Sea Swimming Blog #43
Day 82 Sea Swimming.
#43 of the blog.
And we all thought yesterday was nice!
The 6th February took it up another notch!
It was an early start (for a weekend) meeting the Channel relay team at St Catherines for a 9am swim.
As I approached in the car I could see that it was pretty flat, but having parked up and walked down the slip you could tell we were blessed with a perfect pond - with the sea so still that it was like a mirror reflecting the white of the clouds and the blue of the sky.
Nicky and her friend went one way whilst Phil and myself stuck together and identified a number of buoys that we would swim out to… navigating a semi circle(ish) around the pier and covering a fairly decent distance… it’s probably the longest distance I've swam for since getting into this sea swimming malarky and with Phil as my ally and team leader Andy overriding our initial plan and dictating where we should go (in the nicest possible way - cruel to be kind and all that) today was a day to push ourselves.
With literally no waves or swell to contend with, it was a great opportunity to work on technique - and also to have some competitive fun.
I found myself switching between the two mindsets as I swam alongside Phil… I think he’s got quite a bit more sea swimming experience than me but again, the competitive nature kicks in and something inside just won’t allow someone to pull away for too long… that’s certainly what goes on in my head although I’m sure in reality that might not quite be the case… you never know how much effort the other person is putting in for a start, so, after a while you come to realise that as much as some friendly rivalry is good to push you on, really you are always competing against and trying to improve yourself.
We came back into the slip, pretty pleased with our efforts…
“Are you stopping there? Do you not think you could go back in and make it to that white buoy and back?”
It was Andy’s cruel to be kind attempt at squeezing a bit more out from us.
“When you want to stop… that is when the training begins”
Words I’d heard Lewis Pugh (the British South African endurance swimmer) say, and here was Andy repeating them… I knew he was right.
So back in we went, completing an extra bit of mileage and an extra bit of cold immersion training.
A fist pump awaited us as we made our way back in and up the slip before we got changed and all took a walk to the end of the pier to enjoy the sun and talk about some of Andy’s past sea swimming stories.
Although I didn’t take too many photos, that alone would have been a good entry (I think), but, having been contacted by a lady named Helen in the week, I had arranged to take some pictures of her and her clan, sea swimming at St Brelade in the afternoon to celebrate her 40th birthday.
‘We’re the one’s on the beach with the balloons’ read the text message… it instantly gave me hope that I’d be able to capture some fun shots and would meet a group that would be up for a few laughs.
And that’s definitely what I got.
I took a few pre-swim shots, then it was clear that the girls had had enough of the nervous anticipation of the cold sea that was waiting for them, quickly got undressed and began their decent to the waters edge… Helen with balloons in hand.
With lots of smiles and laughter about I had plenty of options for shots and ended up shooting loads in the 10 minutes or so we were in the water.
Helen’s most fun friend (as she likes to be called) then popped back into shore, collecting a can of beer before heading back out and egging on Helen to ‘straight arm drink it’ for a photo… just to be clear in case there’s anyone thinking/suggesting that it’s foolish to be drunk in the sea (it obviously is) this was purely for a photo and was just the one.
Personally I was extremely glad of the effort as it has ended up being another image that I’ll add to my favourites’ list!
“Sun, sand and beer in my hand”