He had a great start, good stroke, calm water. The first bit of trouble we ran into was one hour into the swim when we stopped for his first feed. Niall cannot tread water very well, so stopping to drink was a problem. He was spiting back any solid food we tried to give him. This got even worse after 3 hours when his hamstrings started to cramp badly whenever he moved from the front crawl to feed. Our carefully crafted feeding plan went out the window and we started to increase the concentration of his drinks and added electrolytes and anti-inflammatories to help with the cramping. His stroke was still very strong and we were making good progress at about 3.2 km/hr (I was also very sea sick and when not feeding him, I was most likely to be found on the other side of the boat depositing the contents of my stomach overboard).
The channel is 21 miles across at the shortest point but most people swim closer to 25-30 miles with the currents. Mentally we divided the journey up into 5 segments:
- English waters
- British shipping lanes
- Separation zone
- French shipping lanes
- French coastal waters
After 7 hours we were into the separation zone and over half way there. This is an important point of the swim. Only 30% of channel attempts are successful but these odds decrease rapidly if you have not made the half way point by 7 hours because of the tidal movements.
Cramps had improved slightly at this point, or at least he wasn't complaining about them so much. I was slightly concerned because he was only drinking about 300-400ml per feed. I would have been much happier with 700ml but the good thing was it was only taking him about 1:45 to feed so we were not loosing much time from the stops. He was grumpy as hell though. His stroke rate was a nice constant 55. A slowing stroke rate is one indication of a tiring swimmer - not a good sign.
At 10 hours things started to get rough. The wind picked up and it was coming from the "wrong" direction creating lots of chop, which makes very hard going for the swimmer. At the 11 hour feed Niall was worried about the rough water. On the one hand, I wanted him to know that yes the water was choppy and it was not his imagination playing games, but at the same time I definitely didn't want him to know that it was so rough that most of the other swimmers who had come out that day had just given up and gone home.
We spent three hours in that rough bit before the winds died down. That chop really sapped his strength. At least he was now drinking for us. At 12 hours, Finbarr got into the water with him (he is allowed a buddy for an hour so long as the other swimmer stays behind the soloist). I wanted him to have some support for the last of the rough water. He was mentally very bad at this stage because he was tiring and we were still in the shipping lane and rough water. It was also starting to get dark. We changed his goggles over and put lights on him so we could see him in the dark. It was going to be a struggle from here in...
