DCT Week 11 - Hi-de-Hi Campers!
Another week of firsts. If this had been a normal season, I had been toying with the idea of running a couple of weeks of training camp for those who would enjoy an intense week of focused training, perhaps those who didn’t have the opportunity of doing one of those lovely overseas training camps, but equally for those who just wanted to immerse themselves into a peak of training at just the right time of the season.
Well, as we know oh so well, this is not a normal year.
However, when I met with my trusted group of advisers (or SLT as I named them), we talked about the specific challenges faced by this season’s swimmers and how we could best support them whilst being both Covid compliant and Covid safe. We are aware that there are additional health risks when exercising if someone has had Covid-19 (and may have been asymptomatic) and therefore, ramping up safely is important. So, we decided to offer two weeks of ramp up camps alongside the offer to support people in their training plans where they are.
So this week has been a busy week:
Week 1 of our ramp up training camps
A night swim opportunity
The second week of our Sunday Dover Dips
Ramp up training camp - week 1
The format for the week was:
Relays
Monday: 2 x 1 hour
Tuesday: 2 x 1.5 hours
Wednesday: varied depending on need
Soloists
Monday: 2 hours
Tuesday: 4 hours
Wednesday: 3 hours
Thursday: 7 hours
Friday: 6 hours
It was an opportunity for us to test out all of our Covid processes. We’d tested some in the first week of Dover Dips, but we hadn’t done anything longer than 2 hours, so we hadn’t yet tested out the Covid feeding plan.
New DCT app ✅
Safe set up of beach & equipment ✅
PPE (we change outer gloves after every process) ✅
Safe croc handling process ✅
Covid safe feeding ✅
Closing up of beach ✅
And it was also a chance to try out something completely different. We’ve spoken about how we wanted to take DCT to you and so whilst we had the camp in Dover, we also had a northern edition with Becky swimming in Scotland. Becky had joined all of our virtual training sessions and community calls, so it was fab to be swimming with her, even if that was in a different location.
Swimmers
We had 7 swimmers in Dover - five soloists and two relay swimmers. Each have their own reason for training and each had different backgrounds. Some have big swims planned this season, some were curious and keen to try a swim at some point with nothing booked just yet. All were fabulous company.
Just like normal DCT weekends, you could see the bonds of the group grow as the week progressed.
Unlike normal DCT weekends, the swimmers knew what each day entailed in advance, or did they? There may have been a few surprises along the way like non swimming daily challenges and the occasional curved ball during training itself (I won’t share what these challenges were as that may spoil the fun for week 2…..).
How it all went… the southern edition
We had it all!
Monday
A relatively nice start to the week with a northerly force 2 -3 meaning it was fairly calm and only partially cloudy.
All swimmers completed the challenges set for them. A great start to the week.
Tuesday
Another flat day with some dramatic looking cloudy skies. There was a touch of drama in the water too with some swimmers feeding the fish! All swimmers completed their challenges. It was also an opportunity to test our beach and water based Covid feeding processes. Both worked well with some refinements planned for the kayak.
Wednesday
A south westerly F2-3 with light rain and a slight swell - fine in the water, just a bit damp on the beach! Again 100% success rate for our swimmers. Some soloists took the opportunity to try different feeds and see if they suited them better.
It was the final day for our relay swimmers and one achieved their goal of two hours. The other who already had his qualifying swim pushed on a bit further to achieve 3 hours (I can see the aspiration of a solo on the horizon….)
Thursday
A pretty tough day with a westerly force 4 proving increasingly choppy. Three swimmers completed a very tough 7 hours
Friday
A lovely day to end the week - partly cloudy with only a F1-2 leaving the water nice and flat until the very end of the session.
A successful end to the week with three swimmers going on to achieve their back to back 7 & 6 and another achieving their 6 hour qualifying swim.
How it went….. the northern edition
Becky is made of some tough stuff with the water temperature much lower than Dover she planned to train alongside those in Dover nonetheless.
Day 1
Well, the day didn’t quite work out how she planned. She’d hoped to go to Cullen, but as the tide was on the way out she would not have had enough water for a couple of hours without going into the bay, but she didn’t have any support there so she went to her default beach at Banff. However, there was a very big swell so it took a while to get through the breakers. The swell was quite big so she decided not to head back for a feed after an hour but did manage 4k in a very challenging 2 hours.
Day 2
Today Becky swam at Cullen, the harbour at high tide is a decent size, and because it’s tidal, only a few leisure boats are kept there. Becky woke up feeling a bit ‘strange’ but with no temperature she put it down to nerves about the task ahead. She headed across the bay and headed back for a feed when she’d done an hour. The water was much calmer than yesterday, with just a bit of swell to remind her that she was in open water. For the second rotation she made it to her usual turning point and when she turned to head back she could see that the swell had picked up a bit, but the current was pushing towards the harbour so it was a bumpy but fast return back. She started to feel ill again on the way back, no seasick, just not right and started to feel cold. She managed another hour before retiring at a total of 3 hours 20 minutes.
Post swim she still felt weird and headed for an early night.
Day 3
Today Bonnie Scotland really was bonnie, the sun was shining and the water felt warm. The sun always makes the water feel warmer. No shivering during the swim but a few shakes afterwards!
Today Becky was training with other Channel Swimming aspirants. They started from the harbour at Cullen again as although it is getting calmer each day, it’s not breaker free just yet. They all stuck together close to the harbour to start with. After a feed they decided to swim to the next village and swim through Bow Fiddle Rock and swim back - that’s roughly a 5km swim. The water started to get a bit choppy as they left Cullen Bay heading towards Portknockie. Swimming through Bow Fiddle was a bit like swimming through rapids, but was a fun turning point.
Halfway back to the harbour the current changed and was pushing them back. However, they pushed on and made it back to the harbour slightly sunburned, very chaffed and elated.
Day 4
A shorter swim was planned to give her shoulders some recovery time, going from feed to feed. However, the call we all wait for came through whilst she was walking the dog before the swim…. ‘Do you want to swim the channel Monday / Tuesday?’ Becky phoned back immediately and after a quick chat with her pilot and hearing all the right things ‘neap tide’ ‘calm seas’ ‘big weather window’ she said she was ready. So the plan changed to a leisurely swim to get herself a rest.
Dover Dip - the Night Edition
We were treated to fantastic conditions for this year’s night swim.
After a slightly late start as we completed the set up of all the safety measures, 11 swimmers took to the water. With the low tide we had a perfect view of all swimmers from our beach vantage point. With Paul on the kayak checking everyone as they passed, we could keep track of everyone and ensure that everyone was accounted for. The numbers were radioed through each lap and noted on our app.
On such a clear night the sounds in the water carried right up the beach, I could hear names being given into Paul, even without the radios and I could hear the laughter and banter from the beach.
From the smiles afterwards it seemed that everyone enjoyed their adventure.
Once the last swimmer was out, the equipment needed to be retrieved before a very long day came to a close.
Dover Dips - The Sunday Edition
Our second week of Dover dips were lovely. The weather was kind and water was calm. Whilst the beach did start to get busy mid afternoon, it wasn’t as bad as some weeks that we’d seen. We’ll continue to watch and if it appear to be safe to extend our operations we will consider if we can offer some longer swims with Covid safe feeding. Watch this space.
Today we had 14 swimmers across our two sessions. It was lovely to see a mix of familiar and new faces. Well done to all swimmers and especially those who got their relay qualifiers today.
Coming up….
The swims are underway so the tracker season has started - yay!!
Next week also sees our second week of ramp-up camps and of course our Dover Dips.