Weekly Review

NB Please scroll to the bottom for a selection of the photos taken

Expect the unexpected

‘Expect the unexpected’. You hear that a lot in this sport and it’s true. That included finding out about the town Regatta that took place on Saturday last weekend. We found out by seeing a poster. To be fair to the harbour board, they did also contact me on Wednesday to advise me that the swim zone would be closed to swimming. I thanked them for thinking of us and asked ever so nicely if they could give us more notice next time to help with planning!

Hythe is always a pleasure to visit - a long uninterrupted stretch of water in a town where time appears to have a different rhythm to the hustle and bustle of my normal life, a gentle place where time has stood still.

It’s a bit trickier when it comes to carting stuff around, but many hands made light work - even if Mandi was determined to do it all in one go!

With a bit of song to get us on our way and the session ran smoothly with all swimmers doing exactly as was asked of them. What a glorious day. We had a lovely mix of regulars, returning swimmers and people new to us.

With Richard’s colour coding scheme now firmly in place 🙄, we know who is being fed on what and have everything ready so that we can make the process as fast as possible. Of course, there’s always the little surprise when someone is having so much fun that they ask to do more, but we’re used to that too!

Sunday was back to our beloved Dover Harbour which was back to normal. I woke up without much of a voice and feeling a little chesty (not covid), so Mandi did the briefing (I could get used to this!). It was a lovely sunny day, so lots of beach goers and people enjoying the water (though fortunately not too much boat traffic. It seems that paddle boarding is the go to activity this year, with lots of people on (and off and on again) SUPs.

Again we had a mix of regulars, alumni, new swimmers and returning victorious swimmers.

The weather was yet again kind to us and the water uncharacteristically warm. I even had a little dip!

Number 12 (Kev) kindly brought some Haribos along for the swimmers. What none of us realised was that Haribos do actually melt and it was a hot day. What we ended up with was one very big lump of sticky Haribo!

On both days, whilst we were enjoying training, other DCT swimmers were out in the channel chasing their dreams. It was a tracktastic weekend.

Shout outs

Training

Congratulations to:

Felix for smashing his Solent qualifying swim
Jodie, Marion & Paula for your 7 & 6 back to back swims
Harry for your 7 hour swim
Elizabeth, Anton & Joshua for your 6 hour swims

Channel swimmer on the beach

I had a crazy busy week at work and wasn’t able to keep an eye on all the swimming news this week. My sincere apologies if your swim is missing - please message me and I’ll edit!!

There’s lots to shout about, here’s what I saw (in no particular order):

Aspire Giraffes for their English Channel relay on 1st August in a time of 12hrs 18mins
Nicolie Chaffe for her Jersey to France solo on 2nd August in 7hrs 1min
Blaithin, Kelly, Fiona and Hillary for their Channeling Rowena channel relay on 4th August in a time of 14hrs 9mins
Aspire Mutts for their English Channel relay on 4th August in a time of 14hrs 3mins
Anel Sytdykova for her Catalina solo on 5th August in a time of 18hrs 19mins - in doing so also achieving her triple crown 👸👸👸
Philip Preece for his English Channel solo on 6th August in a time of 19hrs 0mins
Lucy Bessant for her Alexa’s Four English Channel Relay on 6th August in a time of 12hrs 21mins
Tayka Peru team for their English Channel Relay on 4th August in a time of 14hrs 40mins
Tayka Brazil team for their English Channel Relay on 5th August in a time of 14hrs 40mins
Francesca, Drew, Victoria, David, Kristie & Miles for their Serpentine Seals English Channel Relay on 7th August in a time of 15hrs 1min.
Zoe Green for her English Channel solo on 7th August in a time of 17hrs 1min
Louisa Bell for her English Channel solo on 7th August in a time of 17hrs 29mins
Mark Sheridan (DCT alumni) for his Lake Ontario solo on 3rd August
Joanna Stokoe (DCT alumni) for her Loch Ness solo on 5th August

There were also some swims that ended with unfinished business. Feel free to come and chat it through, if we can help you unpick it all, we’d be happy to help.

Swim stats

Note: Water temperature taken during the swim session in the harbour. Air temperature, wind direction & wind speed taken from the Port of Dover app. Please remember that we get a lot of shelter in the harbour thanks to the walls.

Saturday:

Swimmers: 22
Water temperature: 21.1C
Air temperature: 20.6C
Conditions: F3 N. Sunny with a bit of swell. Gorgeous!

Sunday:

Swimmers: 17
Water temperature: 20.4C
Air temperature: 18.7C
Conditions: F3 E. Sunny & calm. Lots of public bathers

Volunteers & beach crew

Thank you to everyone who helped out this weekend - either a little or a lot. Thank you to Mandi, Dirk, Stuart, Jo, Dom & Halani for being ‘on rota’ and to everyone who helped out with the feeds and celebrations. ❤️

If you want to join the fun, why not pick a date and book your space through the booking system. You’ll see things from a whole new perspective.

Thank you

We’d like to say a massive THANK YOU to Sylvia & Bryan from Pacific Open Water Swim Co for their very kind donation. We’re using the funds to go towards a new Kayak which you’ll in action very soon. Thank you!!

For those who haven’t heard of Pacific Open Water Swim Co, take a look at their website. If you find yourself in or around San Francisco, there are numerous swims that they can help you with, including the iconic Alcatraz swim.

The adventures of Dover Dave

Dover Dave continues to live his best life. This week he spend time with Hayley, hoping to get out on a channel relay. Unfortunately they got weathered out. He still managed to get up to trouble though! For a full diary, take a look at our facebook group, you’ll get the narrative behind the photos.

Dave is off to spend the week with Amanda & Dotty this week.

Paddlefish Ponderings - Life after success

“Succeeding requires one set of skills, managing success another set.”

— Adele Scheele

I know it seems a bit early in the season to be talking about this with some swimmers yet to swim, but over the years I have seen every reaction from successful and unsuccessful swims. People often assume that success will bring a natural high, and sometimes it does, sometimes that high lasts a long time. Sometimes depression kicks in, slowly or quickly. There’s no right or wrong way to feel and I have personally felt both ends of this equation.

If you’re feeling a bit blue, please know that this is normal. I want to explain why it happens and some strategies for dealing with it.

Modern life is goal-oriented. From the early days of school exams, through to progressing through your career or a big sporting event (in our cases solo or relay swims). So, why would achieving these goals leave someone feeling empty rather than elated, and how can that let down be avoided?

That empty feeling is called the arrival fallacy, and it operates according to the premise that as you work toward a goal, you come to expect that you will reach it. Expecting your goal’s future success triggers the brain’s reward centre, producing a soothing feeling. This feeling continues and you adjust to it, so much so that when you meet your goal it’s less satisfying than expected.

And this can develop into an endless cycle of searching for what will make you happy, chasing goal after goal and reinforcing self-doubt.

When talking about career success, Harvard Business Review said, that workplace wins leaving you empty can come from a trade-off between career and personal goals, such as violating deeply held personal beliefs to get ahead in office politics. You may also feel your success isn’t recognised by others, or that your success may be the result of luck to an external factor such as luck. Those two last points in particular are things that I hear a lot on the beach. As Tiger Woods once said, ‘The more I train, the more luck I have!’

Chrys Jordan wrote that it may be a question of expectations. “I grew up with the understanding that the purpose in life was to reach a goal; the goal was seen as everything. Then you might expect that on reaching a goal, you will feel amazingly good, and if you feel less than amazingly good, then it would seem as a disappointment.”

Forbes, The Huffington Post and Puttylike suggested these tips for getting past what Puttylike called “post-achievement depression”:

Rediscover your original purpose. It’s easy to fixate on objectives to where you would lose sight of this, and can be remedied with simple questions such as “What would I be doing if money wasn’t a problem?” or “When do I feel most alive?”
Look back at previous accomplishments, even keeping a file or log of successes and praise so that you don’t forget the worth of your actions.
Get started right away on the next task. The sooner you get your mind off what's getting you down, the sooner it goes away.
Remember, it’s the journey that matters, not the destination. Enjoy the process, not just the outcome.
Don’t wait for praise from others. Give yourself praise.
Celebrate with a tangible gift to yourself, to remind you of your recognised efforts.

Reminders

Bookings can be made up to 48 hours ahead and be cancelled or rescheduled up to 48 hours ahead also. The system doesn’t arrange automatic refunds, so if you would like a refund, please check out our refund policy and get in touch if you would like a refund.
If you miss this deadline then I’ll book you in if I have the available time and I have your disclaimer. There is an admin fee if you don’t use the self-service option.
Arrive on time
Wear the right colour hat - red for soloists, yellow for relay swimmers
Attend the mandatory safety briefing
Those of you who are members, please remember to cancel your membership when you no longer want it. You can do that within a membership period and still have all the benefits of it, this will prevent it from auto renewing next year. You can do this within your account, by following the link in the confirmation email when you took out your membership, or by asking me to do it for you.

Looking ahead

On Tour

Please remember that we brought our August ‘On Tour’ date forwards. We now have just one ‘On Tour’ date left for the season

Saturday 17th September

The location will be either Ramsgate or Hythe and the location will be decided on the Thursday before the swim.

End of season celebration

It’s become a bit of a tradition that, rather than fade away as the season progresses that we get together for an end of season celebration on the last weekend of training. So mark the date in your calendar - Saturday 24th September - bring a picnic. We’ll bring inflatables!!

We now have a theme - Grease! Make of that what you will - I’m looking forward to some fun & creative outfits.

Chilli Dips

We’ll be starting up our monthly Chilli Dips again from October. Like last year, we’ll aim to visit a number of locations. We’re also toying with the idea of having an inland option too - a river near me in Surrey - who’s up for that?

Halloween(ish) Fright Night

We’re planning on doing a night swim / bob in October - those who don’t like swimming in the dark need not apply!!

This won’t be a training session, just a bit of fun. We’ll do our very best to make you jump in the water - definitely one where you should expect the unexpected.

Watch this space for a date in October.

Spotlight in the shop

Photos

A few photos from the weekend….

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Week 15 - A Tracker of a weekend