Well, it is a hard event, there is no denying that although the run doesn’t take it out on you as much as you may think. The swim is difficult in good conditions and it is a lottery with the weather. Time of year is pretty crucial for sea temperatures and you need to book up very early (maybe 2 years) in advance to get a perfect slot (late August/early September is warmest). However, you can still have gales in August so you’re not guaranteed an easy ride.
Almost all who do A2A use a wetsuit which doesn’t make it an ‘official’ channel swim but quite frankly you are still swimming it so it never bothered me. Obviously (as the OP) some do this without but it is much more risky. I think all the people who have attempted non-wetsuit had a channel swim under their belt. The cost means that most people want to maximise their chances of completion so use a wetsuit.
If you’ve got plenty of time, you can read my race report for my failed solo attempt here. https://www.tri-anglia.co.uk/reports/2013-07-arch-to-arc
If I had the time to train I would do it again - best experience of my entire life.
daniel could be described as a MOP swimmer 2 years ago, with poor form…
He has worked his socks off, to be fair, and deserves his success…but i did have doubts until probably June this year…and even then the conditions could have gone against…
Slight discrepancy in distances between Garmin and Strava but here’s the GPS for it - hopefully you can view these. For pace reference, my 100m PB at the time was 1:10.
6 years ago…wow, seems like yesterday I was following you online! That shows how much the tides assist your pace, but also how much further they make you swim also.
Wow, you got so close. I don’t know why but the race report read like you were something like half way and nowhere near finishing. It must be so tantalising to be that close and not get there.
I’ve heard of it before. A husband of my mums friend has swum the channel, but failed first time. He apparently got to within a mile or something, but got the tides wrong and spent more than an hour swimming and going nowhere, and eventually exhausted himself. That gps track shows just how possible that kind of outcome could be.
That’s still an exceptional swim. I can’t imagine being in the water for that long. As Hammerer says, I’d never quite appreciated quite how much of a difference the tides make to the distance you have to travel.
Just finished reading, inspiring effort! Seems tides make you look faster but obviously still make it far harder overall as extra speed doesn’t make up for extra distance. Clearly not in your case needing to do >40 miles, and as said some people end up static swimming against tide if it turns.
Congrats on the achievement of knowing you went to your limit, that’s worth more than completing in many ways.
Likewise. Channel holds a romantic dream but realistically I know its not suited to me, and I’d almost certainly need a wetsuit unless willing to give up years to adapting and putting on some insulation.
And then even if I could stomach the distance, and the cold, to know that all the prep and huge cost could likely be undone by weather is uneasy.
not just continuous swimming for that long but tolerating the salt, swell and cold. Wow!