42 weeks until my tide window

A little bit of background for those of you that don't know lots about channel swimming. When you want to book a Channel Swim attempt you have to register with one of the two governing bodies the CS & PF (Channel Swimming and Pilots Federation) or the CSA (Channel Swimming Association). And you need to hire a boat and a crew. When you book your boat you choose a tide window. Each pilot takes 4 swimmers per tide and it is done on a first come first served basis. I am slot 2 on the tide of 19th to 27th July 2010. This means that there is 1 swimmer before me who will get first choice when there is a suitable day to swim within this tide window. If the first swimmer chooses not to swim the second swimmer gets to choose and so on. The actual date I get to go will be dependant on the weather and when it is my turn. My pilot is Neil Streeter and the support boat is Suva (pictured above).

So there are 42 weeks until the 19th July 2010 and I have been back training now for 6 weeks. I have been doing about 3 sessions per week covering about 10k in the pool per week. One of the sessions is with Spencer Swim Team (my swimming club) and the other two are in the local swimming baths, on my tod. My plan over the winter is to keep my arms turning over and then start building up distance and time in the pool in the New Year.

Everyone starts somewhere

The last time I wrote a blog it lasted the best part of a year and followed my travels around the world as I did the travelling that everyone else did when they were much younger. This blog is a bit different. It will probably last the same amount of time but is unlikely to have the same amount of adventures and drunken excitement as the last one. But it will be exciting for me. This blog is going to record all the training I do in the run up to my attempt to swim the English Channel next year.

This all came about following the successful completion of a 3 person relay in June 2009. Our team name was the Dover Slurpers (http://www.dover.uk.com/channelswimming/swims/). Now I am looking to give it a go on my own.