Photos from the Channel Swim
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Embrace the cold.
Picture the scene: it’s minus 2 degrees and pitch dark; there’s a hefty wind chill factor blowing across Brighton beach from the north; the only others awake as we cycle down to the sea are wrapped up in huge coats, scraping ice off their windscreen; the pebbles on the beach are frozen together; and we are about to strip down to our speedos and get in another sea swim before school starts for us both. Why? It’s the question most commonly asked of us, and the question we have probably most commonly asked ourselves. The quick answer is that we’re training for our Channel swim. A huge chunk of those who fail in the Channel do so because the cold takes them down, so we’re hoping our regular winter sea swims will stand us in good stead. But, the question remains: why? It can feel utterly horrendous, as if your skin is burning and freezing all at once. Some of our early swims left us shaking and shivering on the beach, fumbling with zips on coats and desperately trying to pull glove...
We made it!! Steve reflects...
Most of the time, it simply doesn't feel real. And then, out of the blue, something jolts you back into either the harsh reality of the dark moments of 'The Swim' or - more commonly - back into the utter relief and elation of seeing rocks and sand after thirteen hours of nothingness, and suddenly I'm pinching myself, questioning whether after all that training and thinking and preparing and planning, whether we really did swim to France. One of those moments was with my GCSE French class last week. As a first-lesson warm-up, we were discussing in French where we'd been for the summer. I gave an example, explaining that I'd been to Spain with my family. A boy put his hand up: 'Sir, didn't you also go to France?' For a split second, I thought he was wrong, then saw he was smiling slightly, and I remembered again that I had indeed been to France, albeit just for the shortest of visits. To be precise, I stood on the rocks of Cap Gris-Nez for no more...
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