A validation of success

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!

Channel Swim Relay Attempt - 27 September 2009

THE ATTEMPT UNFOLDS

After finally getting the call, we all met at the Marlow Club at midnight start of Sunday 27 September and packed up Heath’s van with kit, boxes of Volvic mineral water (to retain our volcanicity) and food. Driving down to Dover was a sleepy ride, interspersed with taking sea-sickness tablets and discussing logistics. We arrived at just after two in the morning and parked up, waiting for the boat to arrive. It was dark, cold and a little windy as we transferred our kit to the boat, realizing quickly that we may have overcompensated on the kit front, there was hardly any space for us!

02:30 Sunday morning - Dover Marina

Making the short trip to Samphire Hoe beach, about 30 minutes from Dover, we were struck by how dark and cold it was out on the water. In response we all reached for beanies, gloves and tightened coats around our necks.
Pete took the first leg, and readied himself for a very dark swim, which is where it all got into the realms of the unknown. We’d done a night swim before, but this was properly dark.

Away from towns and landmarks, all Peter had was a spotlight trained on him as he swam to the beach. The beach and cliffs were just a black wall in front of him. It turned out to be further away than he thought, a five-minute swim! Speaking to him afterwards, as he reached the beach, his first thought upon turning round to face the ocean was, ‘right, which boat do I am for?’ on account of there being three boats with swimmers in the water. Second thought was ‘when do I go? Did I hear the hooter or not?’ on account of his muffling earplugs. However, when the horn went, from the boat we could see his three glowsticks (one on his hat and two on his trunks) twinkling faintly at this distance make a definite and determined move into the water and Peter aimed for a boat. After a couple of minutes we knew he had got it right: we’re off! The tiny green dot (and i mean it is a tiny dot, look hard) in the middle of the picture here is Pete's headlight green glowstick.

If you click on this picture, it will be enlarged for you and you can see more closely the green glowstick attached to Pete's head.

The swim was conducted in great weather, very low winds and sunshine. Andy King and his number two, Gary, from Louise Jane Charters (home to the Channel Crossing Association or Chanel Association as it says on the site) led us into the channel in the Louise Jane fishing boat shepherding us as we swam alongside. Steve from the Channel Swimming Association (who was there to observe and document the attempt) gave us a nugget of advice, “Just follow the boat. Nothing else, just the boat”. Helpful I thought. Helpful and simple.
Ignoring a couple of minor navigational irregularities from myself and Heath in this dark pre-dawn session, we were able to stay alongside and swim in as straight a line as possible. This meant that Andy could keep an eye on us, Steven could observe and make notes for later ratification by the Association and that the team on board could gesticulate their encouragement with waving, dancing and miming, sometimes with amusing consequences for the swimmer!
After hour stints from Pete then Heath then Chris, dawn finally broke into a glorious orange spectacle and we could see that we had left one boat well behind but were neck and neck with another that started at the same time as us. You could hear the different skippers chatting and bantering on the radio, joking amongst them at when they’d next see each other; “I’ll save a seat for you down the pub!” chortled Andy to another Skipper.

Dawn - just over 3 hours from the coast of England.

After my stint had finished and four hours had passed, we had taken a lead over the rival and were in clear water. For our second rotation of the team, we picked up a gear and continued to push on at a good rate when we began to hear chat on the radio that another relay team were catching us. At one and a quarter nautical miles away we could just make out the blue and white vessel and this spurred us on to up the rate. There was rumour they were a team of girls (although this could have just been Skipper Andy pulling our leg) but he kept on digging it in and we pushed all the harder for it.

After eight hours we looked back and the ship was out of sight once again. We were clear and at the head of the pack of seven boats that set off that morning. Turning our attention the other way to the coast-line of France, a rocky outcrop called Cap Gris Nez, was now in clear view. A simple matter of five km was all that separated one of us from the shore. What more incentive did we need? Peter put in a strong hour, but needing to cover 5km to get us there was always going to be a huge task and he fell just short in his allotted stint, but it was now clear that this was definitely on when he looked up and was able to see the individual rocks beneath the Cape’s lighthouse. Tired but chuffed to bits to have got so close, he handed on the baton to Heath to finish the job.

This is a picture from my second stint in the water, taking us from seven to eight completed hours - it felt great, warm at 18 degrees and sunny. I was able to push really hard.

With only a short distance to go and starting strongly, Heath powered away and we waved our encouragement. After ten minutes we gave him a time check and this seems to spur him on. When we estimated there was ten minutes to land-fall, we gave him the ‘finish it’ sign, crossing our arms in front of us in an “X”. We got the briefest of nods and Heath pushed on. It was at this point that we, and the boat, had to leave him, for it was too dangerous to get any closer on account of the rocks. Instead, Heath was guided in by the Skipper’s number 2, Gary, in a small dinghy while we watched from a distance. Suddenly, only 50m from the boat, Heath stopped and put his head up, seeming to cough or gag. This didn’t look good, no one had stopped yet, what was wrong? After a couple of salt-water splutters caused by inhaling the best part of a wave, Heath put his head down into the salty pea-green sea and his arms turned over again.

Heath - spitting distance (literally for him) from Cap Gris-Nez lighthouse

Also check out Chris's blog at http://chris-newell.blogspot.com/ it's got some good video of Heath actually making it out of the water!

From the point of joining up with the dinghy it took Heath about ten minutes to reach the shore and we could make out his pink-capped and black-speedoed shape clamber on the first rock, slip a little, then pull himself upright and take two, three, four steps forward to get himself clear of the water. At this point the hooter sounded on the boat and we roared, cheered and screamed our congratulations both to the distant (and now arms-aloft) Heath and each other in the boat!
Nine hours and 29 minutes – we had achieved our goal of being under 10 hours and were the first boat to make it across the Channel that day, giving Andy the winner’s medal for the second day in a row. It will take about 6 weeks for our attempt to be ratified by the Channel, so while we recover and return to the warmth of the pool we can but wait.

Comparing ourselves to this season's unratified times for relays, we are well up there with the best!!! I said to a few people that swimming with a team did mean that to make it an exceptional feat you had to swim a quick time. A team of four could reasonably bob their way across the channel, but to swim a quick sub 10hr time, you have to work really really hard. And the unratified times this year prove that we took this event very seriously and earned the result.

Comparing ourselves to the records, there's a handful of sub 10 hours. Once you're into single figures, you're going well. There's only been one quicker relay time since 2006!

http://www.channelswimmingassociation.com/relays_33.html

Success! The Marlow River Buoys (L-R Peter, Heath, Chris and Jeremy) happy to have crossed the channel - Cap Gris Nez in the background. Photos from my camera with the telephoto lense are being developed and will show Heath on the rocks! I will post them!

I want to send massive thanks to the following people for helping us get across:

My support crew, my wonderful Lady, Lisa – who has endured a house that smells of wet river-weed, me being a training junkie (whilst also regularly smelling of the Thames), early mornings when she doesn’t even need to be woken up and most of all her acceptance of my lack of organisation and reliance on last-minute details.

My Parents, Barrie and Barbara – who got me into, and supported me through, my childhood days of swimming. The endless whiff of chlorine and endless early mornings filled my youth. They have been a loud and clear tannoy for my efforts in Australia, spreading the word about this swim and my attempt to raise some money and awareness of the Royal Volunteer Coastal Patrol in Ulladulla. http://www.rvcpulladulla.com.au

My fellow swim-team – Chris Newell, Heath Freeman and the instigator of this idea, Peter Frost. One goal and commitment to sub-ten. Thanks Gents, the Marlow River Buoys WILL have their name on the wall at the White Horse, Castle Hill, Dover just as soon as the refurbishment is completed!

Training partner – Matt Baker – whose wettie speed gave us a target to aim for. The equivalent of a rabbit at a grey-hound track! Thanks for your commitment to the cause!

Volvic Mineral Water – a generous supply of water helped us stay hydrated and make endless cups of hot chocolate and protein/carb-shakes. It takes seven pints of clean water to flush out just one pint of sea-water and we took on board a fair few gulps from the channel! Thank you for your support http://www.volvic.co.uk/

Louise Jane Charters - Skipper Andy and Gary - as mentioned above, thanks for your good humour, the banter, your patience with our (my) lack of direction and the fresh mackerel.

http://www.louisejane.co.uk/channel_crossing.htm

I will continue to collect my thoughts about how the swim went and the events that transpired. A log was taken as we went, trying to keep up with the points but I’ll leave all that for another blog post. I can’t expect you all to sit and read it all in one go can I?

Happy trails and thanks to you all, especially those people who have generously supported either the RNLI or the RVCP with sponsorships. Please continue to give if you are able and have not yet done so. Details are posted into this blog, some time back in August I think.

It's on - Sunday 27 September

After two days of yes-no-yes-no nonsense, we're on. Finally.
After two separate successful solo efforts on weds and thurs this week, it had looked like we would be going on the early tide today, saturday 26 september. Instead, our captain chose to slide in someone on this afternoon's tide instead and we were suddenly put back to sunday at best.
Going through our minds, as Heath, Chris and I caught up this afternoon was the following: 'if the weather turns and sunday doesn't turn out to be a go-day, how is that even considered fair or honorable to have slotted someone into an odd tide?'. While our thoughts were rolling around our heads like the very channel waves themselves, we finally got the call we were waiting for, we are expected to leave Dover Harbour at 3am on Sunday 27 September. Yes!
Details are still to come later this evening when captain Andy decides it's late enough to call us. There's nothing like getting final details with only a couple of hours to spare. So, the game plan (we think) is to eat early, snatch some sleep between maybe 8 and 11 and then hit the road around midnight to drive to Dover. We're all piling into Heath's van and going together, safest way to ensure we all arrive and there's as little disjointedness as possible.
My kit bags are packed, having separated out four different swim bags, each with socks, thermals, t-shirt and jumper - one for each stint. Food is cooked and prepped ready to be eaten. Water is stowed, some 48 litres, kindly supplied by Volvic (and there's still heaps left in my shed!) By the sounds of it though, we may be over-doing it on the ginger-crunch biscuits; seems like we all took the advice about ginger being a remedy for sea-sickness. One question, champagne or not? Someone's got to drive back! I'm sure we'll manage!

Next stop, Cap Gris Nez. I'll be updating you next after the swim. Wish us luck.
Happy trails!

Almost excited...

I missed a call last night from Pete. I’d decided to go out for a run and continued to blank the concept of a taper week. I always seem to miss Pete on the phone, I’m not ignoring you, honestly. The brief message was “Call me back immediately when you get this.” Now that’s quite an indication of intent.
Calling him back, the first words I heard were “Jeremy, pack your trunks, we’re going”. Catching myself, I asked him to confirm when we were leaving and what time we needed to be at Dover. “Now and tomorrow morning” was the response. Crikey, that’s pretty short notice, maybe we’ve been bumped into some unexpectedly good weather and are taking our shot while we have it.

Unfortunately he was just joking with me, we’re not ready to go just yet.

Having said that, the signs are good: two people out this week, we could be looking at Saturday 26, Sunday 27, Monday 28 September. The weather pattern is holding a stable high (if that means anything, I heard it from two independent people this morning and they said it with such authority that I took it to be a good thing) which would (I therefore infer) mean calm winds and a steady sea. Looks like we could be ready, but then again I temper this with my usual dose of realism. Or is that professional skepticism? I can't tell any more.
Donations and continued sponsorship will be gratefully received. I am over 1,100 quid!
http://justgiving.com/Jeremy-Lovell-Davis
Alternatively, you can contact my Dad if you wish to donate to the Australian RVCP in Ulladulla. My Dad tells me that you can pay by bank transfer directly to Coastal Patrol if you do not have a cheque book. He has all the information. Barrie Lovell-Davis barrield@bigpond.com

After training this morning (which went very well, a short sharp interval session) things went from bad to worse in a domino effect of delays. First up, I realised I’d forgotten to pack my under-crackers and socks to my kit bag which meant I had to return home to dress myself appropriately for my double-cuff professional job (stop laughing!). On returning home, I found Lisa was still in bed, suffering from a bad headache. After checking she was ok first (and dressing myself second) she decided to head into work and I drove her to the station. As we got there, the train pulled out, one minute early. Darn it with the British Rail schedules!!! As a fall-back, I drove her to Maidenhead station but we were stuck in a traffic-jam on account of a broken-down car in the fast lane. Double darn-it with the black Vauxhall Astra. Arriving in Maidenhead we encountered the usual town-centre constipation of commuter traffic and the same was said for my drive to work; workers and school-runners; triple darn-it with the rush hour idiots. All in all, one slow round-about way to get myself to work.

My friend Rich sent me through a swimming website today that might set out a new challenge. http://www.swimtrek.com/special-swims Escape from Alcatraz, anyone? I may stretch to a wettie for this one.

Fingers crossed for continued good weather and a good journey home to all of you!
Happy trails!

Taper week is out the window

Last time I was here, one week before our expected launch into the channel the team thought it would be a good idea to taper off our training. This time, given what we see happening in the channel, i've said to heck with that, and thrown it out the window, with one eye on kicking off my snowboarding training in advance of the winter.

Saturday morning i went for a run. I didn't quite know how long i was going to go for, it had been a while since i went for a long run. I'd simply plugged into my tunes and planned for maybe 10km, 50 mins or so. I don't know if it was the early morning sunshine, the burning ball in the sky, that cheered me up no end (i think i'd have been a sun worshipper if i'd been born into more egyptian or pagan times) or the peace and tranquility of Marlow on a Saturday morning before the carnival started, but I felt really good. Surprisingly good. The shuffled tracks on my ipod worked out perfectly as the road unrolled before of me; sending me right where i would normally turn left, pushing me on when i would normally turn back.
At one point i found myself at the top of marlow hill, where it flattens out on it's way to the A404/M40 junction. It's a long slog up that hill, but this morning i had the motivation to go on, i felt strong, despite the heavy smell of manure that has been liberally spread around the fields this week that turned my stomach a couple of times.
16km later I returned home, 82 minutes, not bad going i thought for a first long-run, actually the longest run i think i've done since i came back from Sydney, although i was starting to get a pain in my hips which can't bode well if my brain continues to tell me that running a marathon is a sensible thing to do. I've been told that the only way to train for this is to just run more. Sounds like a painful, marathon-mad runner urban legend to me.

Sunday morning I returned to the Handy Cross pool for the first time since i don't know when. Freddy took us through a steady 4.2km session with ample amounts of other strokes than freestyle. I really noticed that at any pace other than 'old man plod' my body reacts badly to the lactic acid build up. I'll need to retrain myself for that after this long-distance stuff is over, a few sprint sessions where we spin the wheels until our arms don't work anymore, feel the burn! Yeh, excited about that! Swimming in a 25m pool though, with turns every 20 seconds, was pretty unsettling, i've not felt dizzy for a while! I needed some adjustment there for sure!

So this morning's session in the river felt pretty ropey, very sore, with both legs and arms aching after the running and butterfly exertion of the weekend. I'm going to keep training this week anyway and kick on with the running (work allowing of course). At some point i need to refocus onto my legs in readiness for some backcountry, guided action when we get to the mountains in December. I'm pretty excited about following a guide again; part man - part mountain goat, into the backcountry. Last time I did this at Les Arcs in France, Ian (my board-riding wing-man) and we got some bearded, grizzled old french dude who looked us up and down, agreed with a shrug of his shoulders, and promptly pulled on his backpack which contained an inflatable compressed gas system that in the event of an avalanche would float him above the rushing snow and ice. Totally cool from a kit perspective! Obviously the theory is that this would leave him free to skip about the debris field and rescue us after the slide had stopped. Comforting. In summary, I can't have my quads or calves giving up on me half way down a pow-field.

I digress, check out Chris' site for some glorious pictures of the sunrise this morning over the misty Thames. Apart from the cold, it was a lovely morning to be up! See how I feel on wednesday though!
http://chris-newell.blogspot.com/

Happy trails!

Fall-back plans

As i'm sure you're now aware, if you've read these pages or spoken to me, the weather's pretty lousy over here and we're entering the thin end of the channel-swimming wedge.
If we don't manage to get out there in September, then the LAST day we could attempt the swim would be 24 october. Now while this is good as the window opens up longer for us (and to be honest, how many people are going to take that slot on???) it does mean it's going to be chuffing cold. I mean, properly cold and dark.

However, if this all goes to pot and there's a snowflake's chance in hell of us attempting the channel, an alternative idea to justify all our training, and more importantly all our sponsorship cash, is to replicate the channel swim down the Thames.
The Thames is a perfectly navigable river, you can swim from very far upstream to reasonably close to London, heck, it's been done before by our friend Andrew Allum and by the more newsworthy Lewis Pugh who swam the entire 346km length of the Thames to raise awareness about global warming recently. Lechlade to Teddington, the navigable and non-tidal section is 147 miles.
http://tntonline.co.uk/tnt_today/london_stories/london-stories/thames-river-facts.aspx
If we took two full days to do it and swam for as long and as far as we could get somewhere close to this. Obviously we'd run the same approach, one man in the water and the support crew on the boat. We'd have to run on dry land around the locks, but the swimmer could keep swimming whilst the boat comes through the gates. No drama there.
Your thoughts and comments on whether this is insane or a suitable substitute would be most welcomed, especially if you've contributed to any one of our charities and would like to know something has been done in return for your kindness.
Happy trails!

oooohhhhh, winter's coming

Brrrrr. What is going on here???? It's September, mid September at that, and it's cold. I sound like the aussies this last winter, "ooooh, it's cold, it's 15 degrees" which isn't really that cold at all, but standing on the jetty at half six in the morning and stepping into water that is now 16 degrees, it feels really chilly! Three brave triathletes joined us this morning on the jetty, their last session in the water this summer. Even in their wetties they weren't enjoying it!
In terms of how the cold affects our swimming, it takes 10 minutes to warm up and within 20 minutes the cold makes your co-ordination somewhat wooden, by the 40 minute mark i felt like a struggling man wearing a knitted cardigan. I hope i can get used to this in the next two weeks.

It's interesting to see that as soon as the cold weather comes along, the rowers come out like an armada on the water. We cut our swim short as didn't want to spend our time trying to dodge the newby rowers who are zig-zagging their way down the river, all the time looking backwards.
Why is it that Rowers put themselves through the cold winters and not the warm summers? I would think a summer morning on the river would be infinitely more comfortable whilst sitting in a narrow skiff. Unusual breed, rowers, i know i'll get some comeback for that comment, especially given my own unusual training times. By the way, how is the pool, Matt? Missed you this week!

Happy trails all! and thanks for everybody's support on the sponsorship. I'm now above eleven hundred pounds which is fantastic. Am thinking i need to go out and purchase some day-glow swimmers incase i make my 1,500 quid target!
www.justgiving.com/Jeremy-Lovell-Davis