Week 14: Expect the unexpected (again)
What is it with the weather at the moment?! It’s crazy. Last weekend we were forecast torrential downpours and instead we had beautiful sunshine.
On Saturday we were forecast rain, but we were treated to more sunshine when we arrived, could we have a repeat of last week. Alas not the grey clouds came over we had a brief thunderstorm and boy did it rain! Whilst the probability of someone being struck by lightening in the harbour is extremely low, it is theoretically possible and the water should always be cleared with lightening overhead, so at the 5 hour feed that’s exactly what we did, apologies if you were stopped short of what you set out to achieve. It’s always interesting to see how people react in these situations. You may think you want to get out until someone tells you that you need to and then, suddenly, you realise it isn’t actually what you want at all. If that was you, bottle that memory!
The storm passed within 30 minutes and I am super impressed by Claire & Kirstie who got back into finish what they started.
Sunday was much the same as Saturday, but without the thunderstorm. We got a bit soggy on the beach and some swam for longer than originally planned simply to avoid getting changed in a monsoon. I now need a way to make this happen predictably to help encourage these breakthrough swims!! 🤣
Lesson learned for me - my DryRobe needs re-waterproofing.
Your pod leaders’ observations
There was a pretty nice vibe on the beach this weekend despite the rain. There’s the nervous chatter about upcoming swims and last minute wishes of good luck. There’s the sharing of stories and helping each other in the water and then afterwards on the beach.
This is simply a lovely group.
And then the rapid scattering of swimmers as the heavens opened!
A bad weather weekend can really impact the mood and it didn’t. Well done everyone whether your swims were long or short it was a positive weekend all round with targets being met or exceeded.
Shout outs (training)
When you are involved in a sport like ours, you surround yourself with people who routinely do amazing things. You’re all pretty darn amazing to be honest. These shout outs aim to highlight some of the breakthrough moments or big training weekends that we notice. There are many more. Please please give yourself a shout out in our Facebook group if you had a personal breakthrough moment or are proud of your achievements. I’d love to hear about it.
Claire Webster for her 7 & 6
Kirstie McIntyre for her 6 & 6
Allan McPherson, Hannah Lietzau, Kevin McCalden, Ady Brown for their 6 hour swims
Martin Grey, Danny Hanlon & Phil Cooper for their back to back 5 hour swims
Sophie Smith for turning her longest swim previously of about 2.5 hours into a back to back 5s weekend (with no swim planned)!
Any omissions in this section are purely accidental.
Weekend Stats
Note: Water temperature taken during the swim session in the harbour. The lowest recorded reading is shown here. Air temperature, wind direction & wind speed taken from the Port of Dover app.
Saturday:
Swimmers: 24
Water temperature: 18.0C
Air temperature: 17.2C
Conditions: Partly cloudy to start, torrential rain & thunderstorm for a while (we exited for the thunderstorm) and then sun. F4 gusting F5 SW. The rain flattened the water for a while, the rain impacted visibility
Sunday:
Swimmers: 23
Water temperature: 17.7C
Air temperature: 20.2C
Conditions: Sunny to start then heavy downpour later on.
Volunteers & beach crew
Thank you to the pod leaders and to our volunteers. Thanks to everyone who rolled up their trouser legs and helped.
Reminders
Remember to book your sessions online. Bookings close 24 hours before the session, it would be a massive help if you booked by Thursday morning.
The system doesn’t arrange automatic refunds, so please message me if you cancel ahead of these deadlines and I’ll arrange a refund.
You don’t need to sign into the website to book a session - just pop your email address in to the booking system and it will remember you. Remember to click into the discount code box if you are a subscriber and it will auto complete your discount code. If you are a pay as you go swimmer and are also a member, remember to use your discount code to get your membership price.
Long swim opportunities
We will be running 10 hour swims on Saturday 7th August. If you are tempted and want to find out more, please get in touch. There will be a different start time for these swimmers only.
Paddlefish Ponderings: Best Laid Plans
When we book an event like a channel swim, we often have a plan in our heads for how we would like to approach the training and preparation. Covid-19 has significantly impacted the plans of many. Whether that’s travel restrictions, pool closures, self-isolation, lockdowns, an extra Covid layer, the list goes on.
The same is true for Olympians.
When UK pools were shut, there were no special measures just for Olympic hopefuls. These Olympic hopefuls had already had their training impacted due to the delay of the Olympics from 2020 to 2021. They’d faced multiple lockdowns. They’d faced the uncertainty as to whether the games would go ahead, even right up to the last moment. They’ve been denied the full experience of opening ceremonies and watching events and even denied enjoying the sights of Toyko.
Has that impacted their results? We’ll never actually know the answer to that as we can’t compare. There are almost certainly some where the story is a sad one of not being able to participate. But one look at the results and you’ll see a wealth of outstanding performances.
Athletes and coaches have had to find hew ways. They’ve had to suspend their belief of what was achievable, to set aside the previously believed best training approach.
Will we see significant changes in approaches to training in the future - that I’m curious about.
Something has clearly worked.
World records have tumbled.
We know that some swimmers did still manage to swim, whether that was in an endless pool or in a tethered paddling pool, it certainly wasn’t the way they would have chosen.
I suspect there was a lot more visualisation and mental preparation. Maybe the lack of early morning starts and associated better sleep also played a part.
Take a look at the channel swimming world and the story is the same. There are some sad stories of people who couldn’t travel and those who have contracted Covid. For these the dream will need to wait a little longer.
But then there are those who dared to believe in a different approach. To you my friends, this is your year, your era, your dream. Dare to believe. You’ve got this.
Photos
Photos from the weekend will follow after my relay tomorrow. Watch this space for an edit!
Spotlight in the shop
You’ve trained with these bands all season now, some of you have even managed to forget to leave them behind (whoops), so why not take us with you on your swim too, or keep us with you every day on a keyring?
