THE ULTIMATE TRIATHLON

After a seemingly never-ending wait, Saturday 27th September 2008 was the day when I would finally get my shot at swimming the English Channel. Unfortunately, on this occasion I was unsuccessful and left the water after 14 hours and 42 minutes, just four miles short of the French coastline. This is the story of my day.

It was a scheduled 9 a.m. start for my swim, which was really good because it meant I could get a good nights sleep and  head down to Dover as if it was a normal Saturday training swim. Unfortunately,  my body had  other ideas and I felt incredibly sick due to the nerves, which meant I wasn't able to eat anything. I knew I would be ok once I got in the water and I couldn't wait to start. My Dad picked me and my friend Nik up and drove us down to the marina where we met up with Mark Ransom, my support swimmer. It was looking like being a beautiful day and I knew I had a great shot, if only I didn't feel so sick. In the car park at the marina Mike Cross was buzzing around and shouted across to me "Don't c*ck it up now." It was good advise.

We made our way down to the boat and met up with my pilot Eddie Spelling, his crew Dave and my observer Nathan. There were a few other swims going out and Barrie and Irene came down to see us off. It was good to see them and thank them, I knew without them I wouldn't have even been there with a chance at the Channel. Before too long we were off, and the boat was motoring out of the harbour to take us around to the start at Samphire Hoe beach. I still had my head looking down trying not to be sick while forcing down some Maxim, but before I knew it I had to strip off, going through the familiar routine of putting on my cap, goggles and ear-plugs and applying vaseline. Then it was time to jump in and swim over to the beach, clearing the water before returning to the water and starting my swim. My first job was to swim back towards the boat, not easy considering how many other swims were starting, I was worried I would swim to the wrong boat!

I remember the first hour I had quite a few doubts. Almost immediately I was dwarfed by the enormity of the task ahead and I could understand how some people can lose it at the start of the swim. But I knew it was coming and I told myself to relax, as the first hour is always the worst on any long swim, and it always gets easier. By telling myself this I was able to calm my nerves and relax a little. By the second hour I was feeling great about things, really happy. The sun was out, the sea was like a millpond and this was really happening, finally. Also, the water felt really warm, warmer than in the harbour.


The first few hours were all about getting into a rhythm.

The first two hours though, I rather stupidly didn't have my goggles adjusted properly and they were letting in a lot of water which was practically blinding me. At my second feed I managed to adjust them and they were ok after that. Ah yes, the feeds. A big problem. I was drinking Maxim from a bottle which was thrown to me from my support boat. I had a bottle with a wide spout but I just wasn't able to drink enough and I was taking too much time. I had also planned to have solid food - bananas, chocloate and jelly babies - passed to me via a pole, but this just never worked.

After the first two hours things were going really well, and I decided to swim the third hour really fast and push the pace along. This had always been part of my plan as I often sprinted the third hour on training swims. However, not long after I started this hour, my left shoulder started to really hurt. I kept going, ignoring the pain, but over the next few hours it got progressively worse and started to affect my mood. At four hours, my support swimmer Mark Ransom joined me for an hour which helped my mood but the shoulder was really troubling me.


My left shoulder was in agony and my arm was struggling to clear the water.

The sixth hour was a real low point. The shoulder was so painful, I had slowed way down and my arm wasn't even clearing the water. Worse still was the effect this had on my mental state. I was so angry that this had happened. I had done seven training swims of six hours or longer, as well as numerous three and four hour swims, and on not one of them had I had a problem with my shoulder like this. It seemed so unfair and I was on the brink of giving up, it was so painful there was no way I could carry on for another ten hours and I was almost ready to call it a day. At five and a half hours I asked for painkillers at my next feed and cried out weakly that my shoulder had gone.


With my support swimmer MarkRansom, and a big boat.

Somehow I kept on swimming and I managed to find a way through this black point. The painkillers seemed to really help and I pretty soon I was flying again. I had also switched to the other side of the boat to stay in the sun and it felt like my swim had been given a new lease of life. At seven hours I remember Mark again swam with me but this hour passed so quickly I hardly noticed. At seven hours I worked out a plan to get through, it was just an easy three hour training swim, followed by a four hour night swim. It suddenly seemed so possible, so within reach. I was back to feeling so positive and for those few hours I absolutely believed I was going to make it. The sun was setting to my right and it was the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen, it was incredible. I was feeling so strong and I was so going to make it.

Around the ten hour point I was given my light for my head and I switched back to the other side of the boat so Eddie could see me better, as darkness began to descend. I had in my head that I could be there in 14 hours and so just decided to do a 4-hour night swim, no problem at all. I imagined Barrie had assembled down at the beach and Freda told me go and do a 4-hour night swim, good boy. As everything became black I had expected to be able to see the lights of the French shore up ahead, but I couldn't. Ok, no problem, I thought, its going to be a 6-hour night swim. But even this felt like no problem, it was still so possible. Even at this point I felt like I was going to make it.

Swimming in the dark was no problem at all. I still felt quite warm and I was able to swim alongside the lights of the boat. Pretty soon we encountered a problem though, and I was told to stop and tread water at the back of the boat. I could see a big ship passing in front of us and I assumed it was no problem, I was glad of the rest. What I didn't realise was that this boat was tugging another boat behind it which hadn't shown up on radar and the whole swim was in jeopardy as we passed dangerously close. Fortunately though, it passed on by and I was able to continue my swim.

As the hours of darkness continued, you will have to forgive me, as my mind began to drift. I know I kept looking up at the lights of France once they appeared, which was a mistake, because for hours they never got any closer. I had been told not to look for them because you can see them for hours before you get to them, which was fine, except I could tell they weren't getting any closer at all. It was agony. All I wanted was for them to get a tiny bit closer, I just needed to feel like I was reeling them in, but I wasn't.

At around 14 hours I stopped for a feed and my Dad told me, "this is an extra-strong feed, drink as much as you can, and then you need to sprint to break through this tide." I looked again towards the lights, still so far away. I was so angry and so annoyed. My mental plan had been to swim for 16 hours (another mistake) and I should be there by then or at least within reach, but I was not going to be anywhere close at 16 hours. I remember thinking how unfair it was. But I wasn't ready to give up. At the same time as my Dad was telling me this, a relay team that had just landed and was heading back to England stopped by and cheered me on which was fantastic of them. I drank as much of the feed as I could and I got my head down and swam.

I gave it absolutely everything, sprinted with everything I had left. I wasn't ready to let this dream die yet. I pumped my arms as fast as I could, I felt like I was back in the pool doing sprints. I gave it everything. Everything I had.

But it wasn't enough, not nearly enough. I don't remember how long I sprinted for, or much of what happened next, but I remember that those lights never got any closer. That sprint really finished me off in more ways than one as my mind started going. I can't remember what I was thinking but I know my mind kept going off on strange and scary tangents and I didn't know what was happening. I think I asked to get out and Eddie came out and said "you've only got three miles left" (it was four) but my current forward progress was 0 mph and to me that meant I was never going to get there. I started swimming again but it felt hopeless. I don't know how long I was swimming for but the next thing I knew i was 20 metres away from the boat. I swam back towards it which took an absolute eternity and this time no one objected to me getting on the boat as I was so disorientated, and it was getting dangerous. When I got on I just buried my head in the towels they gave me and wanted to cry. I had failed.


My Swim Chart: the red line marks my course and shows the strength of the tide. Everytime I look at it I imagine the line curling around towards Calais and I ask myself why didn't I carry on.


Hindsight

Failing to make it to France has left me feeling pretty devastated. I gave it so much, not just in the 14 hours on the day, but in the 14 months of training leading up to it. I dedicated my life to this challenge, and to fall short like that, was such a tough pill to swallow. On reflection it came down to one or two stupid little things that I got wrong which cost me.

Firstly I wasn't fast enough. I was swimming on a spring tide, which meant the tide was strong and changed every six hours. If it changed every seven hours I might have landed in 14, but it didn't, it changed every 6. And when it turned at 12 hours I just wasn't close enough to France. If I'd been faster I would have made it. This was something I isolated as a problem early in the year but cold acclimatising superseeded everything in my training. I just thought as long as I didn't get cold I would make it if I could swim for long enough, which I thought would be 16 hours.

Which was the next problem. Plenty of people told me not to have a time in my head but I went into it with a mental plan to swim for 16 hours. It helped me to break it down into four blocks of 4 hours. But when it became apparent that I wasn't going to be there in 16 hours it destroyed me.

Another mistake was looking for France. Those lights just never got closer. What I didn't realise for some reason, probably because I was losing it, was that the lights I could see weren't even the ones we were aiming for. A few more hours sprinting and with a bit of luck the tide might have carried us in towards Calais. But looking up at the lights never getting closer gradually wore down my mental resolve.

But I think the biggest problem for my ultimate failure was getting my feeds wrong. As I said, I wasn't able to drink enough out of my feeding bottle and they were taking too long. Also, I didn't eat any solid food, because the feeding pole didn't work and it took way too long. I would get my Maxim and drink from it, by which time I had drifted away from the boat. I would then have to swim back towards the pole to get the food. Pretty soon I decided to give up on it and just take Maxim. The problem with this was I wasn't getting any sugar, just Maxim, which is maltodextrin, a complex carbohydrate. I believe that when I sprinted at the end my blood sugar became so low heading to my muscles which lead to me losing my mind. A simple solution might have been to add more sugar to my Maxim but at the time I didn't think. It was such a stupid reason to fail after so much hard work.

Incidently, I don't blame my support crew for this at all. They were fantastic, my Dad did an amazing job with the feeds and did exactly what I asked, Mark got in and swam with me whenever I asked, even though he was cold, and Nik did a great job keeping everyone up-to-date with my progress. The support I received on the day from everyone was phenomenal and helped so much.

I will be back in 2011 to swim the Channel. I am going to spend the next three years working on my speed and doing other open water swims and I will perfect my feeds. I have learnt so much over the last year about how to swim the Channel. One thing I learnt was that trying to shortcut the Channel was a mistake. Trying to go from almost never swimming to doing the greatest swim on the planet in a little over a year was probably over-ambitious. Next time I will do it properly, building up my speed and building up to the Channel. This time when I stood on the beach at Samphire Hoe I thought I might make it. Next time I will stand there knowing I will make it.


The Thank-Yous

I have so many people to thank for this year, and I will try to thank you all personally in time. But for now, in no particular order, my heartfelt thanks go out to the following people for everything you've done to help my with my dream:

Freda Streeter, Barrie Wakeham, Irene Wakeham, Eddie Spelling, My Dad, Mum, sister Angela, my Nan, Nik Gill, Mark Ransom, Tim Strange, Dave and Nathan, Maria Shaw and everyone at Whitstable Swimming Pool, Martin and Sue Coombes, Roger, Val, Derek, Derek, Mel, Sylvia and all the TOADs, Michael and Angela Oram and all at CS&PF, Canterbury Masters Swimming Club, Meg Forbes, Rich Ing, Chris Smith, G Smith, Nick Adams, Sam Jones, Michelle T, Mike Cross, Rob Telford, Nic Millichip, Hoffy and Beccy, James Salter, Allan McLeland, Cliff Golding, Mark Robson and Kelly, Maggie Kidd, Stanley Paris, Megan Turner, Rupinder Gill, Sally Goble, Vasanti, Geth Jones, Javier G, Ilana Kardasis, Leanne H, Olivia Brown, Enda Kennedy, Doug Osborne, Laura Collete, Mark Trewran, Dave Metcalfe, Annete Stewart, Louise, Paul and Janet Lewis, Negin Kalkin, Mona, Kayleigh Wilson, Lynne Wilson, Suzanne and Julian, Chris Eynon, Will, Dan and Emily, JT and Lucy, Sukh, and the Flinz, Kevin and everyone at Eyemats, Simplyswim, Tom Burton, Rob and Micky Coles, Louise Jackson, Emily Kayne, Jessica Paolino, Nick Aspey, Andrew Ahn, Julie Galloway, David Williams, Ali, Liz Rycroft, Sally and Charlie, Madhu, Sue Pepper and Ros, Will Sergi, Andy Dickson, Andy Williams and wife (sorry I don't remember your name but you kept me alive that first weekend in May!), Zimhippo, and everyone else I bumped into in the harbour, Yvonne, Adrian and Owen, everyone who donated to Save the Children, and everyone who I have forgotten, I will add you as I remember!

To you all, THANK YOU!