I decided to start the open-water season by booking myself onto a Swimtrek 6 day trip to Gozo (off Malta) on a “Tips for Long-distance Swimmers” package. This proved to be a great trip, excellent staff, testing swims and 8 other potential Channel soloists in the party.

The only positive was that I knew I could be sick and keep swimming!

The first swim though made me doubt that I would ever attempt the Channel. In 90 mins, the sea state worsened significantly and I drank too much sea water, leading to 10 or so vomiting bouts.

All of us thoroughly enjoyed the trip. We learned a great deal from the Swimtrek team (which contained many successful Channel soloists) and most importantly we now had a ‘Team’ of like-minded swimmers who were all keen to get down to weekend training sessions at Dover.

Within a week of returning from Gozo, most of us were heading down to Dover to meet Freda Streeter, ‘The General’, whose daughter, Alison, has completed 43 successful Channel crossings (including a solo, 3 way swim).

The first thing to get used to was the temperature, 11 degrees (not the 16 degrees from Gozo). The second aspect was the 2-3 feet of visibility in Dover Harbour and not the 30 feet or so in Gozo.

The weekends were physically and mentally demanding. You need to keep your stroke rate up to generate the heat to stay warm and to do this you must be fit enough and remain focused and not drift of into a slow daydream and spiral towards ‘cold’ thoughts, gradually turning blue along the way.

We built up steadily through the weekends, 30/45 mins x 2 early on, building up to 7 and 6 hr swims a month or so prior to the attempt.

I was also keen to begin the process of understanding how the cold would affect my blood sugar readings. Fortunately, Freda has Type 2 diabetes and had worked with a couple of other Type 1 diabetics that had taken on this challenge in previous years.

Importantly, in the early weekends, she had her key helpers, Barrie (‘the Shingle Stomper’) and Irene Wakeham and Cliff Golding, on the lookout for me. This led to an overall increase in confidence over the summer months.

Below are 3 examples of data collection on 3 separate 6hr swims.

I only experienced one problem swim, where I only had Maxim for the first 3hr of feeds. Thus, on hour 4 I could feel myself going low as I swam in and had a 1/2 banana and Maxim. The sea was choppy and as I came in for my 5 hr feed I still didn’t feel quite right so drank 3 cups of Maxim and ate a banana. About an hour later (6 hr point of the swim), I still didn’t feel too good and saw my 4 and 5 hr feeds exit my body in a horizontal manner. By 6 hrs 30 mins, I found it difficult to gauge my blood sugar level so so returned to Freda 30 mins before I was due to finish. This was the first and only time I hadn’t completed a swim and I felt pretty down. I focused on the 30 mins I hadn’t done rather than feeling more pleased about the 6 hrs 30 mins I had done.

There is now less than a week to go before my tide starts. My support team are stood by, my kit is ready, I know my pilot and boat and the weather forecast has never been so interesting.

Two more members of the Gozo crew successfully crossed the Channel last weekend and two more are booked onto the same tide as me.......so no pressure!