UPDATE - we did it!! We made it across in 15h23m and have raised over £30k as a team for Aspire.

THE SWIM

We are a team of parents whose children all go to the same school in Cranbrook, Kent and we are taking on The English Channel this weekend on Saturday 8 August! It's brutal, cold and one of the toughest swims in the world you can do! The team is Chris Lovett, Andrew Harrow, Adam Warmington, Jof Straker-Roberts and Bruce Garrow.

The English Channel is 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, but we will be battling the tides, current and shipping lanes, so will be swimming much, much further than that (potentially up to 30 miles). The rules of channel swimming are strict, we must have one swimmer in the water at all times, with no assistance available other than the pilot boat, and we will be swimming day and night. No wetsuits are allowed, which means we will be swimming in cold water in just our speedos and making friends with the jellyfish. We’re aiming to complete the crossing in around 18+ hours, which will mean multiple swim legs per person until we reach France.

We are swimming to raise over £12k as a team for Aspire. Every four hours someone is paralysed by Spinal Cord Injury and Aspire provides the essential equipment, advice and housing, plus assistive technologies to allow people with spinal cord injuries to live their lives independently. Please be as generous as you can with your sponsorship no matter how big or small, the more we can raise, the more of a difference it will make.

TRAINING UPDATE

4 AUG - It's on! We've just been given our swim date for this Saturday 8 August. Much earlier than planned - but we are ready! Bring it on....

30 JULY - After much uncertainty over the last few months, we have been given the official 'green light' that the swim can go ahead as planned! We've had to get permission from the UK coastguard, French coastguard, Channel Swimming and Piloting Federation, our own pilot boat, as well as navigating international quarantine rules which have thankfully recently been eased. The countdown now begins - so watch this space....more to come soon!

JULY - we have a busy month coming up. Various weekend sea swims with our team coach, regular evening swims at our favourite lake, 7am swims before work at Hythe, night swims (it's more than likely we will be starting our swim in the dark), plus a 3 day swim boot camp down in Dover Harbour with some experienced solo Channel swimmers. We also have our first corporate sponsor - many thanks to Bardsley England who have agreed to provide and sponsor all of our team kit.

JUNE - after a lot of hard graft to reclaim our swim fitness, we've hit a HUGE milestone this month. We all successfully completed our 2 hour non-stop sea swim qualifier with the Channel Swimming Federation. This is a mandatory step to be allowed to even attempt the crossing. Go Team! Lots of regular sea swim training is taking place in Dover, Folkestone, Hythe and Walpole. Plus we now find ourselves in jellyfish season - ouch.

MAY - now that lockdown restrictions have eased, we have managed to get access to a local private lake and have started 'socially distant swimming' (a massive thankyou to Matthew & Gayle). Fresh water at this time of the year is colder than the sea, so it's been some fantastic cold water practice. Remember - no wetsuits allowed! We've also been swimming at the sea in Walpole to build our resilience to the cold.

LOCKDOWN - with the closure of the pools, it's been a challenging time but we have switched to land based training and are running lots, doing HIIT sessions and perfecting our kettlebell swings at home. Core cardio is just getting better and better.

FEBRUARY & MARCH - swimming, swimming, swimming. "ALL we do is swimming", is the current catchphrase in the team! We are hitting the pool 4-5 times per week to perfect our technique. The wonderfully talented Bethany Straker has also very kindly designed our fantastic team logo.

JANUARY - we've now had the official 'green light' from Aspire that we have passed all of their rigorous swim test and selection criteria. Regular swim training has now started and we've had a few cold water sea dips to begin building up our cold water resilience - the sea was an arctic 9C!