It has been six weeks since the boys and I crossed the channel, we’re all back to regular training, back to the swing of things and smelling of chlorine instead of peat. Training has not been quite the same; Chris and Heath have one eye on a cycling event next August, Peter has locked in a solo channel swim (again with Andy King) and I’m trying to refocus on running in preparation for a trip to the snow and maybe a marathon somewhere.
The messages of congratulations have been many and enthusiastic, however we’ve been left hanging with the possibility of recognition over our quick time. Finally on Saturday night, 7 November, we found out: at the 82nd Channel Swimming Association Annual Dinner & Presentation evening.
Last time we were in Dover we’d tried to get into the famous White Horse pub, at the bottom of the hill on which Dover Castle sits, famous due to its reputation as the success signpost for all channel swimmers over the last 8 years or so. Back in September the pub was shut for refurbishment, but this time was open, although still quiet at six in the evening. Lisa and I arrived after Chris, Heath and Peter and they had already sized up a space for our proclamation of success; a patch on the nicotine-yellow ceiling, to the left of the bar as you walk in. It’s a small pub and only the front room has been decorated (if you can call it that) with marker-pen-memoirs of many crossings; solos, doubles, triples, relays (fours, fives, sixes, kids, mixed, men, women), northern, southern, eastern, western hemispheres: it’s a global phenomenon. We’re a little overwhelmed by the volume of scribbles, the witticisms, words of wisdom and even the odd work of art! We’d not put any thought into our legacy (legacy until the next refurb) until now and we had already reached the end of our first pint without consensus. Maybe another would get the creative juices flowing perhaps? It was Peter who came up with the idea to block off a section with a simple recreation of Marlow’s suspension bridge, the team name then our names strung underneath along with the recorded time. Peter’s artistic ability to draw on the ceiling was impressive, if not painful to watch for two reasons; one, his back was bent in an unusual curve to reach the ceiling and two, a single slip and we were left with a botched bridge! But his nerve held, the beer steadied his hand and the bridge was beautifully reproduced; proudly spanning our legacy of 9hrs 29mins. You can see some pictures of this if you click into my gallery on the right hand side of this blog.
Our deeds recorded, we walked up to the Town Hall and entered through the huge wooden doors to be greeted by Dr. Julie Bradshaw (Secretary of the CSA), record holder for swimming butterfly across the Channel! Clearly crazy, but a legend in CSA terms. We met Steve Franks, our observer, and his wife who joined us on our table, along with Pete Maule and his wife (Peter was one of the triathletes who trained with us all summer). Dover Town Hall is adorned with the weapons of past Kentish battles, the pennants and crests of those Kentish Lords and a good many giant portraits of its more mentionable, honorable citizens. We were surrounded by the Channel’s elite; older ladies and gentlemen who had crossed before we were born, youthful sprites who had swum like Olympians, pioneers for their country (Macedonia, Spain) or their sex and of course there were those for whom swimming the channel seems like something you do on a whim when you have a spare, fair weekend. At a couple of thousand pounds a time, how does one justify crossing the channel 33 times? Or is there a gentleman’s agreement between captains and these channel giants? But the question had yet to be answered as to whether we were the fastest team of the year?
Finding the awards card on our table, we perused the list of shields and trophies on offer: awards that subdivided the simple act of crossing the channel into many groups. Down at the bottom of the list we found our name, the Marlow River Buoys, sitting against the Montserrat Tresserras Shield for the fastest men’s relay (not six swimmers). In 1958, Montserrat Tresserras became the first Spaniard to successfully cross the channel and she then swam again in 1961. Montserrat now serves the CSA as an Official Observer and Board member, we were quite honoured to be meeting such a highly regarded lady!
I’m not quite sure what the emotion was that came over me at this point; relief, confusion or elation? We were stunned at the shield; it was a really great achievement for us, however we were a little confused as to why we’d not been awarded the quickest overall relay swim; a relay is a relay is a relay, right? Looking down the list we were the fastest time, but instead that honour had been awarded to an irish outfit with a time of 13hrs.
There was investigating to be done.
Unsure of what the CSA protocol was, we sought out Andy King, although he was as bemused as we were, so he pulled on the sleeve of a colleague on a neighbouring table. Apparently, the traditional relay (and by traditional we’re guessing it’s an 82 year old tradition) is of six persons. By stretching ourselves with only four (which we thought was still a lot) we had placed ourselves in an outside sub-division of traditional channel crossing. How unusual. Andy seemed a little upset by it, it would have been a good title to add to the many accolades he already has and we’d have liked to have the silverware but it’s tradition and we’re happy with the result.
To be fair to the Association, when we collected our award Mike Reid, the President of the CSA and still King of the Channel, did mention to the assembled masses that we had recorded the fastest overall crossing of the channel that summer, in (and I quote) “an incredible time, although it took four of them to do it”, which was somewhat of a put-down to the four-man relay format I felt. But then I was reminded that it’s not about the time. As much stock as we put in being sub-ten, every day on the Channel is different, every crossing and every achievement is different. Take for example the award extended to Liane Lewellyn for her 27 hour long double-crossing in ‘the most arduous conditions’. That’s tough on a whole new level compared to our comparative sprint. I had seen a couple of nuggets of Australian wisdom on the walls of the White Horse that gave me some perspective; ‘I can forgive failure, what I can’t forgive is not trying’ and ‘get over it and get on with it’; so wonderfully simple and Australian. So I did, get on with it, and after swapping a couple of spare bottles of white for red, we got on with enjoying the evening. There are pictures of this in my gallery which can be accessed here.
The morning after our awards triumph (which had ended with us and the quickest Women’s relay team (also not six swimmers) sharing a photo opportunity with our silverware) we did a spot of tourist sight-seeing at Dover Castle which was fantastic and I encourage EVERYONE to go there if they’re in Dover, we returned to the White Horse to append our earlier graffiti with the final line of “fastest crossing of 2009”.
Happy trails everyone and thanks for reading!
The messages of congratulations have been many and enthusiastic, however we’ve been left hanging with the possibility of recognition over our quick time. Finally on Saturday night, 7 November, we found out: at the 82nd Channel Swimming Association Annual Dinner & Presentation evening.
Last time we were in Dover we’d tried to get into the famous White Horse pub, at the bottom of the hill on which Dover Castle sits, famous due to its reputation as the success signpost for all channel swimmers over the last 8 years or so. Back in September the pub was shut for refurbishment, but this time was open, although still quiet at six in the evening. Lisa and I arrived after Chris, Heath and Peter and they had already sized up a space for our proclamation of success; a patch on the nicotine-yellow ceiling, to the left of the bar as you walk in. It’s a small pub and only the front room has been decorated (if you can call it that) with marker-pen-memoirs of many crossings; solos, doubles, triples, relays (fours, fives, sixes, kids, mixed, men, women), northern, southern, eastern, western hemispheres: it’s a global phenomenon. We’re a little overwhelmed by the volume of scribbles, the witticisms, words of wisdom and even the odd work of art! We’d not put any thought into our legacy (legacy until the next refurb) until now and we had already reached the end of our first pint without consensus. Maybe another would get the creative juices flowing perhaps? It was Peter who came up with the idea to block off a section with a simple recreation of Marlow’s suspension bridge, the team name then our names strung underneath along with the recorded time. Peter’s artistic ability to draw on the ceiling was impressive, if not painful to watch for two reasons; one, his back was bent in an unusual curve to reach the ceiling and two, a single slip and we were left with a botched bridge! But his nerve held, the beer steadied his hand and the bridge was beautifully reproduced; proudly spanning our legacy of 9hrs 29mins. You can see some pictures of this if you click into my gallery on the right hand side of this blog.
Our deeds recorded, we walked up to the Town Hall and entered through the huge wooden doors to be greeted by Dr. Julie Bradshaw (Secretary of the CSA), record holder for swimming butterfly across the Channel! Clearly crazy, but a legend in CSA terms. We met Steve Franks, our observer, and his wife who joined us on our table, along with Pete Maule and his wife (Peter was one of the triathletes who trained with us all summer). Dover Town Hall is adorned with the weapons of past Kentish battles, the pennants and crests of those Kentish Lords and a good many giant portraits of its more mentionable, honorable citizens. We were surrounded by the Channel’s elite; older ladies and gentlemen who had crossed before we were born, youthful sprites who had swum like Olympians, pioneers for their country (Macedonia, Spain) or their sex and of course there were those for whom swimming the channel seems like something you do on a whim when you have a spare, fair weekend. At a couple of thousand pounds a time, how does one justify crossing the channel 33 times? Or is there a gentleman’s agreement between captains and these channel giants? But the question had yet to be answered as to whether we were the fastest team of the year?
Finding the awards card on our table, we perused the list of shields and trophies on offer: awards that subdivided the simple act of crossing the channel into many groups. Down at the bottom of the list we found our name, the Marlow River Buoys, sitting against the Montserrat Tresserras Shield for the fastest men’s relay (not six swimmers). In 1958, Montserrat Tresserras became the first Spaniard to successfully cross the channel and she then swam again in 1961. Montserrat now serves the CSA as an Official Observer and Board member, we were quite honoured to be meeting such a highly regarded lady!
I’m not quite sure what the emotion was that came over me at this point; relief, confusion or elation? We were stunned at the shield; it was a really great achievement for us, however we were a little confused as to why we’d not been awarded the quickest overall relay swim; a relay is a relay is a relay, right? Looking down the list we were the fastest time, but instead that honour had been awarded to an irish outfit with a time of 13hrs.
There was investigating to be done.
Unsure of what the CSA protocol was, we sought out Andy King, although he was as bemused as we were, so he pulled on the sleeve of a colleague on a neighbouring table. Apparently, the traditional relay (and by traditional we’re guessing it’s an 82 year old tradition) is of six persons. By stretching ourselves with only four (which we thought was still a lot) we had placed ourselves in an outside sub-division of traditional channel crossing. How unusual. Andy seemed a little upset by it, it would have been a good title to add to the many accolades he already has and we’d have liked to have the silverware but it’s tradition and we’re happy with the result.
To be fair to the Association, when we collected our award Mike Reid, the President of the CSA and still King of the Channel, did mention to the assembled masses that we had recorded the fastest overall crossing of the channel that summer, in (and I quote) “an incredible time, although it took four of them to do it”, which was somewhat of a put-down to the four-man relay format I felt. But then I was reminded that it’s not about the time. As much stock as we put in being sub-ten, every day on the Channel is different, every crossing and every achievement is different. Take for example the award extended to Liane Lewellyn for her 27 hour long double-crossing in ‘the most arduous conditions’. That’s tough on a whole new level compared to our comparative sprint. I had seen a couple of nuggets of Australian wisdom on the walls of the White Horse that gave me some perspective; ‘I can forgive failure, what I can’t forgive is not trying’ and ‘get over it and get on with it’; so wonderfully simple and Australian. So I did, get on with it, and after swapping a couple of spare bottles of white for red, we got on with enjoying the evening. There are pictures of this in my gallery which can be accessed here.
The morning after our awards triumph (which had ended with us and the quickest Women’s relay team (also not six swimmers) sharing a photo opportunity with our silverware) we did a spot of tourist sight-seeing at Dover Castle which was fantastic and I encourage EVERYONE to go there if they’re in Dover, we returned to the White Horse to append our earlier graffiti with the final line of “fastest crossing of 2009”.
Happy trails everyone and thanks for reading!
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