Bad weather aborts first swim

I have just arrived back in England after a torturous 10 days in Ireland waiting to swim to Scotland. The swim never got to take place as the weather was terrible every single day. By terrible I mean 12 ft waves and 30mph winds every day which not even the strongest swimmer in the world could break through. After the glorious weather and sea conditions of early August I was devastated at having such terrible conditions every day.

For any channel swim the swimmer is given a tidal window of about a week where they must be prepared to swim every day at short notice so I was hopeful each evening that the next day would be better. The decision to swim is firmly with the boat team as they know the seas and tides the best and unfortunately my time never came. It is one of those things which makes the North Channel such a formidable challenge.

I prayed every night that the weather would improve and I would psych myself up mentally every evening ready to swim the next morning but conditions remained dreadful and each morning I received a call to say we were not swimming. These mental gymnastics of being full of adrenalin every evening thinking I was about to swim only to be deflated the next day took a heavier toll on me than all the training combined and I felt broken by the end of the week.

I have not been defeated though and I have a second chance to fulfil my dream next week! I have secured a back up slot so will be flying out to Ireland again to play the waiting game and this time hopefully I will get to swim and put the past 2 years training to good use. Only time will tell and the outcome lies 100% with the ocean.