I did my first ASA open water swimming championship on 10/7 in Norwich. It was the starting point for me to become a competitive open water swimmer. The race was the East Region Open Water Championships. However, it was also the London Region Open Water Championships and an open age-group competition. The distances on order were, in race order, 3 km, 1 km, 2 km and 5 km, and it was possible to do both 3 and 5, or 2…
I participated in the BLDSA Champion of Champions (Dover) on 18 June. This was my first swim race in the year but it didn’t went well. The race format was 3 races on the day, 5, 3 then 1 miles, with each mile consisting of 2 x a 800 m triangular loop, i.e. 10 laps for 5 miles, 6 laps for 3 miles, and 2 laps for 1 mile. The full result is available on the BLDSA website. 5 miles…
It’s one week since my disaster and I still can’t make my mind out of it. Everything was very wrong. It was the worst moment in my life. I really shouldn’t have tried it at all before I am completely ready. I totally underestimated the difficulty of Channel swimming, thinking it’s not much different to swim 14-16 km along the coast. Let me start with my motivation. The primary reasons I signed up to do the Channel were: as a…
All photos courtesy of my crew Deborah Vine unless specified. It has already been a few months since I made my final training update on my Channel swim, and I have now made the attempt. Here’s is the report of it. My booked tide was 12-17 September 2021. As I am a slow swimmer, the pilot had agreed that he wouldn’t take me out on a spring tide. Although the weather was good on 12 September, it was still spring…
The hostel I booked was near Victoria train station, thinking that it would offer fast travel to Tooting Bec Lido which is right beside the railway line between London Victoria and Brighton. However it turned out that the fastest way to travel there was to take the tube on the Victoria Line then Northern Line to Tooting Bec, and then transfer to a bus there rather than using a National Rail train. As off-peak travel starts at 09:30, I waited…
I went to London and Dover on a 4-day trip 10 August to 13 August this year, which was my first extended trip after I moved to the UK. I originally hoped to have a few international trips including to Poland, Germany and Sweden, but the border situation did not allow me to do that. As the United Kingdom is not an interesting country for me I didn’t travel domestically until this trip. (I’m mainly interested in countries with recent…
As the last season of COVID restrictions took away the opportunity for me to do any pool training in Hong Kong, apart from the month of November, I was so stressed that it affected my well-being and I had to visit a psychologist. The measures I took to manage it including suspending training, limiting my time thinking and working about it, etc. I once considered giving up but I judged my situation was not as bad as to the point…
On 21/2, I did the race Cold Half the second time as a solo. This race is my most important A race in Hong Kong, which serves as my benchmark after half a season of winter training. In 2020, I mentioned by doing this race, I could decide if I was ready to start my preparation on my ultimate dream channel swim. I did it and completed in 5:14, then signed up for a Channel slot in September 2021 despite…
After my failed qualification attempt last month, I told myself that I would try again later in the month or February, but now God forbids me to do so. Since that week the weather has been consistently warm again that we now have returned to 16-24°C air temperature and 18-19°C sea temperature now. I have already found some people outside Hong Kong who are willing to take my September slot in case I decide to give up my Channel swim….
As my Channel training in the past year went wrong in every possible aspect, the problem of not being able to get back to the right track has already made me too stressed that it’s affecting my health. After visiting a psychologist last week, I have decided to suspend my Channel training, and try to find a friend who’s willing to take my spot in case if I finally decide not to do it this year. My former Total Immersion…