Page 26 - Enjoy-it 2024

LET’S SWIM
THE ENGLISH CHANNEL
Sounds pretty ridiculous really!
And could almost be confused for drunken chat – but no, in a year or so of sobriety the challenges I flirted with seemed to be even more intense. I set my sights on finding a team to swim the 21 miles from Dover to Cap Gris Nez... and in 2023 boy did
I find them – swimming guru and hardcore solo / marathon swimmer Amanda Sharples was putting a team together for summer 2024. We talked, virtually met a few of the other team members and banded around some ideas to meet to swim and talk tactics for that far off challenge a year away.
Being the cocky individual that I am I was offered a place on another team in 2023, I liked the idea
of doing it twice (oh how that resonates now) so I travelled to Dover, duly failed my swim assessment of two hours swimming in waters under 15.5 degrees centigrade – well fail is an understatement – I actually nearly froze to death and so began
my rekindled relationship with hypothermia! I appreciated my folly and focussed on my 2024 team: the Sharp Swimmers 24...
With renewed humility I met with the other members
of my team in person (which now included my darling nephew Ant), and we all swam together for the first time – and being November I froze once more and vowed
to prove my worth, in Worthing, and set to a relentless schedule of training, cold water double dipping and aiming at the 2024 assessment which I am thrilled to say I passed with less of my body going blue for a shorter period of time than on my previous attempt!
“Your window is July 5th-11th” the team WhatsApp chat declared... oh, that’s pretty real and after shoulder surgery in January and two months of rehabilitation, the training ramped up to another level. I thank you Beachbum for my Brobe, I thank Newquay, Brighton, Worthing, Ringstead, Poole and all my mates who spotted for me and thawed me out, and I thank cake, hot chocolate
and Gillian from
The Circle Health
Group for fixing
my shoulder !