25 July 2014 – Large man in pink swims to France

Large man in pink swims to France.

All it took for me to commit to swimming the English Channel was a drunken BBQ on my back deck and three of my Bold and Beautiful mates to have signed up first. Ben Hutt was always on for a swim in 2014, he had unfinished business from 2012 when after two years training he couldn’t get a start because of bad weather. The Welshman, Cae Tolman, was next. Miles Tollan made his announcement at my BBQ, which I think was actually a celebration of my first Rottnest crossing. Three seconds later a Welshman, 2 Englishmen and a Aussie were going to swim the channel: got to be a joke in there somewhere.

[Ben, Michael, Miles & Cai]

I choose a well known B and B swimmer, James Goins as my handler. A marathon swimmer’s handler is like a golf player’s caddie. It looks simple enough, handling the gear and making sure I’m fed and watered while competing, but James was much more than this to me. He trained with me, he kayaked for me on countless long training swims, travelled to Rottnest with me for my second crossing, tread water with me in Manly Dam on cold wet Sunday mornings to get me acclimatized to channel conditions, nagged me senseless about my diet and nutrition, taught me about public transport in London, kept me safe from Dovakians in Dover (don’t start me), found good coffee for us in England (don’t get me started), panicked for me during the waiting game as he was near death with the man flu and shared the pain and joy of my swim.

We were lucky to have so much B and B support throughout our preparation (and on the day of our swims) not the least of which came from a little B & B sub set, The Frosty Nuts, with whom I’ve done some great long distance swims before and after committing to the channel. We set up basecamp in a gorgeous little farm outside Dover and were joined there by James, Nicole Piha, Alex Prendergast, Allison Annett, Ben’s wife, Sascha, Cae’s wife, Jennie, and, at the last minute, Gaetan Guilhon popped over from holidaying in his native France to be on my boat so we had a frog on board if things got nasty at the other end.

The day of my swim started inauspiciously when we boarded our vessel and it wouldn’t start. The spare battery was also flat. Thoughts of an all-daylight swim suddenly turned to a day/night game. We waited and worried a bit, but the local fishing boat pilots are a very tight group, so in no time at all we were underway with a couple of borrowed batteries.

The start wasn’t as ceremonial as I’d imagined; just a wave from the captain and I was in the water taking my first strokes. It felt surreal but this wasn’t the time for emotion, there’d be enough of that later.

The first hour of any long swim is the worst, so I had a plan for that and relived my days hiking the Kokoda trail, trying to remember every detail I could about the trip and the order of the villages along the Owen Stanley Ranges.

By the third hour I was swimming strongly but my brain was ratty. Ben Hutt had given me a tip the night before and I used his simple mantra; ‘I can do this’ – which neatly fitted into the rhythm of my stroke and another 45 minutes passed.

I had prepared well, training for 12 months doing between 30 – 45 km’s per week and some very long cold swims as well. I’m only sorry that my training took me away from Manly so much in the past year. My pain on the day was not the normal aches and pains but discomfort from not being able to urinate. Bad day to get stage fright but there you go. It wouldn’t be a channel swim without something unexpected. I embraced the pain and adopted a new mantra – ‘this too will pass’ (pun obviously intended- no need to lose your sense of humour over these things). I told myself when I got to France the first thing I would do would be to take a nice long piss on their bloody French soil.

At 8 hours in I knew I was going well when the captain come out of his wheelhouse and gave me a smile. We had talked about making ‘the perfect curve’ on to the tip of Cap Gris Nez that sits right between Boulogne and Calais, France and is the closest land to England. Our deal was this: I had to hold my pace at about 3.5 – 4 km per hour the whole day and he would guide me in on the tides without having to do the nasty ‘S’ bend at the end that happens if you miss the turning tide. We both performed our respective bargains and that’s how it played out.

ds

I had very little left in the tank with 4 km to go and my team made a call, correctly, to give me a 4,3,2,1-kilometre countdown into shore. It worked a treat. First I imagined a swim from Manly to Freshwater and back (4 km), then Manly/Queenscliff (3), then Manly/Shelley where it all began for me with the B and B less than three short years earlier when I was fat (well, fatter), approaching 50 and hadn’t swum since leaving school three decades earlier. As I got closer and closer to France with my lungs bursting and my muscles burning, I remembered those days when I felt exactly that way on one leg to Shelley.

I reached French soil, removed my ubiquitous pink B and B swimming cap (which hadn’t properly stayed on my head all day long because mine was mouldy and I had to borrow Nicole’s), took my piss, apologized to the family with small children who had to witness that and returned to the good ship, Rowena and my faithful crew for the trip back to England.

My time of 11 hours 22 minutes was more than an hour better than the time I had privately thought possible on a good day like the one I had. I had swum 44 km’s and became the 111^th Australian to do a solo crossing. I joined a group of 1443 people not counting this year’s batch that have done the swim since Captain Matthew Webb first crossed in 1875.

To my knowledge there are now 8 Bold and Beautiful swimmers among that number: Collie Kinsela (2007), Iain McGregor (2011), Jim Walker (2013) Cae Tolman, Ben Hutt, Miles Tollan and myself (2014) and as recent as Wednesday, Garreth Ball. I am as proud to be in their company as I am to be counted in the company of the Bold and the Beautiful. Together we do something special every day. The triumph is not how far or how fast we do it, the triumph is that we can, and we do.

I’m now in London writing a memoir about my ocean swimming experiences. It will have an initial print run of 7001. One for my Mum who is sure to buy a copy, and one for each of the 7000 B and B swimmers, so watch out for me on my return. If you want a preview of my book go to my blog at www.michaelteys.com

and if you’re rich give some money to my cause,

Lifeline – http://swim.gofundraise.com.au/page/TeysM

They get a call every 36 seconds from someone in Australia at risk of committing suicide and they don’t have the money to answer them all. I don’t want one of those missed calls to be you, me or someone we love.

can’t wait to get back and swim with you for the sheer joy of swimming. Let’s Go!

Michael Teys

============================================================

Today’s stats: 120 swimmers, 0 newbies, 17.3 deg C