It’s been nearly 8 hours since I crawled onto the rocks of Cap Gris-Nez, and I can still barely believe I swam from England to France.  Only the pain wracking every fiber of my body makes it real – the good kind of pain, the sort of pain that makes you realize you took your body as far as it was able to go, and then kept going until getting the job done.  I tried to stand up on the rocks, and after a split second of attaining vertical, ended up toppling over, slicing my both knees and scraping both palms…at which point I ended up clinging to a large rock like a drugged Little Mermaid until Neal and Karri, who swam the last 200m to France with me, pried me off for the limp back to the boat.

It was truly an absolutely mind-blowing day.  I barely know where to begin.

I think it would be fun to give a voice to some of the other people involved – after all, I never could have done this without them.  Over the next couple of days, I’ll give a more detailed account.  For the moment, however, I apologize:  I will have to leave you with a summary as my mind and body are on the way to total shut-down mode.

Sleep last night:  3 hours total.  My mom and Karri were the same – we were all way too wound up!  We were out of bed at 4am sharp, at the marina at 5 to 5, and I jumped in to swim to Shakespeare Beach for the start at 5 to 6.

Heroes of the day:  Karri and Mom.  After one in-service last night, during which Karri took detailed notes, they single-handedly performed all the duties of my support crew with seamless precision.  It was as though the two of them had crewed millions of Channel crossings, even though it was their first one!  No way in the universe I would have been successful without them.

Best pilot EVER:  Paul Foreman.  Wow.  What a guy.  He REALLY cares.  Apart from plotting an amazing course for me, actually landing me on Cap Gris-Nez, he cheered me on, clapped, made me laugh, and intervened right at the moment when a panic attack loomed immediately in front of me.  The guy saved my swim.  If you plan to swim the Channel in the future, book this dude.  He rocks.  (So does his boat, the Pace Arrow).

Best official EVER:  Michelle (last name unfortunately unknown).  She gets a wow of her own!  She was so perky, motiviating, reassuring, and helpful – she did her job as an official but made me feel like she was on my side.  And she carried a lot of our crap to and from the boat – totally above and beyond.

Most motivating moment:  The arrival of Daddy, Old Grand Dad, Neal, and Brian, a friend of ours.  Just when I was thinking I couldn’t go on, the boat ferrying them out to us arrived!  I was like, dude, they just got here, you can’t quit now!  Not after the crazy/hectic/stressful time they went through to catch the end of your swim!  Suck it up!  They were stopped from getting on board our boat, but stayed right beside us to the very end.

Final time:  8 hours and 33 minutes.

Pilot critique:  My feeding schedule is all wrong, and I probably cost myself over 30 minutes purely due to feeds (he thinks I’d have been under 8 hours had my feedings been faster).

So that’s the short version…more in the coming days (if you want to know more, no pressure if you don’t).  Also pictures and a slide show.

THANK YOU all so much for your support!  I will be echoing this sentiment, but really, you guys played a huge part in my swim today.  I kept thinking about all the notes, emails, comments, facebook posts, passing good luck wishes, and calls of support whenever I started to doubt myself.  I literally went through the names of every single person who has even once said something supportive to me – and it amazed me.  I thought, if all of these people believe in you, why would you ever doubt yourself?  They know you can do it – don’t let them down!  I am so, so very grateful to all of you.

I had an awesome swim today! I decided last weekend that before setting off for England, I wanted to do one more longish swim in the Bay. When deciding a course, these were my requirements:

1. Must be something cool, preferably with a defined “start” and “end” point. Not just “I’m going to swim along the waterfront for X hours and then back X hours.” No no no. Needs to be something more inspiring than that.
2. Should be 2-3 hours long (since I’m going to be swimming 25 miles 6-12 days from now, I didn’t want to do anything too crazy).
3. Cold water required (not like I”d have a problem finding lots of cold water around here! I just had that in my head since Maui was so warm).

I checked the tide log on Thursday and got really excited. Between 8am and 1pm on Saturday, there was going to be a big flood! If I were to swim away from the Golden Gate Bridge and into the South Bay, I’d get a nice push the whole way.

Know what’s 10 miles along the water front to the south of the Dolphin Club? Candlestick Park, home of the 49′ers. I’d already been to AT&T park a couple of times, where the Giants play. Why not visit the stomping grounds of San Francisco’s other major sports team? This sounded perfect!

So at 9am this morning, I jumped into the water with Neal in a zodiac alongside me and set off toward Candlestick Park. The flood was really hauling – I was embarrassingly slow fighting it to get to the opening! But once I got outside the cove, I really started to fly. I decided, then, that I was going to scrap my original plan of mimicking my Channel feeding tactics. I was going to push the first 3 miles, feed, then abstain from GU or liquid for the rest of the swim. My thought was that by not feeding for 2 hours after swimming a pretty hard 3 miles, I’d get more tired faster. Sure, I’d break down a bit. But I have plenty of time to replenish, and I kind of wanted to feel the sensation of being hungry, tired, and sore and still force myself to swim hard. I figured it would reinforce my confidence in my mental toughness were I to feel like I’d been in the water longer than 3 hours by the end and still keep swimming fast.

(Frankly, it’s probably silly of me to feel the need to “test” myself. But I’ve always been like this, and if a confidence booster is what’s needed, then that’s what I’d go after.)

I hit the 3 mile mark in under 50 minutes! Swimming down that flood felt sooo good. I proceeded to annoy the heck out of Neal when I refused the next 4 feedings he desperately encouraged me to get down my throat – I hadn’t shared my little change of plans because, in all honesty, I knew I was being a tad bit crazy. “Act first, apologize later,” I thought to myself guiltily.

Sure enough, as I passed by really cool industrial scenery I’d never before seen, my arms started to tighten up, my stomach started to rumble, and my hip flexors knotted up painfully. Still, I kept my turnover stable and pulled hard, smiling reassuringly at Neal every now and then. I did pause to take a quick rest and stretch out my back and hips a couple of times, though.

Neal found us a nice stretch of beach to land on in Candlestick Park. I finished the 10 miles in just under 3 hours, and I was very happy. I wasn’t cold, I felt fine to keep going, and I was stoked to have done such a cool swim!

We motored back to the Club, stopping for lunch at a bayside restaurant on the way (I was starving). What a great way to spend my last weekend before Dover!