With the postponement of the expedition until next year, we have been quite lucky in being able to move most things without incurring any costs. But one thing we had booked was a trip to Mallorca for long-distance swimming training which we were meant to be flying out on Saturday.
Rob is still not recovered and it’s a tough week and so would probably worsen his health, and therefore not worth it. We couldn’t get refunds so I’m going for it anyway. If anyone fancies a pretty much free holiday to Majorca then let me know! No one? Ok, well guess I’ll be just heading out on my own then. Even though I’m going on my own, I know it’s going to be fun, because we did it last year.
(Rob displaying flawless feeding tekkers)
So when we were trying to work out if we had the minerals to take on the Channel, we knew we had to get ourselves out into the sea and start gaining experience of open water swimming. Rob did some research and came across SwimTrek, who offer swimming adventure holidays, but with a specific “Channel and Long Distance” week in Mallorca around April. It looked ideal so we booked it.
We had a briefing meeting at the beginning where we met the other 12 swimmers on the trip. Open water swimming really does bring people from all walks of life. A complete mixed bag of people, but everyone very friendly and passionate about swimming.
We then met our guides for the week. There was Ricky Andrews whose unenviable role was to keep things running smoothly. Then there were the three guides, all of whom had swum the Channel. Fiona Southwell swam it in 2009, and is a full-time award winning swim coach in Brighton. Next was Cliff Golding, who has swum the Channel 2 times, and lastly Kevin Murphy who has swum the Channel more times than any man, ever. We were definitely in the right place.
Each guide brought their own bit of special expertise. Fiona’s expertise is the nutrition, feeding and support for your swim; something that we hadn’t even really considered up until then. Cliff, who had several failed attempts before his first successful attempt, imparted incredible insights into the mental side of swimming the Channel. How the mind can play tricks on you, and do anything to make you get back in the boat and call it off. “King Kev” was just a pure inspiration for his incredible record.
That first evening we had a 30 minute acclimatisation swim lined up. April in Mallorca, the water temperature was about 14° Celsius which is pretty brisk! We all jumped in and were swimming around until suddenly we were all being stung repeatedly by a swarm of tiny jellyfish. We all took a bit of a beating, before being told to give it up and swim back to shore. Not a great start.
One amazing thing about going on a long distance swimming holiday is that they feed you well! Breakfast had full English, full continental and full American all there for the taking. And everyone’s tucking in big time. So that kept us going. We were then mini-bussed around the island to lovely little coves, where we did our swimming, with buoys to mark the circuit. It was beautiful and clear and really enjoyable just swimming in the sea. Both of us really loved it.
One of the main aims of the week was to complete a 6 hour swim which is the minimum qualification your require to try a Channel swim. In the lead up to the week, Rob and I had been swimming ever longer swims in the pool, however I had only managed a 1.5hr swim non-stop before I started to get a sore shoulder. We were a bit nervous about this swim and with the weather forecast due to deteriorate towards the end of the week, they had pushed it forward.
(Warning some people may find the video below arousing)
So out we set on our 6 hour swim. It’s amazing when you have a 6 hour swim how quickly the first hour goes. If you were just planning on doing a 1 hour swim it would feel a lot longer but it goes very quickly. We were feeding every 30 minutes which helped us keep track of time. The first 3 hours were ok but that fourth hour really dragged. My left right shoulder started to hurt as usual but then the pain started to go away which was surprising, but relieving. In fact it was my right shoulder that started to ache as we approached the fifth hour. Getting through the last hour is not so bad because you know you’re nearly there.
To both of our surprises we managed it. And we managed it quite comfortably, and this gave us renewed optimism about the whole challenge. The week was really fun. I’d recommend it to anyone. It was also a really important week for us. Our whole approach to our expedition has been one of open-mindedness. Unless we have reason to think otherwise, we will assume it can be done and that we can do it.
After this week, we felt reassured that we could swim the Channel. We knew we seriously had our work cut out but we knew we could do it. And most of the thanks goes to those three guides who taught us so much. SwimTrek really impressed us. I’m looking forward to my second visit. Below are some photos from last year.