Dover training break

There's been a bit of a change of plans. I was planning to go on a training camp to Cork. However, given a string of illnesses and injuries between January - May, I am a long way behind where I planned to be in my training at this point and the thought of swimming in water that is colder than Dover no longer seemed to be the best option for me to catch up.

Instead I chose to swim in Dover for 2.5 weeks and be a beach bum!!

I had the most fantastic time, by the end of the 2 weeks I didn't want to leave. Although this wasn't an organised training camp, I was amongst other swimmers also training for their channel swims. Some of the people I met along the way were: Rick Selway (Australia); Michelle Macy (USA); Steve & Jenny (Australia); Ramsas (USA); Boris (USA); and Zahra (Malaysia). We were all training for the same thing - a solo shot at the channel. Most were in Dover for a short while just before their attempts, with others in town for a little longer.

I went to the beach every day, normally around 10am ish, although I didn't swim every day. Louise & Michelle were also there when they could be, which really helped as they would look after our bags and help feed us.

After the swim we'd normally hang out on the beach, chilling and sunbathing. What a life!! A few times we went out for dinner, great food, great company - simply a great time. I haven't laughed as much for a very long time.

The first week or so of training went very well with some swims that felt just fantastic. During this time I also changed the feed that I use which also helped a lot. At this point if I was given the opportunity to swim tomorrow I would have snapped up the opportunity. They my shoulders became problematic and this hampered the amount of training that I did and un-did the positive mental training too.

My challenge now is to push up the training without causing major shoulder injury and to get back to the place I was mentally. However, this was definitely a great idea and I absolutely loved my time in Dover, I'd go back in an instant.