What is it with this weather? Enough already!

The change in wind direction led to the calm water being by the ferry wall and a visible swell at the beach end of the beach. The other change was that it was a fight to get to the ferry wall and flying back. Sometimes it good to have unexpected changes, as something unexpected is likely to happen on the big day too.

Welcome to some new swimmers, and welcome back to some familiar faces from previous years.

There were lots of questions about the big day and how to mix feeds amongst other things, if you have questions, we’re there to answer them on the beach. If something comes up and you want to chat in the week feel free to use the following options that are there for you:

The DCT Facebook Group
Your pod WhatsApp groups
The weekly community call on a Tuesday evening (free to members and £2 for non-members)

Your pod leaders’ observations

Bonnie had some words of wisdom in the briefing. It’s going to be Ruff

We seem to have approached that point in the season where people have either gone, are about to go or are riding the Dovercoaster.

It’s been a particularly tough August and we all have our fingers crossed that things will change soon.

I know what it’s like to be in this position. I’ve gone a month early before and a month late. My first successful solo was at the end of September, following a nail biting month wait, and it was a glorious day - flat calm and pretty much no tide. Suddenly the (not so) patient waiting was all worthwhile.

Jon had two false starts this season before getting to start his solo.

Keep the faith. Remember that the goal is to complete the swim, not just to get wet. Wait for the right day for you. We’re with you as you wait.

Shout outs (training)

We seem to be starting the gradual winding down for the season, so not every weekend has the familiar 7 & 6 sessions. That said, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of them just yet. We’re still focusing on those swimmers in future years or swimming at the end of the season.

This week I’d like to give a shout out to:

Jon Southey & Lucy Ashdown-Parkes for your 5 hour swims
Jamie Farquhar and Tony Ferguson for your back to back 4 hours
Jill Tipping, Anita Goyos, Danny Hanlon, Rosalinda Hardiman, Phil Cooper, Kevin McCalden and Andrew Elliman for your 4 hour swims
Paul Cross for your 3.5 and 3hr 41min swim - very well timed 🤪
All the relay swimmers for consistently doing double dip 1.5 hrs, and for the SwimTayka swimmers for doing a little bit more each time to ensure they had always done more than the challenge set

Channel swimmer on the beach!

Swims to call out this week:

Laura Sharpe for her Jersey to France solo on 27th August in a time of 11 hours 4 minutes in challenging conditions
Steven Boyle for his successful One Way Windermere swim (skins) and fastest man.
Claire Matthews, Sara Matthews for their successful One Way Windermere swims (wetsuit)

Well done to all swims this week, wherever you trained. We enjoyed tracking you. 😊

Apologies if I missed anyone - there are a lot of swims going on all over the world!

I don’t have any photos for you this weekend, though we did have a visit from Ollie Phillips - and thanks for hunting us out in the cafe after an uncharacteristically early finish! Shame it was inappropriate to use the whistle there! Lovely to to see you Ollie and to be able to congratulate you in person.

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: 23
Water temperature: 18.3C
Air temperature: 17.9C
Conditions: F5 NNE. Swell to start at low water. Choppy later. Calm by ferry wall. Today it was tough going to the ferry wall and easy back. There was rain to start and sunny later. Basically a bit of everything!

Sunday:

Swimmers: 31
Water temperature: 17.1C
Air temperature: 18.2C
Conditions: F4 N. Partly cloudy, very warm when the sun was out. Slight swell.

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.

Dates for your Diary

End of season get together

Instead of a BBQ, we are planning an end of season picnic. Bring your own packed lunch (that makes it more Covid friendly) and let’s still enjoy each other’s company one last time before the season ends. It’s a great opportunity to celebrate all the successes you’ve had.

To give it another little twist, how about each pod creates their own theme? Which pod will win? Not in a pod, then either join the fun of one of the existing pods or club together with other pay as you go swimmers and create your own theme.

And how about a bake-off? In recent weeks you’ve shared some pretty impressive baking and there will be plenty of people willing to run the taste test - no soggy bottoms please (unless you leave your swimmers on under your trousers).

Those of you who came to our intensity week will have experienced some fun games along the way - it could be fun to do something like that too after lunch has settled.

2022 Dover Intensity Week

Looking a bit further ahead, our 2022 intensity week will run from 6th-10th June. Will you be there? More details will be on the website in the next few weeks.

Paddlefish Ponderings: Building Subconscious Behaviours

You may be aware that you have a conscious mind and also a super powerful subconscious mind.

Your conscious mind is the one that you use to do things, well, consciously. Your subconscious mind runs all your programmed routines 24/7 365 days a year. Your unconscious mind is your best employee, it never takes a break, it doesn’t need a holiday and it never sleeps.

Your conscious mind takes tremendous willpower.

Let’s put it in another context to explain it. When you first learn to drive it can be very confusing and sensory overload. You’ve got to think about pedals with two feet and one of those feet has two pedals to deal with. You have a steering wheel, gear stick, hand brake, indicators, windscreen wipers and more to deal with using your hands. And then there’s the mirrors. And that’s without even considering other drivers. There’s a lot to take on.

Do you see what I mean?

Conscious effort is difficult.

The same is true when you’re learning a new skill, like changing your stroke. Every single stroke feels weird. Stop the conscious thought and you go back to your old ways. Old feels normal. But normal isn’t want you want or need.

But you keep with it and habit takes over. The new stroke becomes your new normal. Your new stroke feels normal, it feels good.

You keep up the driving lessons and you gain confidence and skill.

Both of these become unconscious patterns or programmes. They run without you thinking. They’re there, waiting, 24/7.

When driving you do so much subconsciously. You handle steering, indicating, choosing the right speed and being aware of all that is around you as well as sing along to your favourite tune or hold a conversation.

When you first learned to swim there was a lot of conscious thought, you may not remember those days if you learned when you were young, but if you relearned or have been working on your stroke you’ll remember the hours of conscious effort. Yet when that’s all in place you can swim automatically. You can zone out. You automatically and rhythmically use your arms and legs, you remember to breath.

You may not realise it, but part of your training with DCT has been to build those programmes too, so that they are second nature, things that you don’t have to think about. Things like:

Swimming from feed to feed
Living with uncertainty (finding out how long you’re doing when you arrive)
Being used to swimming in a variety of conditions and adjusting your stroke automatically
Acclimatisation
Going into fat burning and knowing that you’ll get past the grumps

The list goes on.

Occasionally a ‘gremlin’ gets in the way. A rogue part of you that’s running an unhelpful programme in the background, like a computer virus.

In my experience, this ‘gremlin’ is trying to fulfil a positive function, like protecting you, it’s just that it’s doing it in an unhelpful way. Because it’s a subconscious routine, you can’t willpower your way out of it. Well you can for a while, but eventually the gremlin will win out.

It’s a bit like dieting, the early days of strong willpower are relatively easy, and then you ease off a bit and …. wham …. the old behaviours are back - that extra tipple or cake. Maybe I can miss training today. And so it begins.

When I work with clients with ‘gremlins’ we aim to identify what that gremlin’s positive intention is (there’s always one) and aim to find a way that it can fulfil it’s positive intention that isn’t the one it is currently using and is helpful to your overall goal. Afterall, it’s you’re best employee, you wouldn’t sack it - just redeploy it.

Let me know if you have gremlins that need redeploying.