The Lakeland 50 - I am Alpha Male

I am trying to get You Tube to download this pesky piece of video, and it just won't play ball. The link from You Tube takes you to some weird 3 year old laughing his head off when I try and embed it into this blog.  I really want this to be seen and so I am going to persevere.  Will you please click on the link or, if that doesn't work, copy and paste and put it into your search engine and watch this sublime song performed by my friends Steve and Michelle?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G2AFzU7HFc

Lovely, isn't it? And it's a song about the sea.  Perfect, because it fits in with my insistence on starting each post with a nautically themed song which confuses people when they get to the blog and read the first post.  Isn't Michelle's voice incredible?  Compare it with the Tim Buckley or This Mortal Coil version and, in my humble opinion, it beats them hands down.

Anyway the reason for all this is is that I was heading up to Coniston for the Lakeland 50.  Steve and Michelle live in Windermere   Steve is an old school friend and played guitar in a band at the school which was a really cool thing to do and 32 years later I still think it's really cool and I am delighted that the cool kid from school gave me two cups of tea and, when I wouldn't leave the house, had to let me stay for an evening meal.  He hasn't stopped playing guitar since school, so you can imagine how talented he is.  After the meal (that I demanded) and in between demanding other things I also demanded that Steve play the guitar to entertain me.  So he started plucking away at the strings and then from my left Michelle began to sing in that amazingly haunting voice she has. It was truly beautiful. A voice that would carry beautifully across the waves. I hadn't expected this and a duet sung at a table is a very powerful thing. Let's get this straight, I do macho sport stuff and I want to be Alpha Male and hunt fish and shoot things and carry a briefcase and scare people in business meetings whilst sitting with my legs wide open and scratching my arse; but as they performed this beautiful duet I could feel this prickling sensation at the backs of my eyes and the start of a sniffle in my nose.  Some people might say these were tears, but I reckon it was pollen in their garden.  Damn you sensitive, creative, musical types.  Stop undermining me!

Crap view from Steve and Michelle's house

My own private gig. Song to the Siren

The following day I was back to being a hunter-gatherer ready to man-up to the Lakeland 50.  I did this last year and really enjoyed it.  I finished comfortably in the top half- 192nd out of 583 but in a time that seems slow - 13 hours 26 minutes.  But it's a tough, tough course - literally up, up, up and a bit of down.  Paths can be indistinct and they are rock strewn so you have to be incredibly careful.  I was very aware this weekend that one turn of my ankle could finish my Arch to Arc attempt.  That is some pressure when competing.

"Selfie" before the Lakeland 50.  The last time I was to look happy for the next 14 hours.

We were bussed out to a place called The Delmain Estate from which to start the run back to Coniston.  It took over an hour and a half to get there which should have had my alarm bells ringing.  By the time we set out the temperatures were well into the high 70's and there was no breeze at all.  Even higher up in the fells there was no air-flow and the temperatures remained high.  Once we'd dropped into the valleys the heat became unbearable.  I got to the 20 mile stage and Checkpoint 2 and I just wanted to stop - jack the whole stupid thing in.  I wanted to tear my disgusting, sweat and dirt stained running gear off and walk away.  The smell of electrolyte drink seemed to permeate everything and drinking it just made me retch. Whenever the route passed a tarn I wanted to throw myself into the coolness of the water and  escape this pain and debilitating heat.

I think I spent about 6 hours in a state of excruciating discomfort.  Between 20 and 35 miles I couldn't keep any food down, but kept trying to eat.  To stop eating is the quickest way to exit any endurance event, but so often nausea makes food the lowest priority on the list.  Even liquids stop working.  No drink made me feel right.  I even threw up after cups of tea, and I love tea during an event.  It is a taste-neutral drink and normally has uplifting properties. 6 hours is a very long time to spend in the "jumping off zone".  Would I have given up?  I doubt it, but all the way my head was telling me that this was horrible- awful - it had to stop. I have learnt to ignore my head's stupid self-centred whining and I guess I intuitively knew that it was just throwing its toys out of the pram once again.

As gradually as the pain and discomfort had started, it just as gradually left me.  Departing from Ambleside at the 35 mile mark, the sun had gone down, it was much cooler and my body made one of those incomprehensible re-adjustments. It went back to felling "okay". My fastest section was out of that checkpoint and on to the next, when I fell into step with two guys called William and Andy.  We ran the remainder of the route together, encouraging each other, supporting each other but without actually having any meaningful conversation with one another.  5 hours together and I couldn't tell you a single piece of information about either of them.  Maybe that's because I was too busy telling them about ME!

At about 1.30 we hit the road into Coniston and back to Race HQ and the glorious finish.(Just in case you are a normal, well balanced individual who wonders why anyone would do this to themselves, run 50 miles in searing heat and experience that moment of crossing the finish line.  It is sublime). This year I was 30 minutes slower but still comfortably in the top half of the field.  Okay, "comfortably" is most definitely not the right word, but you know what I mean; 232nd out of 603.  The winner did it in something stupid like seven and a half hours but he must have been an alien visitor dressed as a human who had ingested some serious, heavy duty amphetamines .

I had my wash bag and clean clothes waiting for me and hobbled back to the port-a-showers.  They were disgusting, but it still ranks as one of my all time Top 10 showers.  Trust me I have had some great showers in my time and I know a bit about Triton and Mira showers to tell you that this was a sublime cascade of beautiful warm, cleansing water.

So that's it.  My last really big and serious run before the Arch to Arc.  I couldn't have picked anything more torturous or testing.  I didn't pull out despite 6 hours of my befuddled brain demanding I desist immediately from this stupidity. It is a confidence builder, but I forget just how tough this stuff is at times.  The race organiser gave some great advice to us before the Lakeland 50.  He basically said that he reads a lot of motivational stuff on our Facebook pages: all these comments about how we like a challenge and like to face adversity.  All well and good he said, but he then pointed out that most of us turn up to an event with some target time we want to beat (me!) and an expectation that things will run smoothly to allow us to do this.  When that doesn't happen, that is when most people pull out of an event. We have signed up to a challenging event and are surprised when it meets that expectation and many of us can't handle it.  I thought this was really well put and he finished by describing his definition of conquering real adversity; Real adversity is when you arrive at an aid station two hours behind your expected time.  You are beaten up, nauseous and you can't stand up.  You have to sit for an hour at that aid station hoping that with enough food and liquid your body will begin to function again.  If, after all that, you can get up out of a chair and stagger on with only the thought of getting to the next checkpoint, not the finish, in your head, then you have really conquered adversity.  A well made point.  Reflecting on that, I didn't have a bad day after all........

Sources of Inspiration

I think we will keep the sea song fairly straightforward this week.  Seven Seas of Rye by Queen.  When it was released and I was little, the song and the band used to scare me.  They all seemed a bit high energy and in your face to me. Don't forget I was raised in Lincoln, so skiffle bands were seen as the devil's work.  Age and experience have taught me that the band and Freddie Mercury, in particular, were quiet, understated musicians who rarely went to a party.

I'm not quite finished with my training yet, but I am beginning to count the weekends left to me to put any meaningful distance work into my challenge.  This is how it now looks:

26th July - The Lakeland 50.  A really tough 50 mile run, mainly uphill as far as I remember, but it ends where it started, so that must be an illusion - right?

2nd - 9th August Option 1: Channel Relay crossing:  I am booked on to a Channel relay boat for Aspire, the charity at which I work.  This will give me some chance to reacquaint myself with the English Channel outside of Dover Harbour and admire the immensity of the task I have ahead of me.  If this is postponed until later in the week I can move to :

2nd August Option 2: a 70 mile Sportive in the Cotswolds on my bike (I will have to blow the dust off my posh, competition bike).

9th/10th  August: Swim Dover/ Run 20 miles

16th/17th August Swim Dover / Run 20 miles

23rd/24th August Swim Dover / Run 13 miles

August Bank Holiday Light exercise, the beginning of my taper. Take some holiday

During all these weeks I will swim up to 5k a day on 3 days each week, something I have been doing for some time now, and also cycle about 90 - 120 miles a week as part of my daily commute.

So that's it. The end is well and truly in sight and I have a plan mapped out.  So much of my training has been without a clear map.  It has been constructed to fit around life, and wherever possible I have stolen time to try a monster endurance opportunity to strengthen my psychology - good examples were the 100 miler and  other ultra runs and the 10, 7 and 6  hour sea swims. I am also hoping that the past four years of longer and longer challenges has put me in the right place to succeed in this.

The training is all good and I have been dutiful. I have taken it seriously.  People are on the whole encouraging about the task.  Some people think it inspiring, some obsessive, some impressive and on Sunday the most honest comment I heard was that it's selfish.  It certainly is all of those things and selfish is as accurate as anything.  I take that on board.  I do this for charity ( https://www.justgiving.com/PaulParrishArch2Arc/ if you're interested) but I do it for myself.  I do it to take myself away from where I once was, and I do it to give myself pride and self esteem and I do it because I am privileged and can do.  It's been a long road and I want to prove that you can think yourself washed up, but with the right mindset you can change and move on a different plane.

I have been chatting to an old friend from many years ago, and she sent me this quote from an ultra runner David Blaikie.  It is an erudite synopsis of why this stuff works for some of us.

"Perhaps the genius of ultra running is it's supreme lack of utility. It makes no sense in the world of spaceships and supercomputers to run vast distances on foot. There is no money in it and no fame, frequently not even the approval of peers. But as poets, apostles and philosophers have insisted since the dawn of time, there is more to life than logic and common sense. The ultra runner knows this instinctively. And they know something that is lost on the sedentary. They understand, perhaps better than anyone, that the doors to the spirit will swing open with physical effort. In running such long and taxing distances they answer a call from the deepest realms of their being ~ a call that asks who they are……."

And on that note I will go to Jane's funeral........

Remembering Jane

Forgive me for some self indulgence, but it's my blog, so bear with.  The song I have chosen this week was going to be the final song I was going to choose before signing off for the Arch to Arc.  But sometimes a song is just right for the time and at the moment this song reverberates with me in many different ways. I like the lyrical sentiment. If you have some big life stuff ahead of you then this could be the song for you.  Give it a go... "Swim" by Jack's Mannequin.

I was looking at my friend Jane's Facebook page last week.   I wanted to look back - probably in the vain hope that I could glean some meaning from it. On her timeline I found the following quote, which she attributed to Hugh Laurie:

“It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There's almost no such thing as ready. There's only now. And you may as well do it now. I mean, I say that confidently as if I'm about to go bungee jumping or something - I'm not. I'm not a crazed risk taker. But I do think that, generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.”

I really like this. I have been getting stressed wondering how can I ever be ready for the Arch to Arc?  It is too much and too far.  When I look back there hasn't been a single endurance event that I have ever undertaken that I have felt ready for. The weeks before each event I becoming increasingly stressed as I realise that I can't be sure I will go the distance.  With a full time job and a family and a keen interest in procrastination there is never a chance that I can have fully prepared for these big events.  I think the thing I have learnt to do is get to the start line.  If I get that far and start to run/walk/cycle/swim/skip then there is a chance that I will finish.  I don't always succeed, (see previous post "Failure"), but more often than not I seem to muddle through. So Hugh Laurie is right; "You may as well do it now...."

I am going to remember that, Janey.  I have put so much into this Arch To Arc. I am as ready as I can ever be.  Sure, I haven't done much cycling this year, but if I get to Calais, I'll make a good stab at the 180 mile cycle.  I have run 100 miles in one go, as well as a number of 30, 40 and 50 milers.  I have swum upwards of 12 hours a week for a year and have managed a 10 hour swim, several sixes and I have some seven hour swims to come. I can't do any more.  Eddie Ette, coaching me, has told me to rein it back in now.  No need to leave my best swimming in Dover Harbour.  So, yes,  I am not ready, but as ready as I can be, and I will be able to set off on the Arch to Arc knowing I have given it my all.  Thank you Jane for that Facebook post.

Jane died last week aged 50.  She leaves two young children. 5 weeks ago she decided to take the top off a bottle and drink again. There can be no greater tragedy than seeing someone claw their way back to life, only to watch the power of their addiction drag them back down. I am sorry to use her death as a reason to blog. I don't want to be crass. But you should know how powerful and incomprehensible this stuff is.  You should know that in recovery we can walk a very fine line.

It's Not About the Bike

Today's song is a children's classic.  Everyone knows it and everyone has some way of interpreting it.  Puff the Magic Dragon has been sung by us all I suspect and like lots of my songs has no place on a blog about the Arch to Arc (not that this blog has that much to do with the Arch to Arc).  Basically, it's here because Puff the Magic Dragon lives by the sea.  So taking that into account as his residence he probably knows a fair bit about things of a nautical nature, and may have seen a few swimmers, although I have always believed him to be a solitary character.  When Little Jackie paper fails to show, I get the impression that Puff has few other friends to share his time and his life with.  When I was little I felt so bad for Puff, and today, at this moment in time I feel very much the same. We all need some friends.

Much has been written about this song being about drugs; Puff = marijuana, Jackie Paper being rolling papers.  Listen to it and you realise that is a nonsense interpretation.  Puff the Magic Dragon is a piece of imagination.  Jackie Paper is a boy who grows up and, as we do, loses his imagination and we see a reversal of reality as the fantasy (Puff) watches the reality (Jackie) disappear.  Even today the line, "A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys" makes me nod my head in sad recognition.  If only that didn't happen.  Being grown up is bloody difficult if you ask me.  

And if you still think there is a hint of drug use, check out this video from 1965.  Are you telling me that Peter, Paul and Mary were really rolling up backstage?

Having got that off my chest, I am struggling to make a link with that and the Arch to Arc. Maybe the Arch to Arc is my little fantasy and it offsets real life.  Yes,  there is a lot of  truth in that.  When you read this blog the natural end is the moment of the event itself.  But for me the hardest part of all this is having a long lead time to the start of the event and trying to negotiate the life that one leads whilst trying to get to the start point.  Every time life hits me with another brick I have to take the knock and carry on.  Since I signed up for the Arch to Arc, so many things have happened in my life and when I look back and look to the future I cannot comprehend how I can carry this project through without at some point being knocked off balance. My fear mounts and I am scared that the voice inside me will cry "enough's enough" and make me stop.

But it's very close now and with two and a half months to go, I just need to hold my nerve and keep going.  The Arch to Arc has become a place of escape and meditation.  The endless hours in the sea or running have been my place to chew over life's problems.  Not  that I think very deeply.  I can spend 50 minutes thinking about someone who pissed me off at work in 1989 but at some level it is ridding me of some of my more recent stresses.  And I need that at the moment. Yes, I really need that.

You will notice that I refer only to running and swimming.  I rarely, if ever, mention the bike leg of this event.  I think we should get this into context.  The bike from Calais to Paris is 180 miles.  Even by Tour de France standards that is longer than any one day stage that they will cycle.  But set against the depleting effect of an 87 mile run and the technical, physical and mental stamina needed to complete the swim the cycle ride is a the least frightening of the stages I need to tackle.

The cycle is a such a crucial part of any triathlon, but definitely plays third fiddle on this event.  I am used to some monstrous cycle rides - I have done a couple of 200 mile + cycle rides and on one, never to be forgotten event, managed 336 miles.  Just to pause for a moment, I cannot describe how glorious it felt to get my arse off my bike saddle after a 336 mile ride. I have always liked cycling.  Travelling long distances under your own steam is immensely satisfying.  But training on the bike is really time consuming.  When you are looking at the training needed to go above 200 miles it takes a lot of time out of your day, especially if you are a "so-so" cyclist like me.  I used to be off at 5.30 am and not back until Midday and still feel I hadn't achieved much.

On the other hand learning to be a Channel swimmer has certainly taken a lot of time up but it is only recently that the mammoth swims have really begun to happen. 6 hours in the water is a mammoth swim whereas it's not such a long time on a bike. Well, obviously it is, and it could be time better spent learning Spanish or how to bake cakes, but relatively speaking is what I'm talking about.

I can't project. I would love to tell you my dreams of how it might feel to cycle into Paris with the rest of the event successfully completed.  But I don't want to do that.  Sadly, I am now an adult and my fantasies have made way for realism and self doubt.  Where are you Jackie Paper?  Come back!

Humility

Okay this week's swim song is a total shocker, but it's title couldn't be more apt. It's 10cc's Channel Swimmer, which I think was a B-Side to one of their hits.  You have to hand it to Godley and the other fella in the band, they went to great lengths to fit a single conceit into a song - the idea of "crawling back to you" - front crawl - geddit? As a potential Channel swimmer I can't help getting cross with the lack of swimming knowledge displayed by members of a 70's soft rock band who were touring the world, taking drugs, earning vast amounts of money and driving fast cars.  You think that they would have had some time to do a little research into Channel swimming.  Honestly, like anyone would try and swim the Channel putting backstroke above crawl. (Maybe I'm missing the point in my small minded way...) Where they do get it right is the line "Who's be a Channel swimmer? Only a fool like me.".  Now that I do relate to.

Last weekend I was at the Enduroman long distance triathlon championships, helping out with a bit of marshalling and lap counting.  You have do to a serious amount of lap counting because at the championships you have a 200 mile run, a 100 mile run, a double iron distance and for those who really suffer from a  chasms in the soul;  a triple iron.  It was here in the New Forest that I have cut my teeth over the past three years taking part in both a double and triple distance triathlons.

As I was driving up I was telling my mate Rob about what a great bunch of people he would meet (Rob, you may remember is my running friend.  18 months ago he had never run more than a couple of miles and I went out running with him and briefly patronised him, by saying things like "You can do this Rob",  "Dig deep" and "not far now" as we built up his mileage.  He now leaves me trailing miles behind him, and although he is a lovely, lovely bloke I secretly harbour intense jealousy and a bit of resentment at how hard he has worked.). I really meant that.  This festival of ultra running is not what one might expect. The people who rock up for a weekend of extraordinary feats of endurance are very normal, very self effacing and so supportive of one another.

If I go to a traditional triathlon it is a different atmosphere altogether.  At the start line you are confronted with a wall of chiselled featured middle aged men, eyeing the water with a steely determination. (There are women and other age groups, but look at the demographic breakdown of any established triathlon and it is predominately male 35 - 49.  Together we can change this, folks).  There is very little banter and humour and the atmosphere is charged with testosterone.  At the start of the swim people will swim over one another to get a better position and the ensuing melee has sometimes given me panic attacks.  These very "nice", polite middle aged men turn feral once they hear the starting gun fired.  God knows what they are like in the boardrooms up and down the country.

Avon Tyrrel is a different atmosphere altogether; the swim start to the ultra triathlons is the utmost in politeness with competitors shaking hands, hugging and letting other competitors get in the water before them.  During the cycle sections and the run, we happily chatter, share food and drink and give lots of encouragement to one another.  I am still in touch with the guys from the year of my Triple Iron and many others from this strange clique.

Why the difference?  All of us came through the alpha male supercharged triathlon route, yet none of those aggressive attributes can be found when we race at endurance level.  My theory is that it is all about humility.  No one can approach any endurance triathlon or a 100 mile run with anything but humility. (By the way, Rob gets this.  He came second in his 100 mile run in the New Forest.  I have managed to avoid speaking to him ever since.)  When you know you are going to swim 7 miles, cycle 336 and run 78 miles you give those distances the utmost respect.  You know that you are attempting something that may allow you to compete, but could spit you out at any time.  For a short period of your life you find your hold on finishing an event to be very precarious.  You don't know if your amazing body (we all have an amazing body - please treasure it) will allow you to do this.  You don't know if distance will grind you to a halt.  You don't know if your mind will just stop supporting you and will suddenly, and it is very sudden, make you stop.  This stuff is way bigger than me and I just trust that today may be my day.

I have a magnificently huge ego.  I am now persuaded that I don't make the sun come up or go down at the beginning and end of the day.  I know that there are some things that are bigger than me.  One February I had picked my way across Striding Edge on Helvellyn and I stood at the base of the final steep climb up to the summit plateau.  Nothing hard or technical.  But at that moment in time as I stood on my own looking up at the track ahead, I felt so infinitesimally small, so insignificant - a fleeting visitor who was briefly allowed safe passage on a mountain. And so it is with ultra events.  I am like a guest at a party way out of my social comfort zone.  I won't be able to stay for long but if things go well, I may have a glass of orange,  a quick dance and make a few friends.  I hope the Arch to Arc allows me to briefly join with it. I hope it smiles on me in September.  I am only asking it to look out for me once.  I will give it the utmost respect.

The Arch to Arc (2)

First off is the swimming song:  I've really gone obscure here and rifled the archives for a song I used to really like.  If you were into Indie music at the turn of the millennium a band called JJ72 briefly dented the charts with this little song "October Swimmer".  I add it to the collection because open water swimming in October is one of my favourite pleasures.  The lakes are cooling and with the drop in temperature comes a drop in the number of swimmers.  The triathlon season is out of the way and so those lakes that remain open get a small hard core of people who swim for pleasure.  October is special because it can still be warm both in and out of the lake and sometimes the lake water can be warmer than the air above it.  This creates a light mist which is fascinating to swim in.  Quite eerie, but also very calming.  Last time I wrote about the sensory experience that motivates me and I omitted to mention one of the most beautiful phenomenon that I have ever seen.  It was the last weekend of swimming for the year and I was in a lake near Hitchin.  I was swimming with a small group in this ethereal mist and as we swam the sun came up and got warmer and warmer. Instead of the mist gradually disappearing it receded into the middle of the lake and for a brief moment was like a mysterious cloud hanging there.  And then it was gone.  Beautiful.  Where was I?  Oh yes, JJ72.  I bet no one remembers this song or has even heard it:

So it's been a big few weeks; the 100 mile run is done; I have begun to go down to Dover for sea swimming; I successfully completed a 6 hour sea swim off Weymouth. On Monday this week I took part in a 10k swim and knocked 35 minutes off last year's time, and on Sunday this week I will be taking part in a 35 mile run. Interspersed with this is 90 to 120 miles of cycle commuting and very early morning swim sessions three times a week and also run sessions where possible.  It is a lot of training, and it dominates my thinking now with three and a half months left before the attempt.  I want to get this right.....

Eddie Ette was the first person to succeed at the Arch to Arc in 2000.  He made it on his third attempt and made two of these attempts in one month.  He is passionate about people achieving their goals and has helped me in many ways including taking me out for my 6 hour Weymouth swim whilst he fished for mackerel.  When he succeeded in 2000, Eddie had already soloed the Channel in 13 hours and yet took 17 hours in a wetsuit for his Arch to Arc. Such is the cruelty of the Channel. He held the course record until 2012 when a guy called Mark Baylis smashed the swim without a wetsuit and romped to Paris in a faster time.

I won't have more than one shot at the Arch to Arc.  This road has been very long and I have put a huge amount into it, but despite what I say about having lots of willpower, I couldn't train like this for another year.  Anyway, it costs too much and I want to live on fresh lobster and other posh stuff like cranberry juice and food that doesn't come with gravy.

It's been a blast; I have continually found myself staring down long roads that stretch out ahead of me, believing that getting to the end would be impossible.  It started with that marathon in April 2001. I was so physically and mentally fucked when I entered it on November 22nd 2000, that it seemed a sheer impossibility, but the journey from that point onwards has been astounding.  That marathon led to a sprint triathlon, and that led to an Olympic distance triathlon at Windsor.  I ate gallons of pasta for weeks beforehand, unsure as to whether my body would be able to complete a 10k run after a 27 mile bike ride. Having completed that and subsequently many other Olympic tri's there came the moment when someone said I should attempt an Ironman.  Surely that was the pinnacle of all athletic achievement and the preserve of the tri gods?  No, it isn't anyone's preserve;  Mildly overweight middle aged men like me could complete them, and I romped in to the grounds of Sherborne Castle as high as a kite in August 2007 having completed a full Iron distance.  More Ironmen followed and then came the double Ironman.  The double was crucial because it gave me the confidence to look at the Arch to Arc and so in the Autumn of 2011 I signed up for an attempt scheduled for September 2014. That would give me such a long time to train and be in a position to succeed. So, that's all good then.......

........last night I read my diary from May 2013.  It's not pretty reading.  I had just completed the Windsor 10k and had been one of the stragglers.  I had also been speaking to Channel swimmers and discovering the truth about the enormity of attempting a Channel swim.  I kept hearing the same phrase; "so-and-so had a swim background".  I didn't have any background in anything.  I couldn't even swim in 2004, let alone have swimming badges from the 1970's to sew on to my big swimming shorts. So, at this time last year I was facing the fact that I was not really a contender and hadn't fully understood what I was signing up for.

I don't feel like that now.  Two crucial things happened.  I met a guy called Nick from Eton school who had soloed 7 times.  He told me that to swim the Channel you needed, yes, you guessed it, a "swim background".  I told him I hadn't got one and he told me that in that case I should speak to a man called Uncle Ray who had a swim school in Canary Wharf. Ray has worked with me these past 12 months and firstly deconstructed and then reconstructed my stroke. He has changed everything and the swim times I am posting are testament to what a good coach and a bit of practice can do.

Secondly, I am blessed enough to know a Kiwi by the name of Dave Dawson.  Dave is a great swimmer, but he has always generously supported my endeavours.  Whenever I have done an endurance triathlon, Dave has sponsored me generously and always come along to offer assistance.  Dave knew I didn't have a snowflake in hell's chance of swimming the Channel, but he knew I could probably manage the other parts of the event. So, last year, unprompted, he paid for me to join his sports club where he swims with a tremendously talented and committed group of swimmers three times a week.  Suddenly, I was swimming with people who were pushing me hard all the time and survival meant that I had to adapt.  As a real swimmer, Dave knew that this would be my salvation.

The result of all this is speed, technique and the beginnings of self belief.  Don't think for a minute I think this is a done deal.  I am still an outsider and I may have a 50:50 chance of getting across.  Combine that with my mental endurance and there is a possibility that I could reach the French coast (I wonder what Dave really thinks...).  If I do it will be because of these people.  

So, one more long road to look down.  I can't see the end yet, and I can't imagine finishing, but perhaps the horizon is looking more distinct.

Into the Mystic

I

I love that title.  If you don't know, it's the name of a song on a Van Morrison album.  It was one of those songs that I knew but had put back into my mental file of music, probably never to be played again. I was never really a fan and Brown Eyed Girl has been played so much I didn't want to hear Van Morrison's voice in any hurry.  Then the daughters of a great friend of mine bought it back to my attention when I put a shout out for nautical songs. They suggested it as a great song about the sea (and lots more) and as I listened to it once again and the lyrics took on new meaning for me.  There is probably no other song that resonates so much with me in terms of what I am trying to do and this whole endurance trip.  I just love the lyrics - it want them in my head when I swim the Channel.  So whilst you listen I may as well talk about the mystic....

Yesterday I was bringing my daughter back from swimming.  She pretends that I am really old and uncool (ha, as if!) , but when there is just the two of us she will drop the veneer of teenage disinterest and ask questions.  Yesterday, quite unprompted, she asked me "dad, why did you decide to do long distant stuff?"  It's a good question and I went down my usual route of explaining how,  as a drunk, I didn't want to speak to anyone other than other drinkers.  Nobody else interested me apart from one other special group:  That group was people who had done the marathon.   I was fascinated by them.  It astonished me that anyone could physically push their body to run 26 miles.  26 miles! How?  A friend we had who was training for the marathon back then in the 90's asked me to imagine running as far as I could see and then running back to give me an idea of the training distances a marathon runner needs to achieve. I got the image and it staggered me in its immensity. It was also that immensity that closed the marathon off from me. I may as well have been on Mars and the London marathon, well, in London.  I continued to live in my prison and I can distinctly remember swaying about outside the house, pissed up, smoking a fag, and feeling so sorry for myself (as I frequently did, back then) bemoaning the fact that I would never ever know what it was like to run a full marathon.

So I was explaining all this to Lucy when the car headed out into the open countryside on the way to the village where I lived and there in front of us were miles of  fields under a deep blue evening sky. You now what:  I bloody love the countryside.  I love it with a passion.  I could stare at green fields for hours, watching clouds scud across the sky.  So I said to Lucy, "See all those fields, well, the reason that I love long distance is because I could park this car now and just run and run and run through those fields and I need never stop. That is why I continue to do endurance events!" (It probably wasn't said with such precision, but you get the idea.)  And sometimes I do just take off and run like I told Lucy. The other week I just went out early morning across the fields without any plan.  I just knew I wanted to get lost in the Spring countryside.  I stuck to small footpaths that threaded through the fields around us of bright yellow rape and took in any Bluebell wood I could find. I ended up running about 18 miles without ever feeling tired. If you follow me on Twitter, there was a barrage of images from that run. 

It is on those days that it's possible to slip "into the mystic"; it's a world where miles per hour, heart rate, laps, stroke count, cadence, become meaningless.  I think, and this is my opinion only, that if you want to really go long you need to move into a different way of thinking to get the most out of it.  Distance and time are irrelevant and all that matters is your own existence in the environment.  Every thing needs to be of the moment, and by appreciating that the moment will pass, you can begin to appreciate that the pain or fatigue that your event is causing will pass too.  From that, you can begin to understand that the tough times will fade and you will regain some comfort, which in turn will be replaced by pain.  And so on. Now, it may sound a bit new age and Guardian to a lot of you post industrial Westerners out there but bear with me. People tell me it's not logical to be able to swim, run and cycle these huge distances.  It obviously is, though - I am no athlete, but by rethinking this stuff and living in the moment I know that each moment leading to the next, leading to the next and so on, will eventually see me to the finish line. The countryside is one place I can really feel inspired to put this into practice.  I would probably struggle a bit more if the Grimsby marathon was staged around their industrial areas. I find inspiration in pleasant surroundings. A long distance challenge is merely a metaphor for life: it starts out pretty jolly, seems quite easy and after a while you brimming with confidence.  But then reality hits.  You have the first challenges and the distance doesn't seem quite so easy, but you come through it.  And those highs and lows tend to characterise the journey all the way to the finale.  But I hope that when you reach the finish line you look back on it all: the highs and the lows, the views with all their contrasts and think that overall it was worthwhile.  That's my ambition.

Over the 14 years I have run, cycled and swam long distance here are some of the moments that I can still touch in my mind's eye.  None will really translate onto a page, but every one was a privilege to be in the moment with.  I treasure them:

The sun coming up over Hertswood on one side of the trail I ran whilst on the other side a bright full  moon was setting and I ran between the two spheres.

Cycling through a parade of horse chestnut trees heavily laden with blossom on the way out to St Neots. Spring 2012.

The white frost-blasted hedges on the tiny road behind where I live.  The icy wind of the night had frozen everything in one small area a brittle white, whilst everywhere else was dull and brown.

The "ghost ship" rising out of the mist on my relay Channel Swim with the sun rising behind it.

Staring down at fields shrouded with low white mist whilst on my bike. Cycling down into the mist, whooping with joy.

Being caught in storms so heavy that you can only laugh at the sheer intensity of the rain.  Laughing out loud.

2am, cycling through the Lincolnshire fens.  No sounds apart from the whir of the cycle chain.  Totally isolated, totally quiet. As in the moment as it is possible to be.

Toiling up Bison Hill on my bike and being passed by a beautiful red Ferrari . I said to myself that if someone offered to give me that car but I would be prevented from ever cycling again, I would turn down the offer of the car.

This morning; cycling into work.  Blue skies above, summer warmth beginning to break through, feeling fit as I have ever felt.

So that's it. If you want to go long, get spiritual.

PS Have I mentioned the flip side of the mystic?  So dog tired you want to lie down in any ditch and sleep.  You stink, your breath stinks.  You started throwing up at mile 30 and you have another 40 miles to go.  You can't eat anything but you will stop if you don't.  Your head aches.  You're scared about your body packing up. 

I'll leave that for another day.........