Delft, Kerkpolder, 24 January 2024

Things are getting real.
There’s a Channel training kick-off meeting with my coach on the books for Thursday.

Anyway, in the lead-up to my start-of-training talk I realized my coach had wanted some baseline information, which I had yet to provide because it involved providing him with brutal hardcore numbers. Naturally, being afraid of what those numbers would say, I did what any self-respecting swimmer would do. Ignore the request, until ignoring was no longer option.

In my mind it was a 400m time at power-on-but-not-sprint-speed my coach wanted. Knowing that she is faster than I am in the pool, I texted my neighbor/friend/swim buddy.
We could go to the pool together on the Wednesday (one day is enough time). The cold pool. Early. You know because it would be fun!
Oh and could she also pace me for a 400m? It goes without saying that this offer was so ridiculously tempting that she couldn’t resist.

Slightly apprehensive of the swim to come I check my phone in the morning. I don’t want to swing my legs over the edge of the bed yet, so it 100% makes sense to engage in my daily checking of the news, and any messages that may have come in when my phone was in sleep mode.

“Not a 400m, I want to know how much distance you can cover in 45 minutes.”

Damn’, I should not have double checked and just swum a bloody 400m fast.

At the pool I break the news to Buuffie, my nickname for my neighbor, which literally means neighbor, so I am not sure how much of a nickname it really is.

“So we’re doing a 45 then?”
Like the unflappable athlete that she is (at least in my eyes), she doesn’t skip a beat and takes the lead after warming up.

The warming up felt like swimming through molasses, heavy water we call it. Bwuch. When we start the 45 minutes things feel better. I tickle Buuffie’s toes on several occasions. This is generally frowned upon in swim-land. I mean you can do it once or twice, but if you’re too close all the time, then pass and take over the lead.
I’m not sure I can though. Our speeds are so close that if I take over she’ll be tickling my feet, she then gets to take advantage of my slipstream.

Plus I am messing with my semi-leaking goggles on a couple of turns and then left to catch up with her.

It’s hard to pace yourself anyway. How fast is too fast? Will we blow up towards the end? I have no clue. In hindsight we could have gone faster maybe, but we’re ridiculously consistent and I feel it’s a good indicator of a pace we could have probably kept indefinitely.

As we approach the 45minute mark I notice I have to kick it up a notch.

“Did you speed up the last 100m”, I ask?
“Of course…”

I knew I asked the right person.

I text my coach the results. 2200m.

The answer is almost instantaneous: Nice. Beautiful starting point.

I notice I am genuinely confused at this reply. My brain is spewing thoughts like: “Is he just saying that to be nice? Or does he really mean it?”.
Until it hits me.
I was expecting something negative. Something to confirm that I should have gone faster. That this wasn’t going to cut it. That I was an idiot for even wanting to take on a challenge like the Channel. That I might be infatuated with the idea of swimming the Channel but that my numbers clearly show that I am in no way willing to put in the actual work.
Something, in short, to say that I am mediocre. A middle lane swimmer.
Mediocre, lazy, rickety swimmers prone to shoulder injuries don’t swim the Channel.

That’s how sneaky beliefs can be. You work on them and work on them and then a little thing like your reaction to a text message lets you know you have some more work to do.