Day 137 – 25th November 2010

Air temp - 1 degree and light snow forecast! Sea temp- dam cold!

I didn’t sea swim yesterday as I had a London meeting at 8am, so I had to leave Brighton at 6.30am. Big meeting about the growth of Seico Group, I talked for 4 hours nonstop, more tiring than swimming! did manage a 90minute pool swim and a 40 minute gym sessions after work though, so I still got some exercise endorphins in to keep that guilt at bay.

This morning the sea was extremely calm and a low tide, which of course meant a cold walk until it was deep enough to swim, and boy could I feel the cold in my feel and my face, really painful by the end of the swim. My body seems to be fine, it basically my feet when I come out and my face when I go in; I’ll try to find a better swimming hat I think and maybe some swimming socks. Bob, Paul Smith (Swim UK Ltd) and I did an around the pier swim, which in terms of calm water was easier than an easy thing, however, in terms of cold it was a challenge. It took Bob and I about 22 minutes to get back; Paul, I think was a few minutes afterwards, but he was very weighed down by swimming socks and gloves. He said afterwards, which is a very good point, that the gloves & hats certainly provide the warmth, but if they slow you down it means you are in the sea longer and therefore get colder; interesting point in terms of using them or not.

By the time we got back to the Arches my feet and hands really hurt quite a lot and it took a hot shower to get them back to acceptable levels again; my feet in fact were still hurting for a good hour after I got back to the office. After we were all dressed we decided to guess the sea temperature; Paul said under 9 degrees, I think Bob guessed somewhere under 10 degrees and I specifically said 9.2 degrees. Seconds later Fiona came in from her swim, having not heard us talking about temperature, and proudly announced that her watch said the temperature in the sea today was ..........Take a guess .........





9.2 degrees!

Mission Impossible - News - Heart - Sussex

Mission Impossible - News - Heart - Sussex

Day 136 – 23rd November 2010

After yesterdays less than happy start, I was feeling much better when I got up this morning. Not 100%, but certainly a good 80%. When you hit your 40’s, 80% is not so bad! Oh my god I sound like an old man of 55!!!!!

This morning it was Shoreham Port day. After picking up Darren and Emily (from our Africa charity) at 7.30am we headed to Shoreham Port where we met up with Rodney Lunn, the CEO plus his team & a number of our other charity partners and some local businesses that support us and also some local press. The point of today was a PR exercise for the Port and also a fantastic opportunity for us to put together a DVD, courtesy of See That, of the Starr Trust to use for promoting our Swim4Smiles campaign. It was so amazing to see so many people turn up there at 7.30am just to see me take a dip in the harbour in my trunks; or maybe it was the free bacon sandwiches and coffee on offer? Mmmmm, which one could it have been?

After some chatting and filming I undressed and popped into my trunks and then we all headed off through the port to the harbour; surreal to say the very least! With everyone standing on the dock in anticipation I climbed down the ladder from a tug boat and took the plunge. The temperature was certainly warmer than the sea, probably around 12 degrees, so that was pleasant, however, the taste was somewhat diesly! I did a short swim from the dock to a waiting tug boat and back again, probably no more than 200 meters in all, and then climbed out to rapturous applause – I have to say I found it rather odd that people were clapping me for a 200 metre relatively warm swim; but hey ho one has to take the applause when one can!! What was particularly nice was that at least 4 people, two from the Port, told me that they thought my swimming technique was “fantastic” and that I simply glided through the water; considering that I only started swimming properly in April that was super nice to hear. Another great PR day for the Trust and the Challenge; everyday seems to get more exciting.

Day 135 – 22nd November 2010

Sea 9.8 degrees. A big drop from over 11 degrees last week. Air 6 degrees.

Not a fab start to the day. Woke up feeling sick and stayed in the bathroom for 20 minutes thinking I was going to be ill, wasn’t though. Got to the beach at 7am; the sea very very calm, hardly a ripple, although I swear it looked colder than usual if that is possible. An amazing sight this morning though was the starlings, there were three pockets of them, maybe a 100 in each, doing these amazing dances around the pier; it looked like a spell cast by a great wizard; incredible.

My usual friends were in the Arches; Two Bobs, David, Lindy, Paul, Soweichi, Simon; all keen and ready to go. We headed to the sea and all did our usual; some tiptoeing in, some staying close to the edge and some, Simon, Bob & I, taking the plunge and just going for it. It was Cold with a capital C! After a few hundred metres my sickness came back on and I had to stop swimming and just float for a couple of minutes until it subsided. Somehow floating in 10 degree water for a few minutes seemed to do the job and I was able to slowly breaststroke back in to shore. All in all not my greatest swimming experience so far!

After warming up I headed to the office and had my first meeting of the day with Southern Water's Head of Charity Fundraising, Kevin Buck MBE; a really great guy and full of enthusiasm. Despite my feeling unwell and not performing to my usual standard, I think that the meeting went really well; Darren and Micala sat in on the meeting and that certainly made my life easier. Kevin seemed very keen to work with us, especially with Swim4Smiles and also our CHOCS programme; so a very exciting meeting indeed.

After this meeting I headed home at full speed and just made the bathroom in time and then spent the rest of the day and night in bed feeling not so good! This is the first time I’ve been sick for ages, well over a year – I hate being sick!!!

Day 134 - 19th November 2010

7am and the first of two sea swims today. The second was at 10am when Fiona, Bob and I went back to meet Richard Lindfield (friend and local radio news reader) who is going to make a film blog for the Argus on my channel training.

Swim number 1 - It was around 4 degrees in the air at 7am this morning and it really made for a cold wake up call. The sea was back to be calm, which meant we could actually get in and have a swim, although the cold in the air and water made for what I can only describe as a “character building “ start to the day. We swam to the silver ball along the pier, then over to the donut on the groin and then traversed back to where we’d left our flip flops. All in all about 20 minutes I guess. I’m not sure yet how long we’ll be in at 10am, but if it’s much more than another 20 minutes I think I might be cold for the rest of the day!

Swim number 2 – Being back at the Arches at 10am and back into my Speedos seemed somewhat strange; I had barely thawed out from the first one and here I was again ready for another freezing! Saying all that, it was so sunny and gorgeous by this time, that it was a pleasure to be back down there. We met with Richard and two young lads he is training and they set up their camera and interviewed us individually, then filmed us in and out of the sea. It caused a slight stir on the promenade as people stopped to watch the three crazies in their swimming costumes; some people even came over and asked us if we “are really” going to go in the ocean (they were American, so it was all very British to them!). The interviews and swim lasted around half an hour and was good fun. Hopefully it’ll be available to watch over the weekend and then I can link it to my blog for all to see.

Aside from the two swims this morning, there was great discussion/debate in the Arches on my use of the word Pilchards in my blog (see blog dated day 132) – this rowdy discussion was led by Little Bob (you need to make up your own minds on which bits of him are little – I am sure this line will start another debate!); he was clearly the ring leader in the attack on my verse, however, he was soon joined by all those who felt 'pilchards' was just not a kind word to describe my fellow BSC members. On the drive back from the Arches to work I gave this matter some thought to see if I could think of a better word to describe grown men & women lying flat together on the beach being washed over by freezing mountains of water. I considered “brave” as an alternative, I considered “wondrous” as a description I even thought of words such as “heroic”, “extraordinary”, “phenomenal” & “astounding”, but after much thought and internal deliberation I just kept bringing back to my mind the picture frozen there of grown men and woman lying next to each other on the beach and all I could see in my minds eye were Pilchards! But we should not forget the value of Pilchards should we? They are rich in so many things; vitamin, calcium, protein to name just a few. Also it should be remembered that in my prose I could have referred to us all as Sprats or Plankton!! So to Bob and all his cohorts perhaps after all you should slapping me on the back and thanking me for the kindness shown in my description; food for thought my friends, food for thought!!!

Day 133 - 18th November 2010

Another choppy day, but at least I managed to get in!

Nothing really like yesterday, however still a very strong pull as well as large waves on shore. After much thought I decided to just go for it and launched myself in through a big wave and kept my arms going until I cleared the breakers and was out into the deep. Bob and Midgie were not so sure and were heading for the girlie beach, but decided to stay and watch me as they were a bit worried about me! Bless em; I was really fine though. Then from nowhere Big Paul Smith came lumbering down the beach, straight passed them and hurled himself in, joining me in seconds. I think this was the driving force that made Bob throw caution to the wind, then suddenly I was not alone ; one became three! Midgie stayed on shore as I guess she was the one with a tad more sense!

The swim was rather tough as the sea was very choppy and cold, but we got to around the silver ball before heading back. The swim back was actually a challenge; Bob had a fight with a large wave, Paul got in after about 3 unsuccessful attempts, but as usual the Starr luck stayed with me and my entry missed the big wave and I coasted to shore on a nice mid sized one. Great to get in and have a hard workout. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Now on train to London for a more normal few hours with more normal people; if only they new how my day had started! On the train I had a chance to look over the Trusts proposed 21 children projects that the Channel swim will be sponsoring; I'd swim it for any one of them let alone all of them, all amazing and such worthwhile causes. Hopefully they will be finalised in a couple of weeks and then I'll blog them for you to see.

Day 132 – 17th November 2010

After two very calm days, this morning the wind made a triumphant return. As friends, the wind and the waves really go everywhere together; and boy oh boy were they here together today.

This was yet another first for me; this was the first day we could “not” get into the sea due to the weather. Usually on a day like today we would go onto the “girly” beach; being the one on the East side of the Brighton Pier as it is usually not as mad because the pier blocks a lot of the movement. However today the girly beach was more like a lady with PMT; ANGRY and unforgiving!! There was no way one would attempt to even step near the sea on the that side. So there we were, maybe 8-10 of us, standing on the edge of the sea on our normal beach, just trying to see where/how we could get in. The waves were so big and powerful that just looking at them made you wonder on the madness of going in. After a few attempts by a couple of people it was clear that going in would be very difficult, if not suicidal, but coming out would be potentially bone breaking; I am “not” exaggerating. I’ve been in some very rough seas of late, but really haven’t seen waves as powerful as this before. We did try a few times to get in, making our way almost to the foot of some monsters, and in the process getting soaked by waves much taller than us, but it was just simply too dangerous. You would have thought at that stage we would have all turned around and headed straight back to the warmth of the Arches and dry clothes, but oh no, this is the Brighton Swimming Club, such common sense could never prevail. Instead, like a bunch of eccentric fools, we simply all lied down as close to the edge as we could get and let the waves crash over us! Just how crazy would that have looked from the seafront! We were simply like a line of adult pilchards along the sea shore; crazy, but huge fun. Just lying there and letting the waves go over you was actually extremely hard; not just from the cold water, but from the strength of the pull. You had to literally dig your legs into the stones and push you palms as far down as you could, otherwise you were sent rolling down the beach, being scratched and turned on the Brighton pebbles as you went; which happened a number of times despite your best efforts to hold yourself in place. A lot of fun in a lot of respects as it really made you forget you are an adult with a shoulder full of responsibilities and let you just feel like a kid again; however, once is enough as we were there to swim and swim was what we wanted to do.

Hopefully tomorrow will still have some challenges, but fingers crossed we can get in and out safely. Once again what a difference a day makes!