This weekend saw my first trip of the year down to Dover Harbour; this is where it all happens! It was a little bit later on in the season than I had intended but that's just the way it goes sometimes. There were lots of people here training for different events and everyone was doing their own thing under the watchful eyes of the guys and girls on the shore.
Normally I wouldn't have done this sort of thing on my own. I would have come with a swim buddy for safety but I'm going to be swimming the channel on my own and it was something I needed to do to train my mind as well as my body. So the idea was to swim for 4 hours and see if I could keep my pace over 3km per hour. I’ve only swum in Dover harbour once before and that was for two hours. I remember it being cold and quite calm but on Saturday it felt cold (sub 16 deg C) and much choppier. Within 15 minutes I’d been hit in the face by a wave while breathing so instead of getting air I breathed in a lot of sea water. After I had violently coughed the water out of my lungs and thrown up in my mouth (all while swimming) things settled down a little bit.
An hour passed and I checked in with the shore protection detail from Aspire, had a drink of water (this time from my water bottle) and checked my progress. 2.98km so I was pretty much on target, not bad considering I felt pretty rubbish for the whole first hour. The 2nd hour in the water felt much better: it was still really choppy but at least I hadn’t tried to inhale half of the water in the harbour. Towards the end of the second hour I started to struggle again, the poor start had robbed me of some of my strength and I needed to eat, not something I usually do in the water but I was out of energy. Normally I wouldn’t be out of energy till around the three hour stage but swimming in the sea is harder than swimming in a lake and I hadn’t eaten well that morning or the night before. I’ve never had to feed in the water before and one of the aims of this swim was to figure out what I could enjoy eating quickly that would give me energy.
The feeding wasn't much of an issue although I think that jelly babies (don't judge me, a lot of long distance swimmers swear by them) and wine gums aren't for me. It's too hard to get a handful without swallowing sea water not to mention the powdered sugar dries your mouth out. However Haribo worked like a charm and it tasted how it should. You would be surprised how different things taste after swimming in salt water for a few hours.
An hour passed and I checked in with the shore protection detail from Aspire, had a drink of water (this time from my water bottle) and checked my progress. 2.98km so I was pretty much on target, not bad considering I felt pretty rubbish for the whole first hour. The 2nd hour in the water felt much better: it was still really choppy but at least I hadn’t tried to inhale half of the water in the harbour. Towards the end of the second hour I started to struggle again, the poor start had robbed me of some of my strength and I needed to eat, not something I usually do in the water but I was out of energy. Normally I wouldn’t be out of energy till around the three hour stage but swimming in the sea is harder than swimming in a lake and I hadn’t eaten well that morning or the night before. I’ve never had to feed in the water before and one of the aims of this swim was to figure out what I could enjoy eating quickly that would give me energy.
The feeding wasn't much of an issue although I think that jelly babies (don't judge me, a lot of long distance swimmers swear by them) and wine gums aren't for me. It's too hard to get a handful without swallowing sea water not to mention the powdered sugar dries your mouth out. However Haribo worked like a charm and it tasted how it should. You would be surprised how different things taste after swimming in salt water for a few hours.
After three hours I pulled in for another feed to find that at some point I had stopped my watch, I knew how long I’d been swimming for (I got in at 10am and it was now 1pm) but not the distance so I’ll never know exactly how far I swam. Mentally I was drained and physically I was exhausted. My shoulders were aching and my back was sore but I pushed on and made myself go back out to swim some more, although I only made it another 30min. While I’m disappointed I didn’t make 4 hours I’m glad I stopped, I have some rather bad sunburn on my back and a very interesting tan line on my forehead where my swimming hat was (they are required for safety). Much will be said at work tomorrow I’m sure...
I know I did more than 10km due to the pace I swam at before and after my watch stopped but I have so much more work to do. There is no way I could have gone on for longer and I wasn’t willing to, so on Sunday morning I got up at 5:30 and headed down to my local lake for a 5km recovery swim.
Time to step it up a notch...
I know I did more than 10km due to the pace I swam at before and after my watch stopped but I have so much more work to do. There is no way I could have gone on for longer and I wasn’t willing to, so on Sunday morning I got up at 5:30 and headed down to my local lake for a 5km recovery swim.
Time to step it up a notch...