We successfully completed the challenge on 20 August. Our time was 11 hours 35 minutes. We are ecstatic!! 

For the last 18 months we have been training hard to prepare us for our relay across the English Channel. We’ll set off from somewhere near Dover on 18 August or soon after depending on weather and tides. 

The training journey has been scary, tiring, painful and at times unbearable. But equally it has afforded us laughter, confidence, fitness, courage and togetherness. We’ve found out more about ourselves than we wanted! 

We’ve had various goal posts to reach along the way.  We built up our core fitness with regular pool sessions following a strict plan. Over winter we did fortnightly dips in skins in water under 10 degrees. As the spring came we began developing tolerance for the unforgiving cold open water temperatures. We completed our 2 hour qualifier swims in May in 15 degrees water. We’ve done 3 relay swims covering the distance of the channel (2 of these were over night in darkness). Last week we surpassed our expectations and each swam 11km or more in open water with only short breaks to refuel. We started as a team of 3 but we’ve recently added a team member to alleviate some of the pressure. Dave Quartermain our coach from Uswim is the 4th member of Team Foxtrot. 

We’re anticipating that we will each swim 4-5 hours. We aren’t allowed the luxury of wearing a wetsuit. We will swim for an hour at a time and rotate until we reach French soil/ sand.

We’ve thought long and hard about which charity,  if any, we’d raise money for and we’re delighted with our choice. Be assured we have covered all expenses for the actual swim and the training ourselves so everything you donate will go straight to the charity. We really want to support Level Water. They are a great charity who enable children with disabilities to gain confidence and skills through 1.1 swimming lessons. £5000 will enable 20 children to have 1.1 swimming lessons for a whole year. 

Please donate what you can to give young people with disabilities the opportunity to take pride, health, esteem and pleasure from swimming the way we do!