Wow! It’s already December, where has the time gone? I have been really busy swim training at Melbourne Grammar, working, speaking at schools and organising Team McCardel’s next adventures! I have also been swimming with a newly formed group on Saturdays… we swim a mere 10-13km session (he, he ). We are all training for the 19.7km Rottnest Island swim in February next year I will chat more about swim events later in Part TWO of this blog…!

You may remember 60 Minutes Australia were covering our triple crossing of the English Channel attempt. Well, we knew at least 1.2million people viewed the segment from capital cities, but when the full figures came out a few weeks later that, in fact, 2.8 million people had watched the programme we were shocked! This is because regional areas had not been included in the original ratings figure. For those of you who haven’t yet seen the 60 Minutes footage you can view it and the full transcript online here: http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/stories/8281833/channel-fever . You can also view the picture gallery from the multiple filming sessions we had with the 60 Minutes crew in both Australia and overseas here: http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/slideshow.aspx?sectionid=5566&subsectionid=7802589&sectionname=slideshow&subsectionname=swim

After the show I was invited into the online 60 Minutes chat room. A lovely lady in QLD would read questions from viewers to me and I would give her my answer and she would transcribe it and post it online. There were some interesting questions such as, ‘What nutrition do you need to have during the swim?’, ‘have you ever seen a shark whilst trying to cross the channel?’ and… ‘How do you keep awake while swimming for so long no coffee involved haha, also where do you go to the toilet?’ You can find these answers in the official transcript : http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/stories/8281833/channel-fever

It was very disappointing to have the cold front move in on our swim and drop the air and water temperature so suddenly. But this is the joy and frustration of open water swimming – being exposed to the elements! Although the triple crossing is still to be conquered we did get to claim the fastest crossing of the channel for 2011 (across CSA and CS&PF). Our time of 9hrs3min not only beat all the female and male solos but all the teams as well! Charles Wooley (journalist from 60 Minutes)
asked me what time I thought I would do the first lap in – I said about 10 hours as it was just my warm-up lap!

Part 2 of this Blog covers more about the channel crossing, my lungs and their recovery after water
inhalation in the channel and our direction for 2012! See you then!

Safe Swimming!!

Chloe