Two-Man Relay: what's it really like?
When Graham and I decided we wanted to attempt the Channel together, we immediately began searching for information on blogs and websites about a two-person relay and discovered... almost nothing.
Quite understandably, there is a huge amount of material on solo swims, 'standard' relays of four or six people, but hardly anything at all about a two-man relay - and a quick glance at the CSA list of 2-person swims reveals that there have only been just over 20 successful 2-person swims since they started recording them (not including CSPF swims, of course).
So, for anyone weighing up a 2-person relay, here are our thoughts and lessons learned, for what they may be worth.
Specific Challenges:
Clearly any swim in the English Channel has the obvious challenges, but these are some which we think are especially relevant to a two-person attempt:
1. Cold and the Afterdrop
As with any long swim, the biggest enemy of a 2-person relay is probably the cold. You swim hard for an hour, and whilst you're aware that the water is chilly, it's clearly fine for an hour. And then you have to get out. As we had discovered during our winter sea training on Brighton beach, the 'afterdrop' phenomenon is very real and sometimes very disturbing - a swimmer getting out of cold water finds that their core temperature actually drops once they get out, meaning that as we sat on the deck in layer after layer of warm kit, we actually felt much colder than when in the water. I found myself shivering uncontrollably for a good 20-30 minutes, despite wearing loads of warm kit, and sitting in an army-issue winter sleeping bag! With the clock ticking down until you get back into the water, it's far from ideal!
2. Night swimming
When training, we had swum in the dark and through some rough sea when it was dark. What we hadn't accounted for was having to swim right next to the boat in some rough sea in the dark - understandably (and thankfully!), the pilot and crew were not keen to lose us in the pitch black, but swimming close to the boat meant that the waves were far from predictable; instead, the waves bounced off the boat, irregularly, and we both took on huge amounts of seawater in those hours in the dark. With a bit more experience, we'd have insisted on moving further away from the boat, knowing that our lights were more than sufficient to prevent us from disappearing, but for the first hours of our swim, this was the single biggest challenge - it stopped us getting into our rhythm, meaning that each hour's swim felt like a proper battle; and when you're not relaxed, all sorts of other things feel much harder. At first light, everything became so much easier, even if the sea was still unsettled, as we could move further from the boat and relax into the swimming.
3. Recovery
If you go with the CSA, you don't have a choice about the length of time each of you swims - the CSPF lets you choose, but you have to stick with your choice for the whole stint; for every relay with the CSA, whether 2 or 6-person, you each do an hour. That was part of the reason we wanted to do the 2-man, as the next best thing to a solo effort, and yet it felt much more realistic for us both in terms of training with young families and busy jobs at a boarding school. But an hour on the boat, when you're shivering madly, trying to take on food or energy drink having vomited seawater numerous times, goes incredibly quickly, and means that there is very little 'quality' recovery. As soon as you start to feel more settled, more 'alive', you're getting the nudge from the support crew that it's 15 or 10 minutes to go, and you really need to start getting ready to jump back in.
4. Mindset
In this sense - whilst we absolutely know it's really not like doing a solo - a 2-man relay doing an hour each really did feel like a 13-hour challenge, rather than the stop-start effort of other relays. We both found ourselves staying in our bubble during the time on the boat, at least for long stretches, in order to deal with the cold/sickness when out of the water, and make sure we were in a good mental place when we got back in. You have to view the 2-man relay with the CSA as a challenge all the way across, and if the sun comes out and you can snatch some relaxed moments with the support crew, that's a massive bonus, but not a common occurrence for the swimmer on the boat.
Top Tips:
1. Kit
Get plenty of very warm kit that you can get on quickly and easily - if you're doing any part of it at night, you will definitely need it all. At one point, we were wearing multiple warm layers, 2 warm coats, 2 hats, gloves, sat in an army winter sleeping bag and within the protection of a half tent to keep the wind off - and still shivering like mad for a big chunk of the time on the boat. The hot water bottle, plus a switch to hot Maxim energy drink all made a big difference.
2. Training
For a 2-man relay, you need endurance, of course, but also experience of the stop-start nature of the challenge. Make sure you do sets of time, swimming, getting out and getting warm, then swimming again - because getting back into cold water just as you were starting to feel comfortably warm again is really just a mental challenge, and we both found that the more we did it, the less of an issue it was. Speed is also a key factor, in order to hit the Cap Gris-Nez before the tide turns again, and whilst neither of us is particularly slow, we would probably have done more pool sessions in the main training block to give us greater strength and speed. Our focus - living in Brighton - was to spend loads of time in the sea, and whilst it meant we were well-used to waves and cold water, we possibly only had one gear in terms of pace. We both had lower limb injuries which limited our cross-training (running/cycling), but in an ideal world, we'd have done a bit more of that too.
3. Wind/shelter
We took a pop-up half tent (which are becoming more common on UK beaches to protect children from the sun/wind) - and it was invaluable at providing a wind break on the boat, having learned in our training that in the time out of the water, it is the wind that makes you most cold. Stop the wind, and you've got a much better chance of warming up quickly. Remember: almost all of the CSA boats are open fishing boats, completely exposed to the elements.
4. Organisation/admin
At least one of you has got to love some admin/organisation, ideally both! Don't leave anything to chance, become like a magpie, stealing top tips and advice from as many people as possible - none of our advice or ideas are original (with the exception of the pop-up half-tent, possibly!) and we are so grateful to those who pointed us to:
- windguru and windfinder: we became addicted to these, checking wind forecasts and following on Twitter when attempts went and whether or not they were successful. In particular, it empowered us to have good conversations with our pilot about the best possible window for our attempt.
- Bonine sea sickness tablets - a bout of sickness for one of us was definitely down to huge amounts of seawater taken on in the dark; none of the crew was seasick, and at first light, even in an undulating sea, we were all fine.
- Maxim energy drink: the Dutch supplier 'Mantel' still does very quick delivery of the Carbo loader, energy drink and energy bars (which are actually really quite nice!). Channel swimmers swear by it, but also swear because they can't find it to buy anywhere in the UK. Mantel is worth checking out on-line.
- Hot water in big pump-action flasks: your team won't want to mess around heating water, and these were easily secured on the deck and meant we had loads of hot water immediately available.
- Team meeting beforehand: this was invaluable, as we talked through exactly what we both wanted in terms of conversation (what to say, what not to say), kit and food (so that it was all ready as soon as we got out), neatly packed in clear plastic boxes with lids. We were both quite different in this regard, so the crew needed to know exactly what we would individually want and when. Crucially, we agreed that we didn't want to know how the other one was getting on - which with hindsight was very significant, given that we both had our worst moments very early on in the swim; if we'd known that the other was also struggling so early on, we might have then found ourselves battling even more.
5. Choice of pilot
This is a bit of an elephant in the room when it comes to Channel swimming, so apologies if we are breaking some sort of secret 'magic circle' code. But, it should be said that some of the pilots (from both CSA and CSPF) massively over-book the number of swimmers they take during the summer. This means that in a bad season (2017 weather was particularly rubbish for long chunks of the summer), they have a backlog of swimmers waiting to go, and end up trying to fit in attempts at times which are designed to help them ease their backlog, not to give the swimmer the best experience or chance of getting there. Two people we met had failed in their 2-man attempt a year or so ago for precisely this reason, and we tracked many other solo and relay swims setting off in the early evening for a predominantly night swim, just so that the pilot could fit in 3 attempts during a 2-day window.
We were incredibly lucky with our pilot, who does not do this, meaning he had more flexibility with us, and much more time to give us in the days leading up to our attempt. The official line is that all pilots are equal; we are sure they are all equally qualified and all equally good at what they do - but they do not all sign up an equal number of swimmers, and the more swimmers a pilot has, the less likely it is that you will get a favourable slot.
If you've got this far, you are either really serious about a 2-person relay, or really addicted to Channel swimming blogs, or really just a member of our close family.
We both absolutely loved it - we've both done other long endurance events, but this had it all: serious physical and mental challenge, the need for a great team around us, the very real doubt if we'd make it until the very last moment (integral to any proper challenge), plus of course the magic of swimming among huge tankers and ferries and fulfilling something of a childhood dream. We've heard it said (by a few highly-regarded folk) that if you can do a 2-man swim, you can probably have a decent crack at a solo - as it stands right now, neither of us is convinced: this was very tough, it consumed our last year, and to be honest, it's really nice not now spending chunks of each day feeling cold.
Who knows? Maybe the CSA awards dinner will get us thinking again...
Quite understandably, there is a huge amount of material on solo swims, 'standard' relays of four or six people, but hardly anything at all about a two-man relay - and a quick glance at the CSA list of 2-person swims reveals that there have only been just over 20 successful 2-person swims since they started recording them (not including CSPF swims, of course).
So, for anyone weighing up a 2-person relay, here are our thoughts and lessons learned, for what they may be worth.
Specific Challenges:
Clearly any swim in the English Channel has the obvious challenges, but these are some which we think are especially relevant to a two-person attempt:
1. Cold and the Afterdrop
As with any long swim, the biggest enemy of a 2-person relay is probably the cold. You swim hard for an hour, and whilst you're aware that the water is chilly, it's clearly fine for an hour. And then you have to get out. As we had discovered during our winter sea training on Brighton beach, the 'afterdrop' phenomenon is very real and sometimes very disturbing - a swimmer getting out of cold water finds that their core temperature actually drops once they get out, meaning that as we sat on the deck in layer after layer of warm kit, we actually felt much colder than when in the water. I found myself shivering uncontrollably for a good 20-30 minutes, despite wearing loads of warm kit, and sitting in an army-issue winter sleeping bag! With the clock ticking down until you get back into the water, it's far from ideal!
2. Night swimming
When training, we had swum in the dark and through some rough sea when it was dark. What we hadn't accounted for was having to swim right next to the boat in some rough sea in the dark - understandably (and thankfully!), the pilot and crew were not keen to lose us in the pitch black, but swimming close to the boat meant that the waves were far from predictable; instead, the waves bounced off the boat, irregularly, and we both took on huge amounts of seawater in those hours in the dark. With a bit more experience, we'd have insisted on moving further away from the boat, knowing that our lights were more than sufficient to prevent us from disappearing, but for the first hours of our swim, this was the single biggest challenge - it stopped us getting into our rhythm, meaning that each hour's swim felt like a proper battle; and when you're not relaxed, all sorts of other things feel much harder. At first light, everything became so much easier, even if the sea was still unsettled, as we could move further from the boat and relax into the swimming.
3. Recovery
If you go with the CSA, you don't have a choice about the length of time each of you swims - the CSPF lets you choose, but you have to stick with your choice for the whole stint; for every relay with the CSA, whether 2 or 6-person, you each do an hour. That was part of the reason we wanted to do the 2-man, as the next best thing to a solo effort, and yet it felt much more realistic for us both in terms of training with young families and busy jobs at a boarding school. But an hour on the boat, when you're shivering madly, trying to take on food or energy drink having vomited seawater numerous times, goes incredibly quickly, and means that there is very little 'quality' recovery. As soon as you start to feel more settled, more 'alive', you're getting the nudge from the support crew that it's 15 or 10 minutes to go, and you really need to start getting ready to jump back in.
4. Mindset
In this sense - whilst we absolutely know it's really not like doing a solo - a 2-man relay doing an hour each really did feel like a 13-hour challenge, rather than the stop-start effort of other relays. We both found ourselves staying in our bubble during the time on the boat, at least for long stretches, in order to deal with the cold/sickness when out of the water, and make sure we were in a good mental place when we got back in. You have to view the 2-man relay with the CSA as a challenge all the way across, and if the sun comes out and you can snatch some relaxed moments with the support crew, that's a massive bonus, but not a common occurrence for the swimmer on the boat.
Top Tips:
1. Kit
Get plenty of very warm kit that you can get on quickly and easily - if you're doing any part of it at night, you will definitely need it all. At one point, we were wearing multiple warm layers, 2 warm coats, 2 hats, gloves, sat in an army winter sleeping bag and within the protection of a half tent to keep the wind off - and still shivering like mad for a big chunk of the time on the boat. The hot water bottle, plus a switch to hot Maxim energy drink all made a big difference.
2. Training
For a 2-man relay, you need endurance, of course, but also experience of the stop-start nature of the challenge. Make sure you do sets of time, swimming, getting out and getting warm, then swimming again - because getting back into cold water just as you were starting to feel comfortably warm again is really just a mental challenge, and we both found that the more we did it, the less of an issue it was. Speed is also a key factor, in order to hit the Cap Gris-Nez before the tide turns again, and whilst neither of us is particularly slow, we would probably have done more pool sessions in the main training block to give us greater strength and speed. Our focus - living in Brighton - was to spend loads of time in the sea, and whilst it meant we were well-used to waves and cold water, we possibly only had one gear in terms of pace. We both had lower limb injuries which limited our cross-training (running/cycling), but in an ideal world, we'd have done a bit more of that too.
3. Wind/shelter
We took a pop-up half tent (which are becoming more common on UK beaches to protect children from the sun/wind) - and it was invaluable at providing a wind break on the boat, having learned in our training that in the time out of the water, it is the wind that makes you most cold. Stop the wind, and you've got a much better chance of warming up quickly. Remember: almost all of the CSA boats are open fishing boats, completely exposed to the elements.
4. Organisation/admin
At least one of you has got to love some admin/organisation, ideally both! Don't leave anything to chance, become like a magpie, stealing top tips and advice from as many people as possible - none of our advice or ideas are original (with the exception of the pop-up half-tent, possibly!) and we are so grateful to those who pointed us to:
- windguru and windfinder: we became addicted to these, checking wind forecasts and following on Twitter when attempts went and whether or not they were successful. In particular, it empowered us to have good conversations with our pilot about the best possible window for our attempt.
- Bonine sea sickness tablets - a bout of sickness for one of us was definitely down to huge amounts of seawater taken on in the dark; none of the crew was seasick, and at first light, even in an undulating sea, we were all fine.
- Maxim energy drink: the Dutch supplier 'Mantel' still does very quick delivery of the Carbo loader, energy drink and energy bars (which are actually really quite nice!). Channel swimmers swear by it, but also swear because they can't find it to buy anywhere in the UK. Mantel is worth checking out on-line.
- Hot water in big pump-action flasks: your team won't want to mess around heating water, and these were easily secured on the deck and meant we had loads of hot water immediately available.
- Team meeting beforehand: this was invaluable, as we talked through exactly what we both wanted in terms of conversation (what to say, what not to say), kit and food (so that it was all ready as soon as we got out), neatly packed in clear plastic boxes with lids. We were both quite different in this regard, so the crew needed to know exactly what we would individually want and when. Crucially, we agreed that we didn't want to know how the other one was getting on - which with hindsight was very significant, given that we both had our worst moments very early on in the swim; if we'd known that the other was also struggling so early on, we might have then found ourselves battling even more.
5. Choice of pilot
This is a bit of an elephant in the room when it comes to Channel swimming, so apologies if we are breaking some sort of secret 'magic circle' code. But, it should be said that some of the pilots (from both CSA and CSPF) massively over-book the number of swimmers they take during the summer. This means that in a bad season (2017 weather was particularly rubbish for long chunks of the summer), they have a backlog of swimmers waiting to go, and end up trying to fit in attempts at times which are designed to help them ease their backlog, not to give the swimmer the best experience or chance of getting there. Two people we met had failed in their 2-man attempt a year or so ago for precisely this reason, and we tracked many other solo and relay swims setting off in the early evening for a predominantly night swim, just so that the pilot could fit in 3 attempts during a 2-day window.
We were incredibly lucky with our pilot, who does not do this, meaning he had more flexibility with us, and much more time to give us in the days leading up to our attempt. The official line is that all pilots are equal; we are sure they are all equally qualified and all equally good at what they do - but they do not all sign up an equal number of swimmers, and the more swimmers a pilot has, the less likely it is that you will get a favourable slot.
If you've got this far, you are either really serious about a 2-person relay, or really addicted to Channel swimming blogs, or really just a member of our close family.
We both absolutely loved it - we've both done other long endurance events, but this had it all: serious physical and mental challenge, the need for a great team around us, the very real doubt if we'd make it until the very last moment (integral to any proper challenge), plus of course the magic of swimming among huge tankers and ferries and fulfilling something of a childhood dream. We've heard it said (by a few highly-regarded folk) that if you can do a 2-man swim, you can probably have a decent crack at a solo - as it stands right now, neither of us is convinced: this was very tough, it consumed our last year, and to be honest, it's really nice not now spending chunks of each day feeling cold.
Who knows? Maybe the CSA awards dinner will get us thinking again...
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