Qualifying...for a replacement body (by Julian)

Nearly 2 weeks ago and we were back in Dover for our 2 hour qualifying swim. No wetsuit. Just a normal costume and hat and googles. And 2 hours in the cold water.

And it was cold. It was long. It was tough. And we nearly all made it...but not all. Since we don't leave any one behind, we are back again on Saturday to do it all again.

In the meantime, we have to run and cycle. My foot has been playing up for a month or so - I thought that I had broken something or bruised the ball of the foot very badly. It doesn't get any better but the training has to continue. And by favouring the other foot, I developed cramp in my calf!

Definitely too old for this...but it is the dentist tomorrow to see if I can get the tooth fixed. One step at a time...but don't mention steps yet...

Run fatboy run. (by Kevan)

Good training week this week, Managed to do 120 lengths of the pool on Tuesday night, which is what I was doing before I had the shoulder operation. Shoulder was a little sore on Wednesday morning though

Wednesday night is running night. Managed a new personal best on my run from Brasted to Riverhead and back. 6 and a bit miles in 50 mins 15 seconds. If only I hadn’t stopped to tie my shoe laces twice, I would have beaten the 50 minute barrier.

Thursday night I was back in the pool, managed 100 lengths before I felt a funny sensation in my shoulder and thought I had better stop. It was a little annoying as I had planned to do another 120 but I’m not going to risk it in any circumstances.

Decided to take a break Friday so ran on Saturday morning instead, I needed to get another run in so, in the blazing heat, took to pounding the pavement again, a lot slower than Wednesday, really had to slog it out as my legs felt so heavy in the heat of the morning. If you see me running up and down the main road from Brasted to riverhead give me a cheering wave, The only encouragement I’ve had was from my children as they are ferried about, “run fatboy run” and “ lift those knees up lardie” from my two most loving daughters.

Polished off the week with an hour and a half cycling on Sunday morning.

Get back in....(by Kevan)

3rd cold water swim, the long journey back down to Dover

On the way down we muse over how much the water temperature has risen, could be by as much as one degree. Again a grey overcast day with the possibility of rain, but that of course makes no difference when you’re swimming.

Instead of swimming to a point and back, this morning we are told to swim for an hour, we register with the overseer, get our numbered hats and wait for the 10 o’clock start that comes too soon. The extra degree really isn’t noticeable. The cold water shock is still as utterly unpleasant. I lose Andy, my swimming ‘buddy’ almost immediately, goggles misted up as they hit the water, he’s nowhere in sight. I will swim on my own. Turning left from the shore with the current. It is very choppy, impossible to breathe to the right as if looking out to sea, the waves are too high, intermittent higher waves cover my right arm so it doesn’t leave the water, this breaks my rhythm. It’s a tough swim. I turn past the sloping pier and now head back against the current. Having been breathing to my left, I must now change and breathe to my right. I’m not sure why but my shoulder doesn’t like the constant breathing to the right. I push against the tide and head back along the coast past the point where I entered. As I look towards the shore I see landmarks on the promenade that pass so slowly. It’s a slow swim back against the current and onto the main harbour wall. The wall is reached eventually, my hands feet and face now hurt with the cold. Only the swim back with the current left, my focus is on getting back as fast as possible. I push on a pace. I reached the shore, as before my balance fails me from the cold and I crawl up the pebbled beach, the overseer is there to meet me “you are 15 minutes early, you’ve only done 45 minutes, go back out”. I’m not sure whether he’s joking, he’s not, can’t be only 45 minutes, my mind is confused. I submit to his instruction, turn round and crawl back into the cold, cold water for a further 15 minutes.



It took me around 30 minutes to recover, after which time we walked a few hundred yards into Dover, my feet weren’t feeling right, the blood had yet return, I walked as if drunk.

On our return to the beach it was time to do it all over again, another hour, this time I would go further on the first leg, harbour wall to harbour wall so as not to finish early.

When I got home I slept, in the middle of the afternoon, exhausted

Freezing water or mind numbing tooth pain - not a great choice (by Julian)

Saturday rolled around again and we were back on that delightful road to Dover. The car was chatty as we headed south - helped a little by the better than anticipated weather (i.e. it wasn't pouring with rain!). However as we came over the hill and began to descend down to the harbour, an awkward silence fell.

We had enquired - for planning purposes - of our trainer, Freda, how long we might be swimming. The news wasn't good. Perhaps she would have relented in the intervening days and would only gives a little bit more than the 45 minutes last time. And don't forget the water temperature had come up a tad...

But however you positioned it, it wasn't going to be good. We finally admitted defeat and got changed on the beach, ready to receive our vaseline from Barrie and our instructions from Freda. ONE hour...ahhh.

Once again I was swimming with Sue who despite suffering the worst from the cold - that will teach her not to get so fit running and cycling...you need those extra fat reserves in the swim - was still at the front of the team heading into the water.

From my previous week's adventures, I was not looking forward to following her in. The cold water is horrible - but my body soon goes numb. It was the tooth that I was worried about. I had taken a couple of Nurofen in anticipation but I knew that an hour later when I finally emerged from the water, I would have 15 minutes of shrivering before I was rendered horizontal by tooth ache!

So why hadn't I seen my dentist? Well I had. His verdict - probably microfractures from grinding my teeth or a nerve which was freezing and then defrosting. He tried artifically freezing it - and the experiment worked...a painful tooth resulted! To resolve the issue, I had 3 choices: 1. whip the offending tooth/teeth out; 2. major reconstruction work; or 3. Lots of Nurofen. Not being a fan of dental work, I opted for the Nurofen.

And so I struggled up the shore after an hour, got dressed, took 2 more Nurofen and promptly passed out. 30 minutes later I was able to converse normally again - albeit my team mates were generally still defrosting.

75 minutes after the first swim and we went back in to repeat the entire exercise. Sue achieved a personal best this season of another 30 minutes and then I headed down the harbour to complete a full circuit to both walls. This took me an extra 45freezing minutes due to the wind, waves and tides - making it in total a very long 2 hours 15 minutes of training.

But somehow the extra 45 minutes of freezing swimming wasn't quite as bad when it delayed the inevitable- 30 minutes of tooth pain. And what was worse, I calculated that I had now had the maximum dose of 6 Nurofen in a 24 hour period.

You know things are REALLY bad when you sit staring at a packet of Nurofen considering whether taking another 6 pills - and suffering the consequences - would really not be preferable to having to wait for the tooth pain to subside...

Oh well...we get to do our 2 hour qualifying swim soon. Ahhhhh.

Ironman? Decaman? Or MichelinMan? (By Julian)

At the TriClub each Sunday, everyone discusses what marathon, half Ironman, Ironman or Decaman they are planning next. To do a marathon, you need to be fit. To contemplate an Ironman, you need to be seriously fit. And to do a Decaman, you need to be really, really, really fit - and completely certifiably mad!

So what do you need to be to do the Arch To Arc? I thought about that as I stumbled around my little 1 hour hill climb, wincing at every right step (I think I may have microfractured something in the ball of my foot...). It turns out there are quite a lot of right steps in a 1 hour run!

The main challenge of the Arch To Arc is clearly the swim. With no wetsuit, the cold water is the major hurdle...and it is a major advantage to have a few layers of natural insulation (read - subcutaneous fat).

Then after the swim, you have to ride a bike for hours - avoiding punctures in your tyres. Rolls of fat. Tyres. The only name that really fits this event is "MichelinMan".

So to make it really work - this "MichelinMan" event - I think we will have to run, swim, cycle and then dine...at a 3 Michelin Star restaurant. We will need to replace some fat after all?

Back to normal? (by Kevan)

Back in the luxurious water of our local municipal swimming pool last night after Saturdays miserable swim. Wasn't particularly looking forward to it as the cold water from Dover had left me feeling pretty negative about swimming generally. But I knew I must go, I've still got a lot of catching up to do with the swimming training. I have set myself a target of two swims a week increasing the number of lengths I do each time. After last Thursdays 80 lengths, last night was to be 90 lengths (I'm not including the two hour long swims from Saturday in my plan as that just confuses my focus). So in I went go to about 60 and the shoulder started to give me a strange pulling sensation. One thing about long monotonous swims is that it give you loads of time to work whether you are doing yourself damage or doing yourself good by extending yourself. Anyway thought I would go for it and see what happens, and it was fine, in fact the stretchy feeling died away and it felt fine. The rest of the swim went really well, in fact I noticeable sped up. Got home feeling rather pleased with myself. And this morning, no bad consequence…... Result!

Just come back from Dover (by Kevan)

That was possibly the worst experience.

The trip down to Dover was the usual, upbeat team bus spirit, 7 of us in Mikes 7 seater, luggage crammed into the top box and Andy's lunch box taking up all other available space, (maybe that’s not the best choice of words). On arrival in Dover there were flickers of sunshine poking through the clouds which seemed to make quite a difference to our wellbeing physically and mentally. But by the time we had reached the beach the skies had darkened. The sea remained fairly calm but looked cold, dark and uninviting.

Time to prepare, all performing the well known swimming trunk dance on the pebbled beach trying to maintain ones modesty which in most cases was a battle already lost standing in Speedo's on a cold spring morning.

.Instruction from our overseer came through that today's swim was to be much longer than anticipated, a triangle, from the beach, to the slopey pier, to the harbour wall, back to beach, a round trip of about 55 minutes. This is a lot further than anticipated - not in a distance sense, we had all been doing the time and distance in the pool - the challenge was the time in the very cold water. Apparently the sea temperature is particularly cold this year, a shocking 9.5 deg C.

The walk down into the sea is awful, you know what’s coming but you cant stop or even hesitate or common sense will get the better of you. Your team mates know it also but it remains unsaid and we all walk together, the steps get shorter in the deepening water, then the decision as to when I stop walking and dive in is taken away from me as my swimming partner, Andy, dives in, I must follow.

From there on it’s survival, suddenly your breath is pulled from you, as the cold water envelops you, you try to swim, cant get your breath, flap around, anything goes as limbs flail with very little actual forward movement, dynamic water-treading. My head won’t go in the water. I cant hold my breath long enough to actually put it in the water, all I end up doing is lifting my head mid stroke with a gasp for air that seems to synchronise with a wave swell. A mouthful of the dark, salty and…. oh god what else was in there….gets swallowed. The thin neoprene swim cap apparently does help but not nearly enough.

Since all dived in together, in close proximity, the chances of hitting a team member with my uncoordinated windmill arms and can-can legs is high and it takes a few moments before I managed tospacemyselfoutsufficiently. We then head straight out to sea, beyond the metal edged wave breakers that have been placed specifically to rip apart any swimmers that venture too close to the sanctuary of the shore. After a minute or two of thrashing about I chance to look up to try and find Andy with whom I am supposed to be partnering for safety sake. Yes, even channel swimmers get into trouble in these types of conditions. Luckily we are still remarkably near each other.

The cold really is shocking; it doesn’t get easier for me. My goggles fog up but the sea is so dark anyway it just makes it more difficult to stay in visual contact with Andy. We reach the slopey pier, its taken ages since we swim against the flow of the tide. Now the longest leg, back past our entry point, where awaits me the comfort of my clothes, my coffee flask, my Mars bar and my wife (I may have got that order wrong!) but no stopping here, no giving in for me, onto the harbour wall. The harbour wall is reached, some touch it as a point of achievement, I don’t, it’s slimy and nasty, I’m cold deep inside me now, I can’t really feel my hands or feet but only the swim back to the entry point left. I see Andy and we both know its full speed back.

I scramble onto the stony beach. The cold has affected my balance and I can’t stand, I find it easier to crawl out of the sea on all fours until a friendly hand reaches out to support me upright and place a towel round my shoulders. For safety, the overseer asks me my number written on my cap firstly to check me back in and secondly to check I am not delirious from the effects of the cold.

The need to get into warm dry clothes and get a warm drink inside me is now essential before the shivers take hold. It takes me around 30 minutes to stop shivering and shaking, the Coffee and the Mars bar taste of salt.

After an hour, instructions from our overseer come through. We are all to do it again. The swimming trunk dance starts again but slower.

I couldn’t get warm for hours after, had a hot bath in the middle of the afternoon and did nothing for the rest of the day.