Basically I'm having a mid life crisis. I spent way too many years living in aeroplanes and hotel rooms. Hit forty, and could no longer pretend to be fitter than I really was (ah..the 20s and 30s you can get away with heaps).
The pool was a natural place to go back to, to get in shape. I had a long standing agreement with a mate (Fraser - who is very generously coming to Dover with me) in New Zealand that we would one day (yeah I thought it would never come) swim the annual Rangitoto Channel swim in Auckland Harbour. (Rangitoto is that big island that looks like a volcano - early in the morning two big ferries take all the swimmers across to the island and you all swim back to St Heliers beach - approx. 4.5kms). I enlisted a Melbourne mate - Swifty, trained for a few months, entered a heap of the local open water races (mostly 1.2 to 2km swims like the Portsea Classic, Sorrento Bay swim, Williamstown etc), did lots of pool swimming, bought a lovely Orca swimming wetsuit and flew to Auckland in Feb 2009 for the swim. I loved it. I was hooked.
Chris and I kept training, we thought we had a few bigger swims in us...and our egos were getting bigger too. We targeted the Rottnest Channel swim in Perth in Feb 2010 as a duo. This 20km open water swim is a ripper. We started training with Melbourne Vicenter and John Van Wisse. We ditched the wetsuits and entered the Melbourne Bloody Big swim (11km) and then Rotto 20km as a duo. It went very well for us, but Swifty developed a bit of a shoulder injury which kept him out of the pool for the last year. We also set up a website for men's health and raised over $60k. We are very proud of that.
Here is a quick video of our Rotto 2010 duo. 7 hours 18mins.
Well I was hooked. I had to go back to Rotto and have a crack at a solo which I achieved this year (2011). But I had had the English Channel in my mind since Rangitoto. I had read everything I could on it.
Last winter I joined a group of Icebergers in Melbourne called the Black Ice Icebergers and started regular cold water swimming. To officially join this group I had to do a 3km course at Brighton in under 10 degrees water. It was 8.3 degrees Celsius when I did it last year. I believe that more English Channel swimmers have come from this group than any other club in the world, certainly Australia. They have been brilliant to me, and it's a real buzz to go for a cold water swim and then share a steam room and a chat with around 10 people who have actually swum the Channel..... and many more who just love cold water swimming. A great group. In fact I recently did an 8 hour qualifying swim for my Channel attempt and of the 76 Australians who have swum the Channel - 9 of them turned up to swim with me on the day at various times... and all from Black Ice.
Anyway, I learnt that I was okay in the cold, I had Rotto in my sights but the Channel was always in my mind. Caren and I talked about it and decided that if I was going to train hard for Rotto then I may as well try and book a Channel slot (can be hard to get) and just keep the training going. I got lucky and got a position two for the tide in July 2011.
I did the Bloody Big swim 2011 as a solo and had a fantastic swim. I felt strong and comfortable the whole way. Rottnest went well but I learnt a lot about my feeding on long swims. I did it in a pretty slow 9 hours. I got to 10km in 3 hours but feeding problems and currents slowed me down and it took six more hours to complete the second 10km. However, there was no way I was going to stop, it was my first big test. The Channel is a mental test as well as physical.
Rotto 2011
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| early start |
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| great day - mid channel |
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| buggered |
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| happy with the day's effort |
I had no feeding issues on my 8 hour cold water qualifying swim which gave me the confidence to know I can do the Channel. I believe it.
Training is now lots of pool squads, 10km pool set most Friday nights at MSAC, long (3 hrs plus) cold water swims at Brighton Baths Sat and Sun and cold water swims when I can fit them in during the week before and after work.
Oh yeah.... I've added about 10kg. Fat is good in cold water long distance swimming - warmth, buoyancy and fuel. McDonalds, the local Pizza guy and fish & chip shops are making a fortune out of me.
It's about 5 weeks to go. Stay tuned
AV
