Greetings from Croatia!! Apologies for the delayed blog as I’ve been a little busy whizzing around on this boat supporting swimmers on this idyllic island. I have been keeping tabs on things in Dover and in the channel too, you’re always with me, even if I’m not with you.

Your pod leaders’ observations

Last week was a strange week. We’ve had successes to celebrate and some people not make it across. To me it seemed to be a very weird week. There were people who should have got across that didn’t and some who should have got across quicker than they did.

It’s so tough. Sometimes the channel just doesn’t let you across, seemingly with no rhyme or reason. It’s not fair, it just is what it is sometimes.

My Paddlefish Ponderings ponder on not succeeding this week.

Despite that though, training continues. As do the impressive performances.

Shout outs (training)

This week I’d like to give a shout out to:

• Martin Grey & Sophie Smith for their 7 & 6 weekend

• Suzanne Gough for your back to back 4s

Channel swimmer on the beach!

Swims to call out this week:

• Jeremy Whelchel for your English Channel solo on 15th September in 11 hours 21 minutes.

• The Elders for your English Channel relay including 2021DCT intensity week participants Dirk Gewert and Jacky Portingale on 15th September in a time of 16 hours 45 minutes.

• MENCAP MARVELs - Beech Hall School for your English Channel relay including 2021 DCTers Nikki Pope and Adam Leach on 15th September in a time of 11 hours 54 minutes.

• Joanna Stokoe for your English Channel solo on 16th September in a time of 15 hours 29 minutes.

• Julia Maguire for your Windermere solo

• Amelia Beaver for your English Channel solo on 17th September in a time of 14 hours 55 minutes. Danny Hanlon for your English Channel solo on 18th September in a time of 14 hours 31 minutes.

• Anita Goyos for your Jersey to France solo on 17th September in 6 hours 37 minutes

• Lucy Bessant for your Lake Bala solo

Well done to all swimmers each week, wherever you trained. We enjoy tracking you. 😊

Apologies if I missed anyone - there are a lot of swims going on all over the world!

If this week was not your week, we’re here to to chat if you want to talk it through and decide what to do next.

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who helped out this weekend. A special thanks to Mandi & Paul who ran the show enabling me to support swimmers on the SwimQuest swimming holiday.

Weekend Stats

Note: Water temperature taken during the swim session in the harbour. The lowest recorded reading is shown here. Air temperature, wind direction & wind speed taken from the Port of Dover app.

Saturday:

Swimmers:   14
Water temperature:   19.1C
Air temperature: 21.8C
Conditions:   F2 NE. Flat calm to start growing to light chop later. Sun with light cloud - glorious!

Sunday:

Swimmers:   4
Water temperature:   19.0C
Air temperature: 18.6C
Conditions:   F2 SW. Varying between calm and light chop, hazy sun.

Dates for your Diary

End of season get together

Next weekend is our final weekend of training (boo!!). Let’s finish the training season in style with a picnic on Saturday. We can have a swim in the morning, enjoy the picnic (bring your own) and perhaps play some games in the afternoon. Of course if you’re still training for an even this year, training is on as normal. Training is as usual on Sunday.

Winter chilly dips

We’re hoping to offer monthly dips through the winter. More details to come.

2022 Dover Intensity Week

Looking a bit further ahead, our 2022 intensity week will run from 6th-10th June. Will you be there? More details will be on the website in the next few weeks.

Paddlefish Ponderings: Are you failing at being a failure?

I bet that got your attention!

Failing at failing?

Yup. 

Let’s rethink what failure means

When was the last time you gave absolutely everything on a swim and it ended up being a disaster? Maybe a big event or a key training weekend?

I mean, you really went for it, put absolutely everything into creating success. You’d visualised what success would look like, feel like and what you and others would say. You gave it everything and everything was not enough on that day. Maybe you got injured or the conditions were not as forecast. I’ve even heard of ones where a member of the support crew got ill or injured or there were issues with the boat.

That’s a proper fail. I suspect there have been a few that have felt like that in the last week. Heart wrenchingly gutting.

Sometimes, our “failures” look like this:

• We write out a goal, but wary of the risk of failing, never give more than 50% effort, not fully committing, shelving the goal for a later date…

• We train some weekends but not all, or think that one day is enough. We try to balance competing demands but never really commit to anything. We don’t get sufficient rest or look after our body. Subconsciously wanting to save our ego the possibility of disappointment…

• We talk ourselves out of starting altogether. We term it a failure, but we never even take a first meaningful step.

These aren’t outright failures.

They are fades.

And they are much worse than your big, all-in failures.

The benefits of falling flat on your face

It might not seem like there is a difference here.

Fading…failing?

Sounds a little bit like we are playing word semantics.

But there is a serious difference between trying and not succeeding (failing) and not trying and not succeeding (fading).

For starters, in the examples I listed above, you don’t learn a thing from “failing” this way. 

A right and proper failure is highly instructive.

How can you learn what works, what doesn’t, what your strengths are, how fast you can improve, if you aren’t even failing properly? 

In a cruel way, it turns out you are even failing at failure! Ouch.

Secondly, fading instead of failing promotes a false narrative about failing that keeps you from fully committing to your goals. 

You don’t know what it takes to be successful because you never truly try.

Lastly, there is that whole regret thing. 

Fizzling out with your goals never provides an opportunity to see what you are capable of. 

Just another wasted opportunity that you end up regretting. 

Weeks, months, years from now, there will be the moments where you rue the missed opportunities…  I know that I’ve been there and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone else.

“I wonder ……….”

The truth about failing properly is this: 

A true, explosive failure soaks up your full effort. It requires the best of you. You give a total effort. Although it hurts at first, it makes you a better swimmer in the long run. 

Which in a way, doesn’t make it a failure at all.

Understanding that last part is key. This can allow you to take some honour in your epic fails and also encourages you to give a fuller effort in the pursuit of success. You can review what would need to have changed in order to have been successful - was there something in your preparation that could have been done differently? Or was it something truly out of your control?

Learn any lessons that need to be learned and let go of the emotion.

How about a little bit of reassurance, one study took a group of people and had them journal out what they were worried about and how often those worries came true. They found that the worries only came to pass about 9% of the time, with a quarter of the participants worries not coming to pass at all.

9% really isn’t that big and yet we focus so much attention on it. Better to have our goals go out with a whimper than risk failure, our subconscious quietly tells us.

Is it a fade or a fail?

Think back to the last time you went all-in and failed.

I don’t just mean all-in with wishful thinking, but all-in with deliberate, consistent action. 

You fully committed to training. Showed up to every training session that you could. Ate well and kept well hydrated. Slept well and took recovery seriously. Left nothing to chance.

The big day comes around, and the day of your dreams turns into the day of your nightmares.

Whether it’s freak weather, choking at the last moment, or getting injured on the day, you got slapped by the worst possible thing that could happen at the worst possible time.

Reflecting on that failure, it hurts, a lot, right? You know it. I know it. I’ve been there, many others have been there too.  

But it didn’t destroy you. 

At all. 

And if anything, there are some things you took from that big old failure that strengthened you. 

Maybe the failure hit you so hard that you re-doubled your commitment moving forward. 

Maybe you realised that you are way more resilient than you give yourself credit for, whether that was carrying on for longer than you thought you could, waiting until you were told to stop even if you wanted to stop many hours before. Maybe you endured rough conditions or jellyfish soup. Maybe you swam through pain.

Maybe, for the first time, you got a clear idea of just how much work is going to be required to crack your goal.

All things you can never truly appreciate and understand without having walked the path yourself.

Contrast this to the times where you fizzled out on your goals. When your effort quietly whimpered off into the dark. 

What did you learn from that? Did you come back better prepared? More motivated? Or did you steadily learn the habit of half-stepping your goals?

Fail like a champion. 

Now, I am not saying the goal is to purposely fail. 

The point isn’t to be a spectacular failure. Success is what we are after. Every time.

I want you to achieve the big, hairy, audacious goals you have set yourself.  

But you can’t come to terms with the work required to be successful without being okay with the risk of failure.

Part of the attraction of our sport is that it isn’t a 100% success rate, otherwise anyone could do it and you’d be able to do it regardless of your preparation. Success of any kind comes accompanied with a risk of failing. 

This seems like an easy concept, but think about the times you self-sabotaged your training, lifestyle habits, nutrition, didn’t focus on the technique needed, didn’t think about the importance of mindset, or maybe over trained and didn’t include recovery in your plan because you struggled with the thought that you might fail. 

Get comfortable with the thought you might fail, and that you are going to be okay even if it happens, and that you are better off in every way imaginable to properly fail (if it comes to that). 

And while most swimmers will say that they understand this (“I know, I know”), some still seemingly go out of their way to find ways to fizzle and fade instead of risking failure. 

So, if you failed spectacularly over this season - well done!! Be proud. You gave it your all. Learn anything you need to learn. Have a chat with us about how to adjust your plan going forwards. Learn what you need to learn and let go of the emotion.

If you sit and look at what happened and think there may be a bit of a fade in there, the best first step is to acknowledge that and decide what it is that you need to do to move on and take on the challenge with nothing held back.

See you on the beach.

Photos

A few photos from the weekend….

Spotlight in the shop

Our Class of 2021 badges have arrived!! If you haven’t yet ordered yours, now is your chance. When they’re gone, they’re gone!

The end of season sale is still on but ends soon. We’ve had a lot of interest, so if you have your eye on something, don’t delay.

Use the code CLASSOF21 to get 15% off all your goodies now.

I am still hoping to do a Class of 2021 hoodie, we’re working with an artist for the design.

Reminders

If you don’t wish to renew your membership or annual training subscription and haven’t yet been in touch, please let me know if you need any help. Subscriptions will auto-renew a year from when they started.