We have a plan...or do we? (by Julian)

The ArchToArc2010 team met for their monthly meeting at Mike & Liz's for dinner. As usual a veritable feast appeared which was nearly as large as Mike's agenda. We discussed logistics, training (well done Sue on winning the month's training prize - a "head torch"!), the plan for the route and, of course, the most important question - when exactly will we do it?

The entire event relies on the swim - it is the hardest part by far and entirely dependent on the weather. A nice warm day is great. A small tidal flow is perfect. Mike had sourced the relevant tidal information from an expert within the Environment Agency and we established that based on that, Tuesday 6th & Wednesday 7th July are the ideal tides - nice and low 3.3m "height of tide". This means that the flows of water up the channel from the Atlantic into the North Sea will be as small as possible and therefore the minimum drift as we make our way to France.

But the most important thing is the lack of wind. Because wind on tide, creates wonderful waves as any sailor knows. And waves and swimmers aren't great bed fellows. So whilst we will hope to perhaps "Run on Sun, Swim on Mon and Cycle on Tuesday" at the start of the July...it will all remain in the lap of the gods as to whether the weather will let us.

So unable to plan the exact date for the event, we turned to the route. Our objective is to have the fastest runners run the most times and then put the strongest swimmers into the channel first so that they will swim the most times on the day. We found a great tool on the internet in "MapMyRun" and plotted the entire route in from Marble Arch to Dover. The site provides great information like the elevation along the route (see graphic below):



A few spreadsheets later and we had the right order. I run least. Mike & Sue run most. I swim most along with Mike & Alex. Perfect. Except now it appears that I am running up all the hills...oh well back to the drawing board.