We made excellent progress as I swam anti-clockwise around the
Island. There are two main tidal gates (the
point at which the tide turns and changes to the opposite direction); one at
The Needles and one at Bembridge. To be
able to get round as quickly as possible I needed to pass through these tidal
gates before the tide turned, otherwise the swim would be impossible or very long.
I had planned where I expected to be at various
points around the island so that the crew could determine if I was making progress
at the right pace. This was a
combination of my swim pace and the expected tidal flow. As we reached Cowes and our life guard escort
arrived to get me safely across the harbour entrance, it was clear we were
making good progress. In fact I was slightly
ahead of plan, even though the swell was starting to build making the swimming
much harder.
These challenges are about the physical and mental ability
but they’re also about the ability to take on the right amount of nutrition. Although I had opted to wear a wetsuit to
give me any chance of having the energy to complete the bike and run laps, in
all other regard I was following Channel swimming rules – no touching the boat,
getting out of the water or being touched by any of the crew throughout the
swim. This meant my feeds of warm carbohydrate
drink and a variety of solids (nut mix, energy oat mix, gels etc) were given to
be from a fishing net, so that I wouldn’t have to reach up to the boat or swim
any further than needed.
I continued to make good progress as we approached The Needles
as the tidal flow picked up pace. In
fact it had picked up a bit too much, I was in danger of being swept past The
Needles and out to sea. I had to turn and
swim straight in towards the shoreline to cut across the tidal flow, but I was still
getting carried at fast pace in the wrong direction. Fortunately we had planned for this because
we’d experienced it on a previous training swim and the crew had positioned me
in a good place, as the Needles quickly approached I was making ground in the right
direction. At the point I needed to
cross through to the other side of the rock formation, the water was churning
up, making it tough to get through, especially because there are rocks close to
the surface which I had to avoid. Safely
guided through to the other side I rolled onto my back and looked back at the
iconic rock formation and smiled, I was half way through the swim and had just threaded
The Needles which was a very cool experience.
Half way in distance, but not in time…thankfully I had no
idea how long the rest of the swim would take.
I was still just about on track by the time we made it past Fresh Water Bay,
but I could tell that we weren’t moving as quickly as expected. St Cat’s lighthouse sits on the southern tip
of the Isle of Wight, making it a prominent landmark which is great as a navigational
point. However, it didn’t feel like it
was getting any closer. As the sun
started to set I knew we didn’t have the expected current to give me the extra
push I needed to make the next tidal gate before the tide turned. Graham, Rich, James and Russ were all upbeat
and didn’t focus on the negatives. They continued
to feed me, keeping the mood light, but I could tell there was an edge of
concern.
By nightfall we had reached St
Cat’s point, well behind schedule, even though the tidal flow had picked up. There was a key decision point to made here, keep
close to the shore in the knowledge that we weren’t going to make it before the
tide turned or swim far out to get as much of the remaining tide as possible. We opted for the latter, which turned out not
to be the best option. At my next feed
stop Graham said that he needed me to swim as hard as possible towards the shore
for 30 minutes, otherwise I risked being swept out into The Channel. I gave it almost everything I had, surprised
that I was actually able to increase the pace.
At the next feed stop, the message was the same, another 30 minutes of
power. I could see the lights at
Shanklin that we were aiming for, but at the next stop I saw that we had drifted
further south towards the open sea. Another
20 minutes Russ and Graham shouted, get into the cover of the shore and then
you can take it easier. I was exhausted
by this point, but I also didn’t want to be going backwards in the open sea in
the pitch black. I have no idea how much
longer it took, but I made it into the relative shelter just north of Sandown Bay. This is where I would spend the next 6 hours,
swimming on the spot. I couldn’t see a
thing, I was swimming next to a sheer cliff face, the lights of Shanklin were
far in the distance, offering no benefit.
The waves had started to pick up too, so I was getting battered from the
side with waves pushing me towards the shore, whilst I was trying to swim straight.
I was making a little ground when James pointed out there was a submerge groyne
close ahead and we didn’t know how deep it was.
I was worried about swimming into it or over it and getting stuck, so I
eased up on my pace whenever we made it close.
I needn’t have bothered because there was no way I was going to make the
50m distance with the tide pushing me back.
As I was forced back I got pushed into a bank of rocks I hadn’t realised
were there, cutting my hands and feet as I tried to swim away. This happened multiple times through the
night because I had no idea where I was in relation to the rocks.
James and Rich took 2 hour stints
paddling next to me in the kayak and trying to keep my spirits as high as they
could, even though they were struggling as much as I was with the waves and
tide. This is the closest I came to giving
up, after I hit the rocks for the first time.
Despite the wetsuit I was freezing and shivering, I was so tired and
swimming in the dark is pretty disconcerting when I knew there rocks lurking
nearby, not to mention the sea monsters my mind was conjuring up. It was a comment from Rich about an hour in,
he said I reckon you’ll break through the tide in 40 minutes or so. That gave me hope, and I thought I can
handle this for another 40. Then he swapped
out with James for another couple of hours and when he came back he said 40-50
minutes I reckon you’ll get past this.
At that point I realised what he’d done, but it got me through, I’d
already done a few hours of going nowhere, I wasn’t going to give up now with
those miserable hours already under my
belt. I knew it had to change at some point.
Very slowly, I could see the sky starting to lighten. The promise of sunrise was a distinct sign
that time was moving forwards and if I could just keep going a bit longer, I
would break out of purgatory and make good progress with the turning tide in my
favour to woosh around to the finish. Once
again…I was wrong.
By the time the sun was poking above the sea I had made it past the groyne and could see Shanklin seafront passing by, this was a good sign. Rich guided me safely away from the shore into deeper waters where we expect the tide to be at its strongest. The issue, however, is that the wind had picked up and uncharacteristically was an easterly, which meant wind against tide…which meant…big waves. I was getting smashed in the face, I’d take a stroke and the sea would disappear as a wave reared up or I’d go to land my hand only to have a wave crash into it. I’d go to breath only to get a mouthful of seawater, making my stomach turn and an urge to retch. At feed stops I was actively trying to avoid eating anything, I couldn’t really swallow properly because my throat and tongue were swollen, but Russ insisted that I eat something as well as drink the carbo drink. It became harder to actually get the feeds. James had had to abandon the kayak because he wasn’t able to make progress against the waves, so I was feeding from the RIB, which was dangerous in the swell as it reared up and crashed down with the waves.
The cliff face at Culver Down seemed
to sit in the distance forever, at one point I felt that I was going backwards. I was trying not to despair, I’d been in the
water for almost 20 hours by this point and I wasn’t going forwards. I was seriously worried that it was getting
too dangerous to continue. I found out later
that both the yacht and the RIB had almost hit a submerged rock which had previously
sunk boats in the past. Eventually I
made it round the corner and only had to swim round Bembridge before turning to
the home stretch. The waves died down a
bit and I made good progress to the corner, but then we got stuck going nowhere
for another hour or so. I was getting
frustrated because we should have had the tide with us for hours by this point,
I worried that I wouldn’t get around and the tide might even turn against us
pushing me backwards again. After what felt
like an eternity I made it round the corner and into the relative shelter of
the Solent where the water was much calmer, but still no flow to boost me.
I could clearly see the sea floor
beneath me for the first time in ages, which helped that I could see that I was
making progress in the right direction.
Although, I realised that I had started to hallucinate, I thought there
were masses of crabs fighting on the seabed, but on closer inspection they were
just rocks, but they would continue to morph into combating crabs as I swam.
At last, I heard what I had been waiting for, for the last 10 hours…last feed. This meant I was close to the finish, I could see Seaview sailing club, I could even make out people on the slipway. I put my head down and swam as fast as I could, which actually wasn’t that fast by this point. I poked my head up to see how much further, I heard a cheer go up from the people waiting. I was so close, and then in the last few hundred metres, when it didn’t matter anymore, the current picked up. In fact there was now a danger that I could get swept past, but that thought disappeared as I saw the slipway appear beneath me. I reached out and touched solid ground. I managed to get my feet under me, but struggled to stand up. Russ and Nick came to give me a hand, but I wanted to get above the water level on my own. I staggered but managed to get to my feet and clear of the water. I had done it in a time of 25 hours and 59 minutes, about 10 hours longer than I had hoped.
As I hugged my crew and family tears streamed down my face, and theirs. We were all so happy to have completed this challenge, it had been far more gruelling for everyone than any of us has expected. There were people all around the sailing club cheering me and offering congratulations, it felt so surreal. I noticed I was still hallucinating when I thought a wave was the fin of dolphin.
I had pretty much decided, in the
middle of the night and as I got to the final straight of the swim that there
was no way I was going to be able to do the cycle, let alone the run. But, as my crew and everyone there congratulated
me they also wished me luck for the next part of the challenge. I was thinking to myself I’ve just been through
a hell of a swim, I cannot do any more.
I saw Matt, who had come down to support me for the ride, he’d woken in
the middle of the night to get to the island in time for our expected start time
of around 6am, however due to the length of the swim he’d had to wait much longer. I couldn’t let him or the others down. So, I had a warm shower which was heaven, I tried
to eat and drink something, but it came straight back up. This was actually a good thing, I cleared my
stomach of the all that seawater and felt much better. I was whisked back to our base. Working backwards from when I wanted to be
back from the ride, before dark, I decided I had time for an hour and a half
sleep. When I woke to my alarm, I felt
better and worse, but I got out of bed and started moving. Albeit in slow motion, as I tried to get my
kit and food together, finally around 3pm we started lap 2.
I was surprised that I was able
to sit on the bike and not feel too shaky.
I set a medium pace, I didn’t want the ride to take any longer than it
needed to, but also had to be conscious that I was already exhausted and had
another lap to go after this one.
Fortunately, Matt was excellent company and the first half of the island
disappeared with relative ease, there were some hills to climb which took a lot
out of me, but I was able to recoup on the flats. I still wasn’t keen on eating too much, but
found a very happy medium, ice cream. It
was perfect, helped calm my mouth and throat, easy to consume and high in
calories. At the feed stops, Ed who was supporting
in his VW Camper, would produce magnum ice creams…it was the perfect fuel.
At the half way point I was still
feeling reasonably good, but I knew we had the toughest part to come, there were
some of big hills to climb and we had a head wind to contend with all the way
back. In my mind I was starting to
question why I was even doing this, what was the point of it all, but as we came
to the top of a long climb a motorcyclist pulled alongside us. ‘Are you Matt Dawson?’ I said yes and he told me that he’d ridden
all the way from Cowes (about 40km) to catch up with us and wish me luck. That was exactly what I needed to reignite my
motivation. It was nice to know that people
were following my progress and keen for me to do well.
The beautiful weather continued
to hold and the ride went without incident. St Cat’s lighthouse was once again
the focus of my attention. I knew that
this was the penultimate big climb and I really wasn’t looking forward to it. By the time we started the ascent I had
retreated into myself a bit, the tiredness and fatigue hitting me at the worst
time. It was getting late in the day and
the sun was starting to go down, we had less than an hour of daylight left and well
over 3 hours until the end. My circadian
rhythm was kicking in, with the sun setting my body was telling me it was time
to go to bed, to be fair it had been telling me that for the last 24 hours.
Ed and my family met us at various points along the way to provide much needed food and motivation to keep going. I was starting to feel hungry and could actually stomach pasta which was much needed fuel. Other than almost falling off the bike because I wasn’t paying attention to the road and cycled into the curb, the rest of the journey passed uneventfully. We did have the slight issue that we only had Matt’s front light to guide us through the dark, because I’d forgotten mine. Some of the country roads were pitch black so we had to stay close. I had visions of me cycling into a pot hole and doing myself some serious damage, luckily we avoided mishap.
Even though this was the ‘easy’
lap, it seemed to go on and on. It
seemed like every time we turned a corner there was another hill to climb. The last few kilometres just wouldn’t end. And then, I saw a sign for Seaview and we free
wheeled down the final hill to the coast and my end point. Even late on a Sunday evening people had
gathered and were running out of their houses to greet us at the end, to
congratulate us and cheer me on for the next lap.
I was absolutely exhausted and needed to get a few hours sleep before considering starting the run. I thanked Matt and he was whisked off to get his ferry home and I was taken to the house to have a quick bite to eat and get a whopping three hours sleep. I wanted to leave on the run as early as possible because I wanted to avoid going into a third night, but I also knew I had to get some sleep.
When the alarm went off at 1am the
last thing I wanted to do was get out of bed and get going. But, I knew I had to get going. I forced myself out of bed, fumbled around looking
for my running gear and kit. It took almost
an hour to get ready, I was moving in slow motion and I was hungry. Eventually I was ready to go and Russ and I
headed out into the night.
My plan had been to run/ walk the
whole way around the island, but as we started eastward it was clear to me that
there was going to be very little running.
Instead, I had calculated that if we could do a fast march we should easily
be able to keep a pace of 5km per hour and get us around in about 20
hours. It wasn’t going to set any speed records,
but at least we’d get round in time for a good nights sleep. Once again…I was wrong, very wrong.
Russ was excellent company and we
chatted non-stop, we relived the swim and it was interesting to hear about if
from his point of view. I hadn’t realised
how tough it had been for the RIB and the kayakers during the night when I was
stuck going nowhere. The rocks had been bad
for me, but for the others they had had their own challenges to deal with.
We made good progress around the north of the island, the views were stunning, especially as the sun came up as we arrived in Cowes. We got into a pretty good rhythm doing two hour sections and then meeting up with Ed for food and topping up drinks. My appetite had come back in full force, I was constantly hungry and eating loads at each stop, as well as snacking along the route.
With the sun rising I felt more awake and a lot less fatigued which helped me stay positive as we slowly ticked off the kilometres. Russ started struggling with his feet, he was getting blisters which was slowing him down. He tried changing shoes and socks and different plaster options, but nothing really worked. He carried on regardless, matching my pace as we made our way along the coastline and the climb up to the top of the Needles. Every time we had a tough climb we were rewarded with a stunning view. By the time we made it to the top of The Needles it was clear this was not going to be done in 20 hours, it had taken us over 13 hours to get there and we knew the return section was going to be the toughest especially going deep into the next night. We tried to keep our spirits up but we were both worried about just how far we had left to go and that a big part of it would be in the dark.
Following the coastal path around
the Isle of Wight can be quite dangerous in places, there has been serious coastal
erosion and big chunks of the cliff have just fallen into the sea, and with it
the coastal path. It looked as though the
ground beneath our feet could give way at any point in some places, coupled
with this was the issue that in areas the path ran very close to a sheer drop
into the sea beneath us. In the daylight
it was easy to avoid tricky spots but in the dark it was harder to see where
the land disappeared into nothing. Once
night was well and truly on us, the only light we could see was from our headtorches
and the ships out at sea, and so the navigation became tricker. For the third time St Cat’s lighthouse loomed
in the distance, never seeming to get any closer, but it did help to give us
the rough direction. We had a few difficult
moments where the coastal path was closed and we had to divert to the main road,
with no pavement and nutters speeding along at ridiculous speeds we opted to
get back to the relative safety of the path whenever we could.
The long climb up to St Cat’s was
punctuated with a well deserved feed stop. I stuffed my face with a masses of pasta and chocolate. The trick on the these stops was to try not
to hang around too long, although it was hard not to. Once we’d sat down to eat the thought of getting
up to start again became harder and harder. But one of us would get up and gee
the other along, the longer we weren’t moving the longer away the finish would
be. Saying farewell to the family and Ed, we headed into the pitch black.
The night time seemed to go on
forever, and this is where we had the most issues with closed footpaths. We would follow our planned route down to the
coastal path only to find it closed or re-routed a longer way around. I lost count of the number of times we had to
find another way around. And just when I
thought I couldn’t get any more annoyed, whilst walking along an esplanade, a
wave crashed over the top soaking my feet and shoes. The thing you have to protect throughout any
sort of endurance run/ hike is your feet.
Keep them free from sand and grit, address hot-spots (areas where blisters
are about to form) as soon as you feel them and, the number one rule…keep your
feet dry! Initially I was really pissed
off, my feet had been ok for most of the
way to this point, other than a couple of plasters to prevent blisters I was fine. This soaking threatened that, but there was
nothing I could do about it. We weren’t in
a place where I could call Ed to come and meet us so I could change socks and
shoes, so I just had to get on with it.
The whole night was disrupted with these routing issues and they started
to take their toll. Both Russ and I had
stopped talking, I made half hearted attempts to start conversations or give me
your top 10 whatevers, but hearts weren’t in it.
We were thoroughly drained, the tank was empty, but we still had a long
way to go. By the time we got to Sandown
we were both staggering like drunk people, unable to walk in a straight
line. My eyes kept crossing and then
closing with tiredness. At one point I
tried to walk with my eyes closed, but gave up on that when I almost fell into
the sea. As the sun came up on my third
day Ed and my family we were waiting at the end of the esplanade and the expression
on their faces when they saw us showed just how bad we looked. We stopped for just a couple of minutes, we had
to keep going, to stop now would have been impossible to get going again.
I was expecting another boost
from the sun coming up, but it didn’t come.
I just felt worse and worse, and then I started to feel silly-drunk and
Russ and I had a bit of a laugh as we climbed up to Culver Down monument. This silliness helped us to get through a
tough incline. When we got to the top we
turned to look back the way we had come, whilst the finish line didn’t feel as
though it was getting any closer, looking back showed us just how far we had
come. We had hit the 100km mark, just
8km to go (although with all the detours it ended up being another 12km to
go). From the top of Culver Down, we
could see Bembridge Ledge in the distance, this was the turning point where we
would head into the home stretch. The going
was slow because we were walking through fields and steep paths, and when we
thought we were about to get onto the last stretch before we saw the crew one
more time, we had another path closure and were one again rerouted a longer way
around. The walk to the feed stop was
less than 2km away but the road seemed to go on forever, our previous fatigue had
come crashing back in full force. When
we finally staggered into the meeting point we sat down and stuff as much food
as we could in, anything to boost the energy.
As we set off we were joined by Al and his wife, a friend of a friend
who lived on the island. It was so good
to have someone else to talk to, Russ and I had fallen into companionable silence,
but it wasn’t helping to pass the time.
The next 3km whizzed pass as I chatted with Al and Russ with his
wife. It was just what we needed.
The sun was high in the sky as we crossed Bembridge harbour along The Causeway where we had our final pit stop. Again this was a quick one, top up some water and then just get going. My son decided to join Russ and I for the last few KMs to the end, again it was a welcome change to have Jack with us. We wended our way through the last few tracks and streets until we were within a few hundred metres from the end. It seemed right to jog in the last bit, so we dug deep and ran along the seafront with people shouting encouragement from their houses, as we approached the end point a cheer went up from the waiting crowd. I touched the Seaview Sailing Club sign and dropped to the floor, tears once again spilling down my cheeks…it was over. I had done it.
Prior to my swim only 6 people
had previously swam around the Isle of Wight (4 non-wetsuit and 2 with wetsuit). I was now the 7th, but the only
person to follow that up with a cycle lap and then a run lap. In total my Tr’Isle of Wight had taken 73 hours
and 21 minutes, significantly longer
than I hoped, but at one point I didn’t event think I was going to be able to
finish the swim, so I’ll take that!
I could not have completed this challenge without the support of my amazing crew, during the training and logistics planning as well as during the event itself. A massive thanks goes to Nick, Trish, Graham, Rich, Jimbo, Russ, Ed, Matt, Dutch, Chrissie, Bruce and of course my family Mel, Jack and Ellasofia.
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