I am late. Despite leaving London at 6.45am on a Sunday morning, I run slap into a tailback following an accident on the A2. This is my first swim in Dover, and more importantly my first swim with the famous (if you're a swimming nerd) Dover Training Group. Their website is quite clear: in the water at 9am, be there for the briefing well before that. I also still need to fill out paperwork to actually join the group.
I curse the traffic, but as the road crests the hilltop above Dover, I suddenly see the port, the ferries coming and going, the harbour wall, and beyond it... the Channel itself. This is the first time I've been to Dover since getting myself into this, and now seeing it spread out before me, it's both terrifying and thrilling. I'm tired, have a stinking cold and didn't get any sleep last night, but for some reason I can't stop grinning.
The swimmers beach. Most swimmers do giant 'lengths' from this point to the harbour wall (centre of picture), staying between the red pole markers, and the line of yellow buoys just visible further out...
The Dover Training Group started in 1982 when a young Alison Streeter (now Alison Streeter MBE, who with 43 crossings holds the outright record for prolific channel swimming) was training for the channel but found herself without a coach. Her mother Freda took over, and just a few swimmers then grew over the years to a membership of hundreds. Freda, who became known as the 'Channel General', finally retired from her beach duty in 2016, and others - all still volunteers, with every swimmer expected to pitch in during the season - have now taken up her mantle. The Dover Training Group is where many, if not most Channel aspirants come to swim and learn from each other. It's not just a training group, it's a rite-of-passage.
After some very quick form-filling, John the admin guru issues me with a number for the season: Red 64, and asks me to wear a red swim cap, which luckily I have brought along. The red cap denotes that I am training for a solo channel attempt; yellow caps are for those training for a relay attempt.
Pre-swim group selfie - that's me looking nervous in the bottom right hand corner, and Emma France who now runs the group in the foreground.
The Group isn't coached. There is no formal safety cover other than everyone looking out for one another, and this is not a place to learn to swim properly. What DOES happen is that each session, the powers that be on the row of folding chairs at the back of the beach will 'suggest' a duration for your swim that day, 'encourage' you to stick to it, and when the swims get longer (up to 7 hours typically) will feed you periodically from the shallows.
Note the emphasis on duration, not distance.
Although of course faster is still better, those who understand channel swimming (and 'ultra' swimming in general) know that getting across is about much more than how fast you can go in the pool, and that so much of what makes it hard - the cold, the tide, the sea conditions - is completely outside your control. Channel swimming is a war of attrition, a staring contest with the sea; those who will win are those who can last. Sticking with it is what counts.
About to get in (and thinking wistfully of a Full English aboard that ferry...)
I am quizzed by Emma France, who now runs the group, on what I've done so far. How long have I swum, at what temperature, how recently, and how many times? She thinks for a moment, and then suggests a shortish 90-minutes for my first dip. I think this is about average for what is being done today - it is after all still quite chilly, with the sea temperature hovering around 12 degrees.
A quick group-selfie, and all of a sudden everyone is off down the shingle towards the water's edge. A few metres back, a neat row of Crocs and flip-flops forms, reminding me of a commuter station car-park. I'm chatting with another swimmer as we wade in, and am pleased that all the cold-water training is paying off - it really doesn't feel that bad. A few seconds to bob around and acclimatise, a few more of breast-stroke just because, and then I'm off.
They weren't kidding about the murky water in the harbour. With my arm extended at the front of my stroke, I can't even see my elbow, never mind my hand. But the view as I roll up to breathe is AWESOME. The sun is starting to come out, ferries come and go, seagulls swoop and skim the surface of the water (I had never considered a swim-cap as protection from Gull poo, but now realise this is an added benefit).
More exciting than anything though, is the view of the sea beyond the harbour wall. Less than two months from now, I'll be heading out there, to the lonely sea and the sky. All of a sudden I understand much better why I'm doing this. This isn't just a challenge; it's an adventure.
Fresh out of the water - and super happy :-)
Nothing can break my mood today. Even when I experience swimming against the wind and currents near the harbour wall - known as the Washing Machine - I find myself enjoying the fight. When after three trips to the harbour wall and back, I swim in to the beach, I'm a bit worried that only an hour might have passed; but to my surprise I've been swimming for almost two. The simple 'well done' from the volunteer who checks me back out of the water means a lot.
In a world where even amateur sport seems to have become overrun by commercial interests, where every tin-pot triathlon costs an arm-and-a-leg to enter, and it's 'essential' to have your running gait analysed before your first 10k, there is something very lovely about the Dover Training Group. From the moment I arrived, everyone was keen to introduce themselves, those with experience to ask if they could help by sharing their knowledge, and those without to simply share in that heady mix of excitement, fear, and a spot of anti-chafing Vaseline.
This is a group of people with seemingly little interest in times, speeds, gear or who won. They understand that in channel swimming, in sport, in life, the struggle matters far more than the outcome, and that what makes the struggle sweet is to share it.
Thanks to them, I'm on my way.