FOR THE RECORD EVERYONE - Freda has lots of kit, and we all sod off before she does so LEAVE HER A SPACE IF YOU GET THERE EARLY. I have put that in my little book of Fredaisms.
Anyway. The swim. "Hoffy. Red hat. 3 Hours" she said. I love her to bits. She's great!
The water temperature, according to the Sandettie light ship in the channel, was 55.4 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Centigrade). I thought "Great. It's one degree warmer than last time". Barry greased my armpits (see photo above), between my upper thights, and my chin/shoulder just in case I get a rash from my chin stubble (no comments please).
I walked down to the water's edge, took off my flip flops and got in. Bloody hell it was cold! It really felt cold. I started to swim and got my breath, then eased into my stoke. Mmm. I was still cold. No getting away from it, it was cold. "How was I going to last 3 hours in this" I thought? It was 1 degree warmer than two weeks ago, but it felt colder.
After 2 hours, I was swimming along minding my own business and was now thinking to myself, "Bloody hell this is cold". No change there then. I swum towards the shore, John Stemp, Beccy and Cliff Golding were there with our feeds. Beccy lobbed it into the water and I started to drink my Maxim. "It's really cold today" I said to Cliff Golding. "It's the wind" making it colder he said. That made sense. Two weeks earlier, the sun was on my back, and I had got a bit sunburnt at 12 degrees water temperature. Today at 13 degrees and a cold wind. I was freezing.
1 hour later, at 3 hours in the harbour. I swum towards shore thinking "Bloody hell I'm cold". But I had done it! I had swum for three hours in a cold Dover harbour as requested. I can't wait now for next week. When I got home, after Beccy and John snoring their heads off in the car while I drove back another 140 miles, I went onto Microsoft Map I worked out how far I had swum that day. Based on the distances in the harbour given by the afore mentioned, I swum about 14,000 Metres! This was the longest and furthest I have swum so far, which meant I have swum over 32KM this week.
HOWEVER - When Mark Robson, e-mailed me the Google version of the above, I noticed that the Microsoft Version does not include the Eastern Dock! Re-calculating quickly to include the Eastern Dock, the distance I swum was about 8,825 Metres - a big difference, so beware on using Microsoft's distances. This was still my longest swim, and the total distance for the week is just over 27KM.
Bring on 4 hours next week! Freda - I'll save you a space. I promise! (I'd still like to know how she got that car to move?)
Hoffy.
Web: http://www.hoffyschannelswim.org.uk/
E-mail: paul@HoffysChannelSwim.org.uk