Day 245 - Friday 6th May 2011

And I thought yesterday was a hard swim!!!

Today is a day in my diary that I will reflect on a lot over the next few days, it is the first day I failed to complete a swim. I’m not sure how I feel about it at the moment as it was only an hour ago, but currently I am not so much annoyed at myself, I am more concerned that I didn’t have the resolve to finish it. I met Fiona and Angus at the Arch at 9.30am with the aim of swimming to the marina & back. I was already tense and nervous when I got down there, not because of the distance or even the temperature, but because I know that both Fiona and Angus are so much faster than me. Once again this is me worrying about the speed of others rather than concentrating on my own swimming ability and the fact that a channel swim is about endurance. Even the fastest swimmers and incredible athletes fail the channel whereas others with less obvious physical ability have completed it due to their mental resolve. So why do I worry about others being faster than me? Who knows why, but I just do; and it is not healthy as it puts me in a bad place at the wrong time. Anyhow back to the swim; we headed straight off, hugging the coast and swam against the tide, although it didn’t seem like a massive tide to me. I lost sight of Angus fairly soon on, but Fiona was easy to spot as she is currently wearing a wet suit, which is most sensible and something I MUST do right away, also of course she waits for me when she can. I got to the marina in what I consider a decent time and then headed back. But as soon as I started to head back I found myself just not swimming anywhere near as smoothly as I first was; even though we were heading back with the tide. It seemed no matter where I tried to put my mind I just couldn’t stop thinking about the swimming and it made every stroke seem clumsy. I kept going as fast and as quick as I could, but by the time I reached the second beach before the pier, just near the sea life centre, I was so disorientated and unconfident that I headed straight into shore and walked back the last two beaches. Certainly there are a number of things that should make me not beat myself up too much; for instance.... the marina swim is notoriously hard as there are many rip tides and lots of freezing cold spots, also my frame of mind wasn’t great as mentioned above, also the temperature was under 11 degrees and even in Dover where the channel swimmers are training they only do an hour in this temperature whilst I did 1hr 40 and was really feeling it coming back, and finally, actually I could come up with excuse after excuse after excuse if I tried. Ultimately, I set out for the marina and back and only did 4/5ths of the swim instead of the whole thing and that worries me and bugs me.

So what now! Well I think Fiona is right and if I am to skip the pool and just sea swim then I need to invest in a wetsuit so that I can do 3-4 hours a time, otherwise I simply have to go back to the pool. So this weekend I will go and find a wetsuit and then next week I will hit the marina and back and restore my confidence. Interestingly Angus, who did complete the swim in about 1.30 was saying that he is starting to put back on his weight in preparation for the swim (he is swimming in July as well), and whilst he is by no means fat he is certainly packing way more than I am. He said he is eating every piece of chocolate and every donut he can find, as well as having massive meals every night. Having experienced the cold today with my weight it is a concern that I have in fact lost weight rather than put it on. I will certainly now give the next two months a concerted effort at weight gain, but I am constantly fighting my crones disease which of course does the exact opposite for me; it is a problem.

Whilst writing this I took a call from Marlene, she is the lovely lady who is the medium that Dad comes through on. I know that whole sentence sounds mad, but how else can I describe it? Marlene is a world renowned medium and she came into our lives randomly soon after we lost Dad and since then has told Mum the most amazing things that there is simply no way anyone could have known. I should mention that whilst this is her job, she has never ever charged Mum a singlle penny. She says that no way she could charge Mum as Dad is a pleasure - clearly she knows him even though she never met him! One thing she told Mum for instance was that Dad had met the Twins and they are one of what we have one,and one of what we don’t have. At this point no one was pregnant, no one was trying and certainly no twins in the family. About 8 months later Sharon fell pregnant with Twins and we had one of each; a boy (of which we have one already!!) and a girl (of which we don’t have already). This is one mad example!! Anyhow she just called me to say that Dad tapped her on the shoulder and said I am getting more like Mum each day and I need to stop being stubborn and to use the right equipment when I do something! Also he said he will be with me every stroke. Clearly I now have my Dad beating me up as well as Fiona; and of course both are right!! Believe it or not, the choice is yours, but for me because I can’t prove it either way I would, therefore, rather go with the comforting option that Dad is still there and has still got my back covered for me. Love him and miss him so much, but how nice to know I still have him.

This week I’ve done the most sea swimming I’ve ever done; Palace Pier to West Pier and back every single day and then Palace Pier to Marina and mostly back today. Next week I need to up it again and make sure I never bail out early again; I simply cannot and will not do that!