The North channel competed!
It’s been a busy three weeks swimming three different channels. Gibraltar, Bristol and the North Channel. In doing so it has given me the Irish Triple Crown (Fastnet, Galway and the North Channel) and also the Original Triple crown (English Channel, Bristol Channel and the North Channel). I’m pretty happy about this as its only my second year of long distance swimming.
My biggest goal on Saturday was proving to myself that I was back. A few months ago I failed my first North channel attempt. I ignored a sore throat and tummy bug in the week before the swim. I swam 34km of the 38km before I stopped because of breathing issues. Seven weeks after the swim I was still trying to figure out why I had zero energy on random days. Eventually after a stool sample it was confirmed I had salmonella poisoning that I most likely picked up from dirty water. I was delighted with this news as I wasn’t “burnt out”. I just wished I had insisted on further testing at my first doctors visit. I lost two months of swimming and so many of my plans got cancelled. The season is short and the work I had done during the winter months felt like it had gone to waste.
The North Channel swim; once you re-move the name, its just a chilly swim with a load of jellyfish! But every swim needs to be approached with respect and you need to surround yourself with good experienced people in the build up. Having swam Gibraltar with Linda Clarke and Bristol with Barry Murphy this gave me the boost I needed. infinity Channel Swimming were brilliant (the boat swim company) positive messages and extremely professional. They remarked ‘a failure is only a failure if you walk away from it’. Infinity understood my dissapointment on the first attempt and gave me a second slot. Their mindset on the day was similar to mine. Don’t over think it, keep the pace down for the first two or three hours and see how the body responds.
I loved the swim, challenge of cold-ish water, the distance and wondering if my body would deliver. My plan was to take it easy for the first three hours knowing the cold would make it slightly uncomfortable. Then speed up slowly after that and have some in the tank for the difficult tidal parts. At the start there were three other swimmers and I found it hard not to compete and race off. I kept my stroke rate at 51 (normally around 60) embraced the water and tried to ignore the other boats/swimmers. Then the fog came down and I lost sight of them all and zoned out. Half way through the swim I had a small pod of Dolphins buzz me. Three of them swam beneath me a few times and was a fun distraction. The other distraction was the Rugby World Cup game between Ireland and Romania. Where my crew looked on from inside the boat!
After the last North Channel swim attempt I knew I could park the jellyfish pain. I did this again until the last 5km where I kept getting hit one after another. Luckily I only got one bad one in the face and one really bad one squashed under my arm pit and my feet were on fire too. The rest were just annoying stings. Siobhan my wife did a fantastic job looking after me and taking photos. Dave Hughes the pilot was terrific, don’t think I heard him speak once but his facial expression told me all I needed to know and he also got me into Portpatrick harbour in Scotland. Milo Mccourt guided me perfectly, knew how to push me the right way. Simple lines ‘you can take it easy now for 15mins’ after a hard tidal push and he spotting endless lions manes jellyfish that would have been direct hits. At the end of the swim I felt I had loads left in the tank, I wasn’t cold and felt good. To me that is the sign of a stress free swim but it was a rough night of twitches with the jellyfish stings.
I’ve a few more weeks before my next challenge, swimming around Manhattan Island NYC in October to finish off my season and hopefully another triple crown.
The North Channel (Ireland to Scotland).
Marathon swim #8 2023
9th September 2023
Swam 37.5km
Direct line 34.5km
Duration 12hrs 32mins
Swim was rattified by Irish Long Distance Swimming Association
