Ten hours in the sea

The night before the big swim, I’m very nervous. I pace around the apartment like a madwoman, packing and unpacking, trying to think what I might need. I finally sit on my bed and try to read, but I can’t focus enough on the story. I’m so bloody nervous, how the hell am I going to stay in the water? How am I going to get through 10 hours of sea swimming? I see myself sitting on the beach, having got out at 6 hours or something, trying to justify my actions to Eddie, with both of us knowing I’m just not mentally strong enough for this stuff.

Then something hits me square in the face.

I’ve done this before! I’ve done a 10 hour sea swim in Lanzarote. And it was after a 45 mile run in December!

Way back in 2009 when I had just completed my first Double Iron distance race and had entered the Arch2Arc I flew to Lanzarote to attempt a half-A2A ultra challenge and my god, what a challenge it was. I ended up doing the run twice because I bailed on the swim the first time (the beginning of the sea demons) and on my next attempt, a few days later, I completed another 45 mile run and I finally finished the 12 mile sea swim. But it took me 12 hours to complete the swim section alone!! I then cycled 90 miles around the island, including going up and down the Mirador mountain in the middle of the night.

I sit back in my bed and shake my head. I’m a massive idiot and my brain is amazingly good at self-sabotage. If I managed all of that (albeit over 10 years ago) I can do a simple 10 hour swim tomorrow. I give myself a good talking to, which involves telling myself to have a bit of bloody confidence in the morning and not stand at the edge of the water looking terrified for a change.

The next day I wake up super nervous, but then remember last night and I try and replace my nerves with a quiet confidence. I can do this, I tell myself over and over, as I make my morning coffee and boil more water for the flask of sweet tea I will drink during my swim.

I can do this.

I’m the first one down at the beach and I start my preparation. Pulling on all the layers of neoprene and setting up my swim nutrition, which basically consists of hot sports drink, tea with loads of sugar and brownies. I know that I need to find more solutions for the English Channel, I can’t imagine that I will get across on tea and chocolate.

The rest of the group starts to arrive and everyone is buzzing with nerves and excitement. There’s 6 of us and I know that I’m the weakest swimmer in this group, but I try and keep positive and remember that today is all about time in the water.  After a quick chat from Eddie, I’m the first in the water and the wash from the huge ferries that come in and out of the small harbour all day, smashes into me. I can do this, I can do this… My one and only focus is the finisher photo that I desperately want to be a part of in 10 hours time. If I get out earlier, I cannot be in it. It’s that simple.

I keep that thought in my head throughout the day as I swam across the bay, over and over. The swim lap is broken up in to sections for me. The left part - chaos corner - is always choppy and there is a large perfume store overlooking the water and when the wind blows in the right direction, the smell of the fragrances is so strong. There is also a model dressed in a tight stripy t-shirt on the window. For the first few hours, just catching glimpses of this man, I think he is real and wonder why he’s just standing there, watching us. I later share this with the group and they said they thought the same until they realised it was just an advert!

The middle section is long and has a few lines of ropes with buoys attached going across. The game is to swim under or over - but not into! I fail this a few times and the hard plastic of the buoy wakes me up. The fish swim alongside me, keeping me distracted and reminding me that what I’m doing is hard, but it’s also a privilege. The far right corner is where the ferries come in and out and gets very lumpy sometimes, but there’s some steps and a rail that I swim to and hold onto as I stretch out my lower back which gets tighter as the day goes on.

Every 45 minutes or so, I get out to drink and try to eat something. I feel sick from early on and my beach conversations with Eddie gets more limited. I have to constantly remind myself of the finisher photo. After the 6 hour mark, I know that I will stay in and my brain finally stops fighting. This is a huge relief and although I feel pretty bad, the mental torment has gone. I now just have back ache, a sore shoulder and feel very sick. I can deal with that. Temperature-wise, I’m cold but it’s a manageable level. I call it miserable-cold not hypothermia-cold.

At some point during that last few hours, the sun goes in and the water chops up a bit. Whilst on the far left side of the bay, myself and Will, (who is swimming in just Speedos, making us all look bad) literally smash into each other. I was having a particularly low moment and may even had a few tears in my goggles.. I can’t remember exactly what Will said to me, but it lifted my spirits massively and was exactly what I needed. I swam on feeling happier and knowing that we were all going to do this.

As the 10 hour point finally came around, I swam over the ropes the final time and came into the shore, all the sickness and pain disappeared and another swimmer, Richard stumbled over and give me a huge hug. And as the rest of the swimmers started to come in, it was time for that all important photo. I was so incredibly proud of myself and the others, as we stood before the sea that we had all suffered in one way or another over that last 10 hours.

Once I was back at the apartment, I reflected on what had been a huge day for me in terms of confidence and fighting my demons. I knew that I had to take this experience and draw on it whenever I thought I wasn’t capable of the Arch2Arc. It would have been so easy today, to have called it at 5 or 6 hours and use my shoulder or sickness as an excuse. But knowing that I had done this before, feeling much, much worse, made those excuses simply invalid.

That night, with my epic goggle-eyes, I went to sleep looking like a happy raccoon.