Weekly Review

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

What a weekend! It’s hard to believe that it all happened in a single weekend but it did.

Intensity week

Last week we had our intensity week and when I get a minute I’ll do a write up on that separately. Spoiler - it was fab!

Friday

As well as the last day of our intensity week, it was also the first day of the second Aspire training weekend and what a weekend it was. Many swimmers achieved their qualifying swims on this day. Well done to you all.

Saturday (night swim)

For Mandi, Vikki & I, Saturday started late on Friday.

Saturday was to be our night swim, starting at 2:30am. If you’ve ever seen one of our night swims, you will have seen the additional safety measure that we have in place and these take time to prepare. So, under the cover of darkness we set to getting ready.

It’s always one of our most popular sessions in the calendar. It’s such a great opportunity to practice some of the features of the big day:

Working out when to sleep in preparation
Having breakfast at the wrong time
Putting suncream on in the dark
Starting to swim at a time that’s far from normal

To be able to do that with lots of other like minded people makes for a fun environment.

Our course for the hours of darkness was about 500m. The course was marked out by large lit up buoys. On each circuit of this course swimmers were asked to give their numbers in to Mandi on the kayak. Mandi relayed these numbers to Vikki and I on the beach (though we could generally hear them being called out anyway!). Our aim was to ensure that all swimmers were regularly accounted for throughout the period of darkness.

From our vantage point on the beach we could see where all the swimmers were thanks to the very visible guardian lights. We could see those who held a good course and those who were a little more directionally challenged. No one strayed too far though.

The swimmers were broken into three main groups:

Relay swimmers who aimed to do about an hour
Solo swimmers who were on a recovery week and had shorter swims
Solo swimmers who planned to do a 6 hour swim

I am extremely grateful to Paul & Catherine who helped support those swimmers coming out at an hour meaning that Vikki & I could focus on keeping all other swimmers accounted for.

We were blessed with a clear night. At 04:20 it was light enough to allow swimmers to use the full swim zone. The sun hadn’t yet popped over the cliffs, but it was light and the promise of a beautiful sunrise was imminent.

In my experience, daylight or sunrise is a danger zone. When I say danger I don’t mean in the context of safety. I mean that swimmers who go in intending to do a long swim sometimes choose to get out at this point. They can get wrapped up with having achieved the dark part of the swim, the novelty of the swim. Then they get out. It’s frustrating, but predictable.

Those who stay in, generally stay for the entire swim. These are the ‘athletes’ of the soloists.

At about 04:45 the orange glow started to appear over the cliffs. It is such a privilege to see it and mother nature didn’t disappoint.

Once the swimmers were released to the full circuit it was time to de-rig the additional safety equipment. It made the rest of the session disappear quickly on the beach. Sometimes a little quickly! As the tide started coming in a little quicker that we reacted. We found out that pump flasks float! Fortunately, that was the only casualty of the night - no crocs were harmed in this moment!!

Well done to everyone who entered the water that day.

Massive thank you to Mandi and Vikki who gave up their entire nights.

Saturday (part 2)

After a brief breakfast, Mandi & I headed to Ramsgate for part 2 - Aspire’s normal training session. All credit to the swimmers who completed the night swim and then went on to double dip in Ramsgate. More qualifying swims were achieved.

Sunday

Back to normal (if this sport is ever considered normal!).

Swimmers continued to knock out large swims. Relay swimmers continued to complete qualifying swims.

It may have been a very long weekend, but it was absolutely worth it. Thank you to all the swimmers who make it all so worthwhile.

Shout outs

Training

Congratulations to:

Sophie for her 6 hour swim starting at 02:30 (after a 10 & 6 back to back during intensity week)
Adele, Sarah & Johnny for their back to back 6 hour swims
Steve, Drew, Helen, Philip, Paule & Louisa for their 6 hour swims starting at 02:30
Halani for her 5 & 4 weekend
Yoel & Philip for their 5 hour swims
Aspire swimmers for all their relay qualifying swims
Nicola & Stacy for their relay qualifying swims

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.

Saturday (night swim):

Swimmers: 50 (plus 44 Aspire swimmers later in Ramsgate)
Water temperature: 15.1C
Air temperature: 15.1C
Conditions: F4 WSW. Clear sky. A bit choppy, then calm, then choppy again. Air was really warm when the sun rose. Beautiful sunrise!

Sunday:

Swimmers: 64
Water temperature: 15.4C
Air temperature: 17C
Conditions: Choppy

Volunteers & beach crew

Thank you to everyone who helped out this weekend - either a little or a lot. A very special thanks to Mandi & Vikki for working through the night to support the night swim and to Mandi for joining me in Ramsgate to support Aspire.

Thank you to Paul & Dirk for their support on Sunday.

Thank you to everyone who helps at feeds when their own swims are done and the flashmobs who mark the big swims with celebratory arches.

If you want to join the fun, why not pick a date and join the fun on the beach!

The adventures of Dover Dave

Dave continues to live his best life! That said, I think Vikki might have led Dave astray a little - just look at what she got up to this week! This week he’s with Halani and will be taking on the BLDSA Champion of Champions event.

If you’d like to host Dave for a week, please let us know on the beach. We’d love to see a photo diary of Dave’s summer in our Facebook Group.

Paddlefish Ponderings - Hard Work Beats Talent

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard”

— Tim Notke

What we practice in training is what we do in our event. This is true for the pool swimmer as well as aspiring channel swimmers.

When I coach club swimmers there is an emphasis on perfect practice. When I say that I mean perfection in every aspect whether that’s breath control on turns, clean technique or strong finishes. At the heat of the moment, in a race, you automatically do what you’ve practiced.

There’s a saying that practice makes perfect. Well that’s not quite true. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect.

If you’ve practiced perfect technique and skills that’s what you’ll do on the day. If you glide into a turn or have an element of your technique that is flawed and don’t work on it in training, it won’t magically be perfect in a race.

As a referee I have seen all sorts. I’ve disqualified for all sorts of technical infringements. Sometimes this is a one off error, but often it is someone simply repeating what they’ve done thousands of times in training. It’s unnecessary & frustrating.

Sometimes a DQ is enough to finally focus on correcting those things that will lead to success.

So what’s your point, Emma?

My point is this. It’s the same when you’re training for a channel swim.

Technique is important. Tens of thousands of repetitions of even a small flaw can lead to injury. Also, speed over distance requires your technique to hold firm.

The pool is important. Progressive overload and appropriate training sessions in the pool will lead to increased aerobic capacity and fitness. The pool is where your technical work is done.

Open water training is important. This will lead to cold acclimatisation, endurance and the mental resilience to battle any demons that may come along.

Consistency is important. By that I mean, consistently do the training that you need to do (and I don’t mean consistently plodding).

None of the list above is about talent.

A swimmer with passion and determination and who is prepared to do what needs to be done to secure success is likely to see that success. They work hard and smart.

I see lots of talented swimmers.

Talented swimmers in this context are generally the ones who swam as a child and did thousands of drills as part of their training (even if they don’t recall doing it). They are those who had a coach who created training sets that helped them develop their skills, technique and fitness. They learned the fundamentals of swimming at an early age and these remain hard wired in. You can develop a level of talent if you are a late onset swimmer, though none of us can turn back time and regain 10+ years of youthful training, of creating that early muscle memory.

So you can categorise swimmers in a number of ways:

The talented swimmer who works hard: here you have a winning combination.
Swimmers who don’t have a swimming history, but do work hard (and smart): and whilst they may not threaten Trent Grimsey’s record, I’d put money on their success because they will do what it takes to be successful. They display the attributes of an athlete (see previous Paddlefish Ponderings post).
Then we have the frustrating group. The talented swimmers who display the characteristics of a participant. These ones should be successful, but are often the ones who get out in training and on the big day when the going gets tough.
Swimmers without a swimming history and who display the characteristics of a participant. These swimmers are rarely successful and often don’t even get to the start of their big day.

Who do we see?

We see swimmers in all these categories. In my experience, those in the first two categories are most likely to see success.

Once in a while I end up having a difficult conversation with those swimmers in the final two categories. For these swimmers, there needs to be a change in approach to have a reasonable chance of success. This could be working improving their swimming technique so that their stroke is good enough to make the swim that they have planned. It could be that more time is needed for acclimatisation. Or perhaps it’s the attitude of an athlete that’s missing.

In all cases, making the changes necessary can see the swimmer move to one of the first two categories and lead to the chances of success increasing.

So which category do you think you’re in?

Be honest.

You’ll know if you have the physical attributes based on your swimming history, your training volume and how you handle the cold.

What’s left is whether you’re an athlete or participant.

Interestingly people get this wrong both ways.

I see swimmers who do absolutely everything right, but because they’re so determined to succeed they often see themselves as participants as they somehow confuse this will their swimming history. My job here is to build them up and help them realise just how good they really are.

I also see swimmers who dismiss the importance of the athlete mindset and continually say they’ll do what they didn’t do today next time or on the big day. In my experience, they rarely step out of this mindset until they fully accept where they actually are and accept help to change it. My job here is to call you out. I don’t like having these conversations, so if that’s you, it’s done with your best interest at heart.

Occasionally there are swimmers who have unrealistic goals. I do believe that we are all capable of amazing things. Sometimes it’s the timeframe that needs to change in order to develop the physical and mental attributes to enable success. My job here is to help you meet yourself where you are and see what is needed to get to where you want to be.

If you need help identifying where you are or what you can do to get yourself into one of the first two categories, please just ask on one of our community calls or at the weekend.

Remember: Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.

Reminders

Remember to book your sessions online. By far the easiest way is through the app. This QR will take you to the app where you can book directly and see what you have already booked. You can cancel and reschedule.

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.

Those of you with training subscriptions, enter your email address and click in the discount code box and your automatic voucher should appear. Let me know if you have any trouble with this.

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

Once a month we are going ‘On Tour’. The location will be either Ramsgate or Hythe and the choice will be based on the weather forecast. If there’s a substantial SW breeze, we’ll choose Ramsgate else we’ll choose Hythe.

The decision will be finalised on Thursday.

Both give you the experience of different conditions and where you’ll really appreciate the impact of the tide. When you see the weather stats for the Dover sessions you may see some big numbers for wind force and we only get away with what are only moderately choppy conditions because of the protection offered by the harbour.

Also, the water in the harbour can bounce off walls giving more of a short chop, the open nature of Ramsgate & Hythe will likely give longer, more swelly conditions.

These sessions are normal sessions included in any training subscriptions.

There’ll be location specific information included in the safety briefing.

On Tour dates:

Saturday 18th June
Saturday 16th July
Saturday 20th August
Saturday 17th September

Spotlight in the shop

Fogging up goggles or accidentally getting vaseline on them can be a right nightmare. Foggies are a simple solution. They are an anti-fog & cleansing wipe. Whilst individually wrapped, they are multi use if wrapped back up carefully.

All our products are available on the website for postage (though given we’re in Dover for our intensity week, the next time products will be posted is Monday 13th June) or collection from the beach. We also have most of the range available to purchase by card from the beach.