Grinding out the hours in the river...

Have managed 3 sessions in the river this week, all roughly an hour apiece which will be the rough time for each stint in the water before we hand over to the next swimmer.

Training has been at a pretty steady pace this week and activity in/on/around the river has been pretty quiet. There was an old man by the side of the river bank this morning who just stopped and stared at us with hands on hips and mouth open whilst we stroked post. I think we all increased the pace a bit so we looked that little bit more impressive!

Joining us in the river were around 6-7 triathletes today all training for upcoming triathlons. They don't have to worry about the cold as much as they sport their nice warm wetsuits.

Reality is starting to dawn on us a little bit in that the swim is less than a month away and there isn't much time left now at all. We are most concerned about the cold as the channel could be anything from 15-19 degrees celsius depending on what the weather does so I am praying that the muc anticipated heatwave hits so the water warms up! I got a thermometer to meaure the water temperature in the river thinking that it would be around 16 degrees (ideal training zone) and was surprised to find that it was about 18 which is a very comfortable temperature. We have swam in colder water but possibly not for an hour at a time so this is a bit of an unknown and scary prospect. I don't want to be hitting the water in the channel for the first time, hyperventitlating because of the cold and looking like an idiot! I'm not sure what we can do between now and the swim to sort this.

Breaking news...have just googled a website to see if I can find the temperature at the moment and have found a very cool website which links to a buoy just off Calais which measures the water temp! The recording is now 17.4 degrees which is fine!! Great news and I'll be keeping an eye on my new fave web page. Sad or what!!??


We still have not managed to have a session with all four of the team in the water in the same time due to commitments and are hoping that we will have a team session next Monday. I'm trying to get some press coverage sorted to help with the fundraising so watch this space!

Going for a long swim tomorrow morning at liquid leisure and will try to do at least 90 mins. Aim is to get the legs to not cramp so will be rubbing deep heat into my calves to see if this helps. If not no worries, love the smell of that stuff. Till next time...