We seem to have had every season this year except summer. Oh wait, yes we did, it was one weekend in June!

This weekend we had strong winds and associated lumpy water. Whilst the rain wasn’t as bad as last weekend, it was still enough to leave anyone on the beach completely bedraggled. How is it that you can be sitting on a chair to keep it dry and stand up and still have a puddle on the seat? One of life’s great mysteries.

Your pod leaders’ observations

On Sunday we gave you a different briefing. Instead of sharing the training target when you signed in we said we would share the plan at the briefing. At that briefing we said that you get to choose how long and encouraged you to choose wisely and that we would challenge you if we thought your target was too short or too long.

I was delighted that you all chose wisely. The conditions were far from easy. It would have been easy to take a short swim and that didn’t happen. All swims were definitely worth more hours than the hours in the water.

This weekend the buckets even got a bit jealous and made a break for the water on a couple of occasions. Luckily we managed to intervene before any of the footwear was lost!

When the rain came down, Mandi concluded it was dryer in the bucket than on her chair!

Shout outs (training)

Everyone who swam this weekend deserves a shout out. Well done! I particularly want to shout out Kevin McCalden and Danny Hanlon for your 10 hour swims in difficult conditions on Saturday. Both came back for a shorter swim on Sunday too. I hope you both got what you wanted out of the experience.

Channel swimmer on the beach!

When we think about the weather this weekend, it’s hard to remember that we actually had a great few days of tracking frenzy.

Swims to call out this week:

Nicolie Chaffe for your Windermere swim on 2nd August in a fabulous time of 6 hours 27 minutes.
SMB Spartans - Shaken not stirred for your Channel relay on 2nd August in a time of 12 hours 33 minutes. The team included DCT 2021 swimmers Kev Beale, Sarah Philpott, Nicola Gore and me. Kev has wanted to do this for some time and it was a privilege to be part of a team where he was able to fulfil this dream.
Patrick Tschorn for your Channel Solo on 3rd August in a time of 11 hours 20 minutes
Kristen Smith for your Channel Solo on 3rd August in a time of 13 hours 34 minutes
Annabel Maggs for your Channel Solo on 4th August in a time of 10 hours 50 minutes. Well done for coming back after a challenging attempt earlier this season - faster this time and no sign of sickness!
Girls ALIVE yellow for your Channel relay on 4th August in a time of 12 hours 13 minutes. The team included DCT 2021 regulars.
Laura Sharpe for your Windermere swim on 6th August in a time of 5 hours 55 minutes.

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

If your swim didn’t go as planned, remember we’re here if you want to talk it through. Some things are out of our control as swimmers and sometimes there are small things that can be learned for next time. Take the lessons, leave the self-criticism.

If you’ve been blown out from your tide, welcome to the Dovercoaster. You will have heard about it but now actually understand what it means. Keep the faith. Keep ticking over. Your moment will come.

We have a lot of regulars now in their final days (we hope) before their swim. I think it’s time for this image to reappear….

I managed to happily video Kevin come out from his 10 hour swim, only to realise I’d just taken photos. Sorry Kevin!

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: 22
Water temperature: 17.8C
Air temperature: 16.9C
Conditions: F5 gusting F6 SSW. Very choppy to start, moderate chop later. Ferry wall end rough. Light rain at start.

Sunday:

Swimmers: 20
Water temperature: 17.8C
Air temperature: 16.6C
Conditions: F6 gusting F7. Very choppy, white peaks throughout. Rough beyond slopey groyne. Sunny to start. Heavy rain later.

Volunteers & beach crew

Thank you to the pod leaders and to our volunteers. Thanks to everyone who rolled up their trouser legs and helped. Tony was on the rota for Saturday and Jennifer simply turned up and helped out. Feeding was reminiscent of our Hythe days at times!

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.

Paddlefish Ponderings: Perspective

At the beginning of the season, as we’re ramping up time in the water alongside an increase in water temperature, about the time we get to three hours I’ll comment that one day I’ll say three hours and you’ll reply “What only three hours?” We’re well into that territory now and boundaries and perspectives have shifted.

Pretty much each week I’ll hear a comment like that. This weekend Kirstie commented on how silky smooth the water felt and came out extremely positive after a short (?!?!) four hours. There are many people who would describe four hours in a washing machine as silky smooth!

So, once in a while, if you feel that life isn’t quite where you want it, take a look back and remember where you came from.

On a good day, capture that memory and all the senses associated with it, file it carefully in your memory so that you can bring that feeling back whenever you want.

Stop and listen to the things that you now feel are normal. There has been a shift and because often we only look up at the mountain still to climb, we don’t look down at the journey already completed.

Now is the time to trust the process, trust your training and when the big day comes, run the process.