concerned about my inconsistent training. Again thankful for the year that I had under my belt in that respect with a lot of km’s already under my belt.
Let’s fast forward to early June and with travel corridors opening up swim day was fast becoming a reality. My original swim day for 2021 was late June, but that was really never going to be achievable so Tim gave me several slots on a few different tides and let me choose what would suit me and allow me to work around my work, family and the ever-important support crew. Stu and I made the decision that I would travel solo to the UK. This wasn’t part of my plan and it took me sometime to accept that it was actually for the best but with the level of uncertainty around international travel we agreed that he would stay behind with the kids and then we would meet in Greece after my swim for a family holiday. Stu and the kids hit Greece mid-July and did their own Griswolds on tour while I prepped in the UK. Kate managed a lot of the travel planning – finding accommodation, covid test providers etc and by mid-June I had decided on a mid-July tidal window (slot 5) and was booked to fly to the UK via Greece. Tickets booked and I was on my way at the end of June – 21 days out from the opening of the tidal window (I needed to be quarantine free by 14 July).
I was nervous travelling solo – I’ve never really travelled solo and I was pretty anxious heading to Greece and I was staying there for 12 days – eek. I stayed in a little seaside town called Nafplio, trained with the local swim squad and swam in the most beautiful open water. I was made to feel so welcome and supported during that time and left with some incredible memories. It was actually really refreshing to take off a number of hats – my mum hat, my lawyer hat, the crazy work hour hat. I was free to focus on the next month, finish off my swim prep and start working on my mental preparation. Time to myself is a rare luxury – family life is hectic to say the least, so the downtime I was able to have in Greece did wonders for my soul as well as my swim prep. I landed in the UK, refreshed and ready to swim and still covid free.
By the time I landed in the UK, Kate was already a couple of days into quarantine and Leyla arrived the day after me. Leyla and I quarantined at the same guest house which was awesome and we had so much fun – catching up and eating some pretty good food. One of my oldest friends Leanne also came accross from Wales and stayed with us at the guest house – I was pretty happy having my mates around. They kept me grounded. I had worked my travel days backwards from the opening of the tidal window, so on 14 July I had received my day 5 test results early and was allowed out to play! We still didn’t know what day I was swimming at this stage or if any swims on this tidal window were going to get away. The wind and its direction are a key factor for the pilot boats when deciding whether or not swims will happen on any given day. The tidal window opened on 14th July but the weather was not playing ball and beside one failed attempt early in that window no one was going out. It wasn’t until early on the evening of 17th July that I got the call from Tim to say we would be off on 19th. OMG. Up until this point, my swim just didn’t seem real nor did it actually feel that it was ever really going to happen. At one point it looked like I may have to wait until the late July window opened before getting my swim in, but the fickle Brit weather turned itself around and just like that, it was on – like Donkey Kong! Kate, Leyla and Leanne swung into action with last-minute planning, running off to the shops, cooking, final swim session and making sure I had everything I needed. They took care of everything and left me to rest and run through my own final preparations.
The weeks leading up to my swim, I had, at various times, been totally overwhelmed with nerves and emotions. A couple of nights before swim day I had spoken with Stu on the phone in tears – scared that if I didn’t make the swim, I was going to be letting down so many people. I had deliberately not been on social media talking about my swim as I didn’t want that weight of everyone knowing when swim day was because of that. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to share my journey, I did, I also didn’t want to publicly disappoint if things went wrong on swim day. I too had expectations of and for myself (which is usual for myself as I expect nothing but the best from myself) and I was really scared of letting myself down and disappointing me! All of these emotions, I know, are normal. I just needed to get it out of my system and have a good cry with Stu -something I missed in not having him there with me. Of course standard response from Stu was that he told me I was a fool and that he and the kids had all the faith in the world in me and to pick my lip up and get on with it (in the nicest possible way). That really was all I needed to hear. I’m not one who talks about failing, it’s definitely not part of my mind set or make up but it’s not to say that a few nights out from one of the biggest challenges I’ve ever faced (lets face it parenting 4 teenage kids is the biggest) I didn’t slightly waiver in my belief in myself.
We were staying about 15 mins out from Dover and on swim morning we needed to be at the docks for 4.30am. I set my alarm for 3am, I needed to eat, get coffee in, stretch and get my head into game day. Kate and Leyla prepped for their journey on the boat and I got myself sorted – swim clothes, after swim warm clothes, nutrition, cramp mix, Vaseline. We were packed and ready to roll. And we had 3 alarms set. Mine, then Leyla’s followed by Kates….just in case.
After a slight hiccup with the taxi…Kate distinctly told them the night before that we simply had no wiggle room on timing and that they couldn’t be late – murphy’s law that they were, but in true Kate style the taxi issue was handled rather swiftly and we still managed to arrive at the dock in plenty of time. No stress was going to be creeping into the day we had planned that’s for sure.
There was plenty of activity that morning at the dock as the weather and wind conditions guaranteed a great swim day so all of the pilot boats were going to be out. We met Tim in the carpark and shortly thereafter were on the boat heading out of Dover Harbour. I had in my head that the trip to Samphire Hoe would take about an hour but it seemed like 5 minutes to be honest before I was told to jump into the dinghy for the final ride into the beach. During the ride I signed forms, got some last-minute nutrition in, Kate greased me up and Tim gave me his final instructions for my swim.
Tim and I had talked about how he had wanted me to swim the channel many times, but on swim day we seemed to push all of those things aside and he said to me ‘just get in and swim, we are on a slack tide, just get in and swim. No rush. When we drop down, don’t let your frustrations or emotions get the better of you as you are going to feel like you aren’t going anywhere or moving forward, but trust me we are.’ And with that, I got into the dinghy and was heading to Samphire Hoe beach to wait for the horn. I had thought a lot about this moment as I we headed toward the start point. I watched as some of the other swimmers started their swims, the jubilation on the boat as the swimmer started and caught up to the boat, it put a smile on my face and I knew that very shortly that is what Kate and Leyla would be doing for me very shortly. Leyla talks about race day being your celebration and today certainly was all about that. It had taken a lot of coordination, training, physical and mental energy to get to this point. There was so much to celebrate and I intended to enjoy every stroke as best I could while I was out there, I deserved it.
I looked across the channel at France and knew that today I was going to be over on that side at some point. I was nervous, but I actually felt so relaxed. I was relaxed for a number of reasons – Kate, Leyla and Leanne had taken such good care of me and we had had so many laughs leading up to this day it would have been hard not to have felt anything but relaxed. Secondly, swim day was not a race as such. Well, it is but it’s a race for different reasons. I swam my first swim race at 3 years old (25m backstroke) and understand where your head needs to be when you are competing and while I needed some of that on swim day, I didn’t need all of it as today I wasn’t hunting down a qualifying spot or chasing another ‘in race goal’, today was about celebrating me and so I didn’t need to be stealth mode, I wanted to be in ‘celebration’ mode while I was standing on the beach. It was really quite refreshing.
The dinghy stopped about a hundred meters off shore and I swam the last part into the beach. While I standing on the beach, I had good old chat with the fisherman next me and while I was having a good giggle with him, it took me a while to register that the boat horn had gone signally the start of my swim. So, at 5.36am on 19th July I dove into the water off Samphire Hoe and my channel swim started. I knew in my head that today I was going to be an English Channel swimmer. There was no doubt in my mind. I was quietly confident that barring an extreme change in weather or medical issue, nothing was stopping me except myself. So, I did what I knew I had to do – just do.
Some people may think that as I come from a swimming background, crossing the channel was never in doubt or that I didn’t have to work for it. Those people couldn’t be any further from the truth. Firstly, you don’t just roll up to Dover and decide that you are going to get in and swim the channel. The channel is a beast and if you aren’t prepared the chances of failing are incredibly high. Being a good swimmer or a strong swimmer simply is not enough to conquer the channel. Secondly, I wanted to do justice to my challenge and put myself in the best possible position to succeed. In the 2 years prior to my swim, I trained approx 481 hours and swam 1536km. That didn’t include the strength training or the rehab work on my shoulders that I had to do. So yep when I stood on the beach at Samphire, I knew that I had done all of the thinking, all of the practice and all of the hard work. There was really nothing left to do when I got in the water except just do and that was all that was required of me from that point on. The baton was handed to my pilot boat, coach and crew who now had the hard work ahead of them.
And for the next 12hr 42mins I swam. The pilot boat was my guide – it pushed and moved me into position – not that it ever felt that way while I was swimming because in my mind I swam in a straight line all day, but I also I felt like I chased the boat all day. I was at the front, then would watch myself slide down the boat sometimes all the way to dinghy, then I’d swim back up to the front. I seemed to be on a yoyo string. Up the front, in the middle, at the back and then back at the front again. But it kept me amused for the best part of the day. My feeds were every 30 mins. 200ml of alternating nutrition. I looked forward to my flat coke the most as it reminded me of something normal and different to the nutrition drinks I was having otherwise. For some time – hours quite likely, it felt like those feeds were coming really quickly and the day seemed to be flying by. I was in a good place mentally and aside from my right wrist giving me some grief, physically I was holding up, the water was pretty flat and the sun was on my back….a perfect day for swimming (a long time!).
For a long portion of the swim, I had the crew on the boat keeping my mind occupied. When I didn’t see Leyla (little did I know that she was sneaking in naps) I would look for her on the boat as I was worried that she was sea sick – testament to her character that despite horrific travel sickness she spent 12 hours on the boat with heavy duty sea sickness patches behind each ear – but I turned this into a little game which keep me occupied for quite some time. I would guess whose legs I could see through the gaps on the boat deck and played a few other games with myself to keep the amusement levels up.
When I turned boat side to breath, I’d try and catch Kate’s eye (she didn’t sleep!) and give her a smile. I don’t know if she saw me looking at her, but it didn’t really matter, it was my game to find her, make eye contact or smile then put my head back in the water.
I had made a promise to myself not to talk during those feeds as they needed to be quick and I wanted to give Tim the time to speak to me and relay any instructions. The quickness of the feeds was important because the longer you take, the more time you are pushed off course and have to spend getting back on track. You pay for slow feeds on the backend as those seconds actually translate into hours at the end of your swim and that time could mean the difference between completing the swim and not. Tim had drilled into me that short feeds were ideal and so that was what I endeavored to do.
There are 5 lanes in the Channel – it was the NE shipping lane (the 4th lane) that proved to be the hardest and where some of the wheels started to come off. I had been swimming for around 8 odd hours (6 hours being the longest training swim) so this was by far the longest that I had ever swum. Kate rang a bell at the 8 hr mark to ring in the significance of the time. She also rang a cow bell at 10 hours to signify double digits. Other than those two times, I had no idea of the time. I didn’t have my watch on (there wasn’t any point anyway as I would be wasting precious swim time trying to check it) and while I tried for a little bit to count my feeds I gave up after 3. There wasn’t any point in trying to keep track of time nor ask Tim “was I there yet” or “how much longer to go”. It would be over when I got there so no point – again something I couldn’t control. But that didn’t mean I didn’t have to work for it for some time. In any event, Tim would never have told me how far or how long to go, something we had also previously talked about and I knew not to ask as I wouldn’t get an answer. So I didn’t.
So back to the NE lane. This lane is the deepest and therefore the coldest. I was really starting to feel the cold by this stage. Goosebumps starting to form and I could start to feel the cold seeping into my bones. The water temp was high 16’s and for most swimmers who are accustomed to swimming in cold water this temp was positively warm. Slightly different for the girl from the desert and the cooler water was starting to really get to me at this point. The cold was something I knew I would have to deal with and so I focused on saying my mantra, trying to feel the sun on my back and think warm thoughts. I eventually managed to refocus my mind, I’m not sure when, but I do remember just not feeling cold anymore. I think I was just too cold to feel it anymore. The cold also affected my ability to feel my pace in the water. When I first started my swim, I really couldn’t judge how fast or slow I was going. In the pool I am very attuned to my own swim pace but I found the colder water very difficult to judge my pace and for a long period at the beginning of my swim, I worried I was swimming fast enough. I had to stop worrying about it though as I thought about Tim’s instructions and also knew that if he needed me to speed up or go slower, he would tell me so I just stuck with it. I think I kept almost the same stroke rate for the entire swim
I had the opportunity to ask another channel swimmer shortly before my swim. Wendy was staying at the guest house Leyla and I were staying at and we were talking about her marathons swimming experience. When I asked her about her channel swim, she didn’t want to share her journey with me, not because she didn’t want to, but she said that everyone’s journey on the day is different and she didn’t want to scare me with her experience but she offered me one piece of advice – don’t look forward, always look back. The best piece of advice ever and I really needed to follow it when I was in the NE lane – because France looks so much closer than it really is!
I had looked back for the best part of the day, but when you start to see the cliffs of France, it is difficult to not fast forward to the finish. I started to allow myself the luxury of looking forward which then had me thinking about the end so I had to mentally stop it!
So, it was here, I was cold, I could see France and I was starting to get fed up with being in my own head that had me reaching into my tool box at various stages for the next couple of hours. I sang 1 verse of a song – I can’t tell you the song but it was an old one (vaguely recall it was a song that my dad used to play at home when I was a kid on the record player) nor could I remember any more than the first verse either so after driving myself nuts with the one verse for some time I switch over to saying my mantra ‘Strong, Grateful’ with every arm stroke. I had to a chat to myself in the water a bit of a big grumble at some point as well – well actually if I am being honest, it was a bloody big scream underwater…I needed to let some tension go.
My head also played some strange games on me. At one point I turned over to the boat (I can’t remember if it was at a feed time or not) and asked what was in front of me? Kate looked at me like I was a looney, but I had lifted my head (naughty because I looked forward) and it seemed like there was a barge of some kind directly in front of me and I was swimming straight into it. In true Kate fashion, she stated “it’s a cargo ship” (I think she thought I had totally lost it) and when I lifted my head again, it wasn’t in front of me but in the shipping lane and miles away from me! Clearly, I was a bit delusional at that this point and it is hard to explain but I could have sworn that cargo ship was about 10meters in front of me and I was swimming directly into! Another time, I looked over to the boat and there was Tim, Kate and Leyla, hot drinks in their hands, eating and having a good old laugh. I never been so jealous in my life. I was cold and desperately wanted to get back on the boat and be having a good old laugh with them. I really had to get my head together and have a good talk to myself. Why was I shitty at them – they were doing exactly what I had asked them to do! Seriously Jo get it together. I turned my head and breathed to my right for a good period of time, stop being silly and the thought and the moment went away.
The biggest challenge in the NE lane and what was really annoying me was continually seeing the cargo ships on the French side and not feeling that I was progressing. I had in mind that once they were at the back of me, then I would be so much closer to the end, but it seemed like that was just never going to happen. Here in lies Tim’s advice “don’t let your emotions get the best of you when we are dropping down”. I lifted my head at one point, had a few choice words to Kate and Tim about not progressing, got the chat back from both of them that I was and the ‘I had told you about this point” from Tim, put my head back in the water and got on with. Kate and Tim weren’t having a bar of my mini tantrum and I was suitable put back in my place in the nicest possible way. Eventually those cargo ships did get behind me but it felt like forever until I stopped seeing them and my frustrations really only going once that had happened.
The current on the French side is particularly strong and this is where swims can go wrong. That is why your pilot boat and coach are so important as it is their job to land you. I was Tim’s 100th solo swimmer and I knew that when I picked Tim to be my coach, I had picked the right person. We had a great coach athlete relationship (something I have with Leyla too and is very important for me) but he also had plenty of channel experience – not only has he swum it himself, but he had coached 99 other swimmers plus countless relay teams with an incredibly high success rate (plus he’s married to an Aussie so that makes him ok too!). My pilot boat is considered one of the best for landing channel swimmers so I knew that I was in safe hands and had a great team that would do the job when needed. I just had to keep swimming. They had their jobs to do.
The ideal landing is Cap Niz Gris as this is the closet point from UK but I had no idea where I was on the day and I never actually saw the lighthouse during my swim as I had swum on the right-hand (starboard) side of the boat (if you are standing looking at the boat from the backside) and so it wasn’t in my view. As an aside swimming on that side of the boat also meant that the boat was on my left side and not my preferred breathing side – another thing that I had spent time practicing in my long swims, more bilateral breathing so as my left side was just as comfortable as my right – we all have a preference and my left definitely isn’t mine but when they asked me to swim on that side of the boat, I knew it wasn’t going to bother me to have the boat on my off side. It only dawned on me that I had missed the light house when I saw the coastline cut away as I got closer to the French shore. As the coast cuts away, this obviously adds time to your swim. I didn’t really think about it, I just knew that we were heading to land, somewhere along the coastline. I saw how strong the current was when I swam past two buoys – the current was raging down the French coast – I didn’t feel it as such, but boy you could see the water ripping around these two buoys and running at a really fast rate. I think Kate and Leyla told me that at that point, the boat was sideways with the crew plotting the course to land me successfully. Kate said that from about 3 hours out from landing, the tension grew on the boat as they all worked to figure out how to land me safely and where! I think at some point we were heading to the lighthouse, but this is what makes the swim so much more difficult is the current and then just like that the lighthouse was off the table.
I knew I was getting close and was willing that shoreline to come closer. I had expected Tim to tell me when I had had my last feed but he didn’t. Well, that’s what I expected him to tell me, I guess. I didn’t know at the time, but what turned out to be my last feed, Tim just said to me “Jo we are out of the tide, whatever you’ve got left just go”. Err ok, what did that mean? I didn’t ask (maybe I should have), but I put my head back in the water and ran through the hundred questions I had in my mind. How far? how fast? did I had 10 mins? 2 hours to go? No idea. And I knew that I wouldn’t get any answer. I also knew that there wasn’t much left in the tank and as I had been fixated with the dinghy coming out to the front of the boat for some time, I just wanted to get this done. So, head down it was. I don’t think I swam any faster at all. I tried I really did, but there was no speed left. Kate and Leyla were standing on the side clapping and Tim was at the back of the boat, waving his arms encouraging me to keep going, to try and push that bit harder and just get there. Time is of the essence at the back end to get to that the ever-important landing point.
Then finally, after 12 and half odd hours of swimming, the dinghy appeared at the front of the boat and I knew that this was it – cue big sigh of relief. I swam over to it and followed the boat as it headed to shore. I thought we were heading to a little beach on my left and swam off in that direction only to be called back to the dinghy with the dinghy driver shaking his head at me and signaling for me to come back to the dinghy and pointing to the cliff in front of me. They told me on the boat afterwards that I would not have made the beach due to the current. My landing wasn’t anything that I had visualized – landing on the beach, standing there triumphantly waving my hands in celebration. Little did I know. I landed on rocks butted up against the cliffs (totally legal as the rules state that long as there is no water that can get behind where you finish then you are deemed to have landed)! I managed to find a rock to stand on, clear it by standing up and at that point the horn blew 12 hours and 42 mins after I had started. No time to celebrate at all. The minute the horn went, I had to dive back in and swim back to the dinghy, climb in (well that was a sight in itself) and head back to the big boat. No time to hang around and bask in your own glory that’s for sure.
Back on the boat, I was really lost for words and exhausted. It’s hard to describe the feeling really and to this day I can’t put into words how it felt to finish. When you are exhausted and have been expending energy for over 12 hours, your brain just doesn’t really function. I knew I had done it, I really did but I couldn’t appreciate it one bit. Overwhelmed, underwhelmed, disbelief, lots of emotions or lack thereof really. I did have a cry with Tim once I was back on the boat. I think it was more of an exhaustion cry than a hoorah I bloody did it cry. Totally overwhelmed, cold and knackered. Kate and Leyla helped me into my warm gear as I wasn’t really functioning too well and we settled in for the ride back to Dover Harbour. Just like that, it was over.
We had some good bubbles on the boat – again I had visualized drinking champers to celebrate on the way back, reality very different! I couldn’t drink any of it sadly, my gut was in turmoil (quite likely from the good drugs I had during my swim) and my taste buds just weren’t up to – shock horror! I have never turned down a good glass of champers ever. There is always a first and that was mine.
The trip back took about an hour which then left us with the question of what to do for dinner. There was no fancy celebratory dinner planned nor was I really up to it. I actually wasn’t feeling so great and was quite keen to go home and quickly celebrate with Leanne, Kate and Leyla. It had been one of the longest days for them as well and at the end of it I think we were all pretty emotional. We decided on a McDonalds hamburger via the drive through and headed home to the guest house we were staying in – I’m not a huge Maccas fan, but it did the trick for the night.
The day after was already planned and after a long lunch, way too many bottles of wine and champagne, I got to immortalize my name on the pub wall (the new one) along with all of the other channel swimmers. What a total buzz. So bloody proud to have my name up on that wall signifying that I am one of just over 2,000 swimmers around the world to have conquered the channel. I had also dreamt of that moment for a very long time and it isn’t something I will forget. The work that it took for me to be standing on the bar writing my name had been worth it – if it was easy, everyone would have their name on the wall, but it isn’t and they don’t. Like anything else in life, the work we put in equals the results we get. I knew the amount of work I had put in and the result was very much worth it.
So I’ve now had some down time, lost my training mojo and found my training mojo again. So, what is next?
My family have signed off so I guess I can share…20 bridges Manhattan circumnavigation (46-48km) in July 2022 is my next challenge. There is plan B but hopefully the event organizers will accept my application in January. With life starting to return to normal here, I will also be lending a hand as a volunteer at some of the races given my bike and sneakers are still collecting dust. One day they won’t be, but for now, its almost time to get the cozzie and goggles back out.
#joswimsmanhattan2022 – the journey is about to begin!
