I felt horribly under trained..... BUT.... I had spent the winter working on the blubber/insulation layer working my way through as many portions of Kelly's Clotted Cream Vanilla Ice Cream mixed with Malteeser's as possible and worked on the cold water by only having cold showers since my birthday on the 4th February. I had swum at best 2x 1 hour on the weekends, 2 pilates classes and 1x40 minute session on the rower per week. This felt really inadequate for what was forthcoming....
I had begged favour with the family (and made my sincere apologies) as I flew out early on the day of my daughter's 10th birthday (31st March) and was due to miss our 15th Wedding anniversary.....(not sure how I managed sign-off for this)...
So...I found myself at the hotel at Xlendi bay with some of the other Swimtrek rascals that transferred over from Malta airport via the ferry and was handed a sheet of paper 'see you at 7.30pm for dinner and 7.30am tomorrow for an acclimatisation swim'. Starting to feel a tad nervous...
After dropping the bags off, I had to take a look at this idyllic bay with a few of the group. Crystal clear blue water and nice friendly cliffs surrounding a perfect bay which almost appeared hand-crafted for open water swimming. Many of the other Swimtrekers started turning up and immediately went into the water. Instead of swimming a few of us decided to lash down a burger and a beer to savour the last few moments that we were not going to be put through our paces.....
There were some real athletes here for the week. At dinner I sat next to Mark Bayliss who it transpires is down for the Arch to Arc this year which makes my ambition to swim Loch Lomond seem like a nice warm up. Next to him was the very able Lucinda (Mark's wife) who came second in the ladies race at Winderemere 2011 (who I only recall seeing briefly at the beginning and at the certificate presentation). Opposite me was Clive, a retired GP, embarking on his journey to swim the channel this year and had close to zero experience of open water swimming. This is the essence of what I love about Swimtrek - bringing swimmers together regardless of experience & ability. Just get on with it and share views. Clive's experience (and medication) came in invaluable during the week...
Day one - 3 hours of swimming
After a sensible early night and no booze like a good boy, the acclimatisation swim started at 7.30am where we were told to swim to the other harbour wall and back twice. I got out with 5 other pairs of flip flops/Crocks still left on the wall (out of 14) and was presented with an orange coloured swim cap (others got orange, pinks or yellows). What was to happen for the next 3 days was almost an army-like drill of seminars on various topics, swims we had no knowledge how long we were doing and eating (as much as possible which is fine by me).
After experiencing rotator pain in my left shoulder the year before, coach Ray had changed my stroke and he was keen just that I focus on technique and not speed. That turned out to be a wise move as last year's technique was not going to cope with the onslaught of relentless amounts of swimming....
The first real swim of the day was a 1 hour round a 450m circuit of the bay where I think I completed 6 or 7 laps. The water was beautifully clear compared with (and a welcome relief from) the ghastliness of Dover harbour. The only difference was that we could now see some of the jellyfish that were around - predominantly Mauve Stingers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelagia_noctiluca) but 1 in every 10 the guides were plucking out was a Portuguese Man of War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Man_o'_War). How nice.......Difficult to find the perfect stretch of water after all (Paradise doesn't exist!!)..... I plodded around and 2 of the lads who were more used to tearing around in wetsuits seemed to 'man-up' (probably from peer pressure from the rest) and dropped the wetsuits for this first one. After this hour, it was quite clear from the shivering, however, who was going to feel the cold more than the others for the rest of the long swims ahead. One of the faster guys with no fat on him and the 2 normally wetsuit-clad lads both came out a slightly whiter colour than the rest of us carrying a bit more. The temperature of the water was in the parish of 13-15 degrees.
In the afternoon, we did a 2 hour swim in the same bay and had our first feed after 1 hour of the maxim concoction that Nick Adams is famous for. This length of time seemed to put more cold water training to the test and a couple of the guys were really worse for wear due to cold. I recall focusing on being smooth and had the recent BMW video of Addlington on my DVD player that I had watched in my room about 10 times (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuJo_lVmO1Q). The only difference is that she is 10x faster....with one arm..
I continued the cold water immersion training for Loch Lomond when I got back to the room with a cold shower.....why am I doing this, what am I doing here??
I remember after another seminar going to Supper and feeling stiff. Mark Bayliss calmed me down by noting that in the first hour tomorrow I would get to relax the muscles again though exercise. He was right.
I went to bed feeling physically tired, enjoying the vibe and generally forgetting that I had a 'normal' life outside of this cocoon (gotta love escapism!).
Day 2 - 4 hours of swimming
After an enormous breakfast of muesli, toast, fruit and yoghurts (washed down with the rankest machine coffee known to mankind), we got into a minibus that seemed to have been around in the 1950s to take us to the magical bay of Mgarr ix-Xini (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%A1arr_ix-Xini).
Dropped kit on side and told we were going to be here for the whole day so get comfortable... After 5 mins, they told us to kit up (or down in most cases) as we were going in for 3.5 hours.... This sheltered bay was still out of the sun and felt cold that morning. The water was crystal clear blue and visibility was incredible beyond 30m. After plodding around a few times at this new bay where the cliffs came sheer down into the water, we came in for our first feed on the hour. One of the quick lads got out due to cold and the slowest lady in the group got out to put on her wetsuit. We carried on for another few laps and then I saw a beautiful jellyfish at the far end of the bay. I failed to realise, however, that once you are upon it, it has 2 meter tentacles that are starting to wrap itself around you.....It nailed my neck, back and arms and the more I pushed to get away, the more it felt like it had latched onto me. I then had a searing burning feeling on my neck and waved to the guides to get them to pluck this beast out. They asked if I was alright and requested that I carry on if I could.... The cold water seemed to soothe the pain somewhat. Once I got back to the start of the bay one of the guides, Fiona, was blowing her whistle and before we knew it we were being pulled out of the water after only 2 hours. No 3.5 hour swim? What a shame.... The quantity and variety of jellyfish species that were entering the bay was making the whole operation too hazardous. I took the time to then use the pause in proceedings to eat as much food as possible to get some more calories on board. Someone found some Jaffa Cakes at the bottom of a tub of biscuits which were rapidly all dispatched with remarkable ease...
After getting out of the water, the rest of the group had a jolly good old laugh at the mess that the jelly had made of my neck and the lovely guides, Mia and Fiona, soothed it with cream. Here is what that rascal did....
After getting back to the relative safety of the Xlendi Bay and after a seminar, we were back down for a swim. I had, however, taken an anti-histamine from Doc Clive and wondered if this was going to make me feel drowsy or cold. It made me feel more of the latter. I also discovered at this stage my preference for greasing up with Lanolin rather than Vaseline as this lasted better to solve the beard rash that was developing at a healthy pace on my shoulders. We were told that there was 2 hours on the cards. After the first hour, I felt cold for the only time in the week. I couldn't work out whether it was fatigue or the drugs Clive had given me but recall that feed on 1 hour was utter nectar and warmed my core up. Remember going round for the second hour enjoying the effortlessness of the new stroke and was conscious not to muller myself ahead of big day tomorrow....
Day 3 - The big day - A 6 hour swim
After another record breaking intake of calories for breakfast, we met up for a seminar and you could, rather amusingly, almost feel the nerves in the room. The group was aware that there was a 6 hour straight swim on the cards after this interlude. For some, it was a pre-requisite for their channel, for others it was a 'see what you can do moment'. For one lady in particular, it was a revisiting of difficult memories of the year before where she got out after 1 hour. I could feel the rather heavy exhaling coming from Tim next to me who is an accomplished fast club swimmer (one of the pink hats) but had obviously been feeling the cold more than most in everything we had done that week so was understandably nervous...
At 10.45am we entered the water and weren't due out until 4.45pm (nice day out!). Laps of the short course, washed down with laps of long course (out to pole at the edge of bay ) then back for more punishment of the short course 450m loop. I was really looking forward to this and trying to find that swimming Nirvana & Zen heaven from the year before that I experienced at various junctures. Set off slowly and found my stroke (tried to ignore absolutely everyone else completely...).
Plodded around for the first 2 hours then hit a really tricky patch between hours 2 and 3 where I wasn't even half way. Oh dear...hitting a brick wall Sheridan? To get through this I thought again and again of my charity, the Rainbow Trust, the moving DVD that they had sent me of the poor lad Josh James who died recently of terminal cancer and how much this road was going to help me raise money for lads like him, his brave mother and his lovely sister. That DVD moved me so much inside that this was an insignificant swim compared with the pain that family had endured.... I was soon back in the zone and back onto my mission now.
After 3 hours, I settled in, my mind got close to vacant (nothing new there) and I was back on the swimmers high. I knew this swim would get knocked out. The water was stunning and during hours 3 & 4, the longer loop out to the pole at the far end of the bay by the open ocean meant a chance to swim near schools of fish of different varieties. It was just clear, pure and fresh. During the day, the guides had plucked out the multitude of jellies and the water felt fine. After 4.5 hours, they gave a couple of us a top up feed from the boat to practise feeding from that mode of transport and gave a chance for the more muscular of the group to take on more fluids.....A few more loops of the shorter course and we were close to done. As we approached 6 hours, I really didn't want to get out and wanted to keep going. The cliffs, the nature and the whole experience became more and more intense. The shoulders felt stiff but I was relieved that the stroke had held up and there was no real rotator pain from the year before. We got out of the water to raucous applause of the patrons who were hitting the bars in front of us who were obviously made aware (by the guides) which screws we had loose and what we were up to. After getting out of the water, one of the lads who was down for a massage at 5pm wasn't in a real state to turn up so I even went forward in the massage queue - the importance of having an insulation layer!
As a group, we had achieved something remarkable. All of us had finished the 6 hour swim. No-one had given up (that hadn't happend on these weeks before apparently). Even the members with no swim or goals booked that year didn't flinch. That was some feat. A couple of the lads and a lady completed it in a wetsuit and I think (in fact I know) they had a renewed respect for the rest of us who were in cossie only. I felt a new level of admiration for the mental strength of my co-swimmers and no-one bottled it. I was particularly chuffed for Alex who complete the 6 hours where the year before could only manage 1 hour - this must have opened up a whole new world to her.
I rewarded myself with a cold shower (ever mindful of Loch Lomond) to rinse down and got myself up to the massage table. How arduous!
A phrase I will take from Nick Adams with me on future adventures after this experience is 'Man-up'. We had all 'Manned-up' when it counted. I then felt sorry for the group the following week who would get some stick as the benchmark had been put in the sand.
The Rest of the Trip and reflections....
The main 3 days of back to back swimming was over and the rest of the 'holiday' comprised of fun swims and more seminars. We went over to Comino to swim the blue lagoon. I even noted that Superman Mark Bayliss had a chink in his armour plating on the boat ride over to the island as he admitted he can suffer from sea sickness. We all have our weaknesses. We swam through an amazing cave and around the blue lagoon. Dodged untold jellies until getting back on the boat. This was the only time of the week where the water felt warmer than the air temperature!
At dinner on the last night we all received our certificates and Nick Adams did a terrific job of presenting them with a little sum-up speech about all of us in turn. I think mine was along the lines of quiet, thoughtful and always upbeat & especially so when others were at the most difficult moments. Felt a sense of pride and achievement & couldn't think of a nicer way to kick off the season!
Clive, Thomas and I stayed on an extra night when the others had already gone home and being partial to the fine food, we went in search of a Lobster to wash down with a proper bottle of white Burgundy to celebrate completing the week. We tracked down a dish called Spaghetti lobster that had made it all the way from........Scotland!
Quite a week and back to reality....
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