So I have just finished my first week of tapering and it has been a good thing. I did 2.5 hours of fun swimming in the Bay yesterday and it felt good. I just calculated that I have swum 765,000 yards in the last 5 months (which is about 435 miles or 700 kms) so my body needed a rest. I will ease of a bit more next week and more again the following week leading up to the swim. I fly out of SF on Saturday 12 July (refer attached). I then plan to spend 3 days in London before heading to Dover on Wed 16 July. My swim window begins on Friday 18 July. For those of you who dont know how the swim window works, each pilot that takes swimmers across the Channel has up to 5 swimmers booked to swim in each window. There are only a few windows each season and the windows coincide with times when the tides are at their weakest. Each swimmer has a number from 1 - 5 depending upon when they book their place. As I booked over 2 years ago, I got a number 1 spot. This is important for the following reasons. While my swim window begins on the 18th, if the weather is not good on that day (which normally means it is too windy), then my pilot will suggest I swim on the 19th. If the 19th is not good, then the 20th and so on until the end of the window which is on the 23rd. While this is not a good thing to have to wait extra days until the weather conditions are good to swim, as I am in number 1 position, it is not a problem. It is, however, a problem for the people who are in 4th or 5th positions as they can sometimes miss out on their swim. My friend John Walker was booked to swim the Channel two years ago and after waiting in Dover for the weather to clear, he ran out of time and had to return to San Fran without swimming (but he was successful the following year). One of the reasons swimming any marathon open water swim is such an achievement if you are successful is that there is so much outside your control that can stop you reaching your goal. Please continue to pray to the weather gods for me so that I can have warm water (58F or above would be fine), flat seas and little current. I cant wait.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Jul 2014 20:10:17 +0000
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