It's Starting to Come Together

First proper training session for the whole team this morning which was great. Took some pictures before and after. Water 18 degrees, current strong misty morning. Swam up to Marlow weir and back - around 50 minutes this morning - steady going. No real action on the river today although two very nice ladies walking their dogs stopped to say hi when we were done and I also recall passing two young lads when we went past the scout camp who seemed interested enough in us to actually get out of bed.

After the swim, Pete organised for us to have a chat with Greg Whyte (the guy that trained David Walliams) over breakfast after the swim. Greg has some serious sporting pedigree and has been involved in channel swims for a number of years. A number of points came out of the talk which I'll briefly summarise in no particular order:

1) Cold is the biggest enemy. We'll need loads of clothes including hats and gloves straight after we swim despite the fact that we'll be doing the swim in August.
2) We'll need plenty of food. We could be on the boat for 16-20 hours.
3) We may be swimming at night or very early in the morning in the dark. We should practice swimming in the dark so we are ready for this.
4) We'll need sunscreen as we'll get burnt spending that amount of time in and around the water.
5) Depending on how fast we swim will affect where we land due to tides.
6) As a relay we are just going to try and blast the swim as fast as possible.
7) Goose fat isn't that useful for us. We'l probably use a bit of vaseline to stop the chafing...that's all.
8) Not to bother with seasickness tablets. I will try to have some ginger the week before as this is supposed to help.

I've today bought some glowsticks for night swimming. They will help you be seen and I hope will not attract too much wildlife at the same time. To be honest I am quite excited about doing a practice nightswim. There is something so wrong about it which really appeals to me!?

Trying to get some press to help with the sponsorship and am pleased that I am now over 50% which is an important barrier. Thank you everyone!

It feels like it is starting to come together now.