DCT Week 12 - Carry on camping
Ramp up training camp - week 2
This week was our second week of ramp-up camp. We had another fantastic group of swimmers, some new to DCT and some familiar faces. By the end of the week it was another close knit group. I was particularly impressed by Stuart who did both weeks and didn’t miss a minute - that’s a lot of swimming. We also had some other week 1 swimmers who came back for a little bit more.
Again it was amazing to watch the confidence grow.
The format for the week was the same as the previous week. However, now the camps are done I can share more information without providing a spoiler for the next group. What was different was the weather. Week 2 was a lot kinder and without some of the very lumpy water that we had in week 1.
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
A few twists
It wouldn’t be a DCT event without a few twists. Each day the swimmers had a challenge for their downtime. Day one involved solving a problem in a creative way - there were some extremely creative answers!
Day two involved a scavenger hunt around Dover. We learned new facts in the process of creating the challenge.
Day three was how to create something out of simple circles.
Day four was the evening after the longest swim and relaxation and recovery are the priority of the day and I shared some hypnosis relaxation recordings.
All of this is about expecting the unexpected - something that is very much needed in channel swimming. And it didn’t stop with the evening challenges. On the 7 hour swim, as the swimmers came in for their last feed, they were given the opportunity to add an additional hour, making it 8 hours, in exchange for time off the next day. In week one it was a particularly lumpy day and everyone declined the option, though some went on to regret that decision. In the second week we managed to tempt some to stay in the water - very impressive demonstrations of resilience.
The unexpected even took the beach crew by surprise. On Thursday, before the session even began, we arrived to set up and saw that there was someone already in the water (not someone from our group), they were wearing a black hat. A little later another local arrived to swim and commented on the bag that was on the beach and asked if we knew who it was. I told her that we had seen someone swimming with a black hat and she commented that whilst she knew someone who swam with a black hat it couldn’t be them as they didn’t swim for very long. I turned round to point out the swimmer to her and they were nowhere to be seen. We now had a bag and no swimmer. We took a look at the top of the bag and it appeared to be soft clothing. At this point we had no choice but to contact the authorities. It caused a delay to our start as they investigated. Whilst frustrating for the swimmers, it was a useful opportunity to create a socially distant circle and have the opportunity to answer any questions that the swimmers had and experience what it’s like to have an unexpected delay to a start of a swim, just like I had before the start of my 2014 solo. All’s well that ends well!
Swimmers
This week we had 6 core soloists with extras taking the total to 10 on some days, we also had 3 relay swimmers. Like last week, some have swims planned for this year and some are looking further ahead or were just training for the fun of it. It was a lovely group of people to spend time with.
How it all went
Monday
A calm and sunny day. Everyone achieved what they set out to do.
Tuesday
Another flat day. Today the weather started cloudy with some light drizzle and the sun came out later which was lovely. It was the first day of feeding for our soloists and with such a small group size it was a good opportunity for swimmers to try different feeds to see which suited them best.
Our first feed was on the beach, the second feed from the kayak - a good opportunity to feed in deep water.
Wednesday
More sun and flat water. A slightly shorter swim today ready for the big one tomorrow. It was the last day for most of our relay swimmers. This week with qualifying swims to be completed we had a 100% success rate with our relay qualifiers.
Thursday
What a treat of a week. Another flat and sunny day, very different to the lumpy water last Thursday. Today was the longest swim - billed as a 7 hour swim which three swimmers seamlessly transformed to a 8 hour swim.
Friday
A full house of nice days. Another flat day with sun to make the end of the session lovely. Whilst two of the swimmers who swam extra yesterday, one went on to complete the originally planned 6 hours making it a total of 23.5 hours of swimming in 5 days. Very impressive!
Dover Dips
How is it our third week of Dover Dips already?!
The water had a slight chop to it today, but it remained dry most of the time. That is until right at the end at which point the heavens opened! Well, I guess all good things must come to an end and we had been treated to amazing weather for the week.
Today we had 19 swimmers across our two sessions. It was lovely to see a mix of familiar faces, repeat swimmers from this season and some new faces. Well done to all swimmers.
Continued evolution
Whilst Saturday was a non-training day for us, Paul did pop down to the beach to see how busy it was on a nice day. It wasn’t as bad as we have seen on some previous weekends. It does seem to start getting busier in the afternoon. We were curious as to the impact of the continued removal of our lockdown measures. It seems that now more is opening up that people are able to choose more than just the beach on a nice day, but the beach is still popular in the afternoons.
As a result of this we are going to start trialling longer swims on a Sunday, but with an earlier start time than we have had in previous years. We’ll see how this goes and then consider extending to Saturdays. Of course, just like our lockdown measures, there is always the risk that we’ll have to reduce our offering again depending on how the Covid-19 risk changes and how safe the beaches are.
Feeding will be different to what swimmers have been used to. There will be no treats as we can’t pass those safely, however, if someone from your household will be on the beach then they will be able to pass you treats if you really want something. Feeding will either be from the beach or kayak. We’ll be using bottles which are numbered. You’ll receive your number when you sign-in. These bottles will be surface sanitised between each feed. When feeding on the beach you’ll retrieve your bottle from one of several bottle holders - note the colour of the handle so that you can quickly find your way to the right holder.
When feeding from the kayak, your bottle will be on rope and always placed in the same place on the kayak.
Please maintain social distancing at all times and if necessary, please circle to give others room to finish their feeds.
In answer to your questions….
Not this season.
These camps were aimed at helping people ramp their training back-up from lockdown safely. We offered two weeks for flexibility.
All the beach crew involved also hold down day jobs and have taken annual leave to run these camps, so it really is a once a year thing.
With any luck we won’t need to do ramp-up camps next season, though we may well hold an intensive training camp once the water temperature is warm enough to allow sensible training. These can compliment your weekend training and any pre-season overseas camps that are attended.
Will we be running more training camps?
There are none planned at this time. If we do put any more on these will be publicised on the website and social media and in this blog series.
Will we be running any more night swims?
Sessions are released automatically 21 days ahead. This is to minimise any disruption if we need to change sessions around.
An example of this is our adaptations from next Sunday. I have frozen the two hour sessions previously released and introduced two 1.5 hour sessions as well as the longer swims instead.