Time means nothing. Yet marathon swimmers, as a group of endurance athletes who more than most should know this, also consistently ignore the lesson and ask “how fast were you?” or “what was your time?“? We allow ourselves to be deluded into ascribing more importance to time, in its incarnation of speed than it deserves.…
After repeated poor wet cold summers, 2013 was pretty decent by Irish standards. Or at least mid-May to mid-July were good. After that it reverted to recent type but did allow me to run a Copper Coast Distance Week swim which had been blown out in 2012 by a ridiculous summer storm which stopped swimming everywhere that day.…
In November 2010, Cork and Sandycove Channel Coach Eilís Burns held one of her irregular brief seminars for prospective Channel solo swimmers for the 2011 Channel season. It wasn’t an open-to-all seminar. Those attending were people who had contacted Eilís asking her to coach them. Eilís is careful in whom she agrees to coach, requiring…
A long time ago I wrote a couple of posts about lane swimming and lane etiquette. They regularly pick up ongoing viewers and have been read and maybe even used by a share of swimmers. Recently Simon Griffiths, editor of H2Open magazine, dropped the links into H2Open’s weekly email newsletter. He shortly received a Mr Angry…
In 2011 I spent a week in Dover at the end of the season with Lisa Cummins and Kevin Williams, waiting to crew for Kevin William’s Solo. Unfortunately the weather was rubbish, Kevin got weathered out, and we spent a significant portion of the week in The White Horse, the pub where successful Channel swimmers…
As long-time readers will know, Rob The Bull Bohane, Ciarán Byrne and Finbarr Hedderman are all Sandycove Island Swim Club members, English Channel Soloists and very good friends. Ciarán and Rob are two members of our 2010 Magnificent Seven Channel training squad. All three are very experienced open and cold water swimmers, and are three…
I came across this article on 25 signs that you might be a marathon swimmer, by Steve Munatones, on active.com because of a sudden slew of mentions of the article on Twitter. I think it was written some time ago, but I’m not sure. I thought I’d see if I had the potential to be…
Amongst the essential aphorisms of swimming are; that you need to start swimming properly before the age of 16 or you will never reach your maximum genetic potential, (as Swim Ireland put it), which means fast; and that you need to train with others to get fast. That’s me screwed then. I didn’t start swimming…
I’ve noticed something for a while now. Years of cycling and surfing meant I’ve always had a tanned face and hands and arms (Farmer’s Tan). I also have somewhat sallow coloured skin for an Irish person, less obvious now than when I was younger, when I was occasionally asked if I was Spanish. (We Irish…
Marathonswimmers.org. The only open dedicated forum for marathon swimmers worldwide. Nyad Fact Check site. Dan Slosberg’s comprehensive meta-analysis of the extensive lies Diana Nyad has told over her long duration connected with marathon swimming. Swim Information AIS Dover Dover Harbour Webcam Garrettstown Tide Times (Old Head of Kinsale). Hook Head Lighthouse Webcam facing West. Irish Marine…
Remember 2010 here on loneswimmer.com? When one of the Magnificent Seven Soloed I posted their national flag. I haven’t done it since, not as from disrespect to any of my friends who have swum since, but just I guess because it was our thing. This post has been waiting for two years. I can’t express…
New York maps show Manhattan Island plumbing a line from north to south, bounded by three rivers, the East and Harlem rivers circumscribe the east curve of Gotham with the East River swerving out and around lower Manhattan, up through Hell Gate and the confluence of the East and Harlem rivers and the Long Island…
I recently had the opportunity to spend the day on Clare’s Orcasailing from her over-wintering berth in Crosshaven (on the west side of Cork Harbour) back to Dungarvan. (Thanks Clare). Click all pics for larger sizes. Crosshaven is the home of the world’s oldest sailing club, RCYC. Cork Harbour itself is considered the finest natural…
Dover’s best known swimming Bed & Breakfast accommodation is Hubert House, but the B&Bs in Cork are better, (naturally, says a chorus of Corkonians). I know, I’ve stayed in both, and unlike Hubert House, Gabriel House on Summerhill in Cork is owned and run by an English Channel Soloist, Liam Maher, the tallest of The Magnificent Seven, and…
I remember my first six-hour pool. It was done with the Magnificent Seven in Source Swimming Pool in Cork in January of 2009. I’d done a couple of four-hour swims by myself, just swimming pyramids. I’d also done one five-hour by myself the previous year (pool). But the first six-hour pool swim with the group…
Lisa Cummins, Danny Walsh, and myself tackled the 24 miles in 24 hours swim challenge this weekend past, as I briefly mentioned last week. Mark Robson alerted us to this UK charity swim back in January/February. I thought it sounded like fun and asked a few of my regular swim friends and the rest of…
There’s been a few lesser parties already. Both in Dover and home in Cork and elsewhere, but tonight is the big one, our own Swimmers and Crew party. Liam is providing the venue and the organisation and we’ll stuffed to the ceiling with Channel Swimmers, Crew and family. We still have at least three big…
Well done my friend. Welcome to the club. Number Five of the Magnificent Seven. Fantastic swim, strong all the way. I painted my toenails again last night in hope for yourself and Rob. (At least, that’s my current excuse, I think I’ve discovered I got a thing for painting my toenails). What a summer of…
Another of my friends and swim partners, Jen, Number Two of The Magnificent Seven, joined my friend Liam Maher and the ranks of Channel Swimmers and Immortals. We were swimming almost beside each other for 5 hours yesterday, I dreamed of us walking us the beach together for a long time yesterday. Though that was…
Well, a milestone passed. 6 hour Channel qualification swim: Open Water: In under 16 Celsius: Done! Whether coach will sign off on it is another matter as 5 of the magnificent seven are currently in the bad books, apparently. It’s not like we won’t be doing it again anyway. 6 hours + in Inishcarragh Lake,…
I’m right in the middle of a painful learning experience, and that is the cumulative effects of daily swimming “into” cold or very cold. I’m tired this week as a consequence partly of last Friday’s nine and a half hour swim. But last Sunday I also started to sea swim daily. I’ve swum through the…
I love Saturday mornings. Rest day and after 6 1/2 hours session yesterday, it’s even better. Put on some music, have a fruit smoothie, grind and brew the coffee beans, throw on some pancakes. Not training food but pretty nice for a change. Like being a normal human. The Magnificent Seven, and Eddie, assembled at…
So three plus hour swims are a weekly (or more) feature of training right now (end of January ’10). “Normal” day’s training is hovering around two to two & an half. I did a four hour about a week and half ago, just to see how I feeling. I had been planning to do a…
As I drove around the corner at the No Longer Red House©, I could see a swimmer in a yellow cap ascend the slipway from sand exposed by the dropping tide, and I knew with the immediacy of complete familiarity that bypasses the slower speed of thinking, and though I hadn’t seen him in a…
LoneSwimmer 