Finally on Rottnest Island!!

What an exciting few weeks it has been! Olympic fever is certainly building in Australia!! Have you been watching the Australian Swimming Championships (pool), which double as the Olympic Qualifiers??? There is still 2 and a half days of racing left – for updates visit my athlete page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Chloe-McCardel-Marathon-Swimmer/199900896709592

In other recent news… On February 25th I swam the Rottnest Island Marathon starting on Cottesloe Beach (WA) and finishing on Rottnest Island – 20km. It was a glorious day in the water with bumpy, but good conditions. I was not alone in this swim (unlike the English Channel) as there were over 2000 competitors in different categories – including 220 solo swimmers like myself. I found it difficult to find my rhythm in the first 10km and was well back in the field. The second (and last!) 10km I really found some pace and speed and passed 13 solos (both men and women) and I was not overtaken once! I finished the race 2nd woman – to Jess Walker. Jess had an amazing swim and well deserved the win. This was her 6th Rottnest marathon but her first the women’s winner – well done Jess :) The male winner, Jarrad Lawford (24 years), suffered kidney disease three years ago and has spent the past 12 months training for the event. How inspirational!

The men’s race favourite and fastest male swimmer– on paper, was Paul Laver. From unconfirmed reports he was treated for sea sickness and dehydration during the swim and after that he was pulled out of the race 2km from the finish with hypothermia. If true, this is another example of how marathon swimming is just so different from pool swimming as there are so many variable involved – including get your feeds right, wind, waves, water temp, air temp, tide, current, flotsam & jetsom, shipping lanes, sea creatures, salinity levels, feeds, piloting and support crew decisions, etc… Which reinforces why you can’t really compare marathon swim times on different days and years. I was aiming for a top two placing in the women’s category and I achieved that, which was great. This was my first marathon since being hospitalized (and 30min from death) in the English Channel last year (July, 2011). So my main focus was to blow away the cobwebs and finish the swim strongly and without any lung pain/discomfort which I had been experiencing over the last few months (despite getting the 100% all-clear from a lung specialist!!). Dr Sountanov from Bioeffectives/Siberian Red has been an INCREDIBLE support getting my lungs back to health after an up and down 6 months since the channel. There are SO MANY people to thank from the Rottnest Island swim (see below)*.

Catching up with Adrel. Adrel was the first volunteer from the Bondi Surf Lifesaving Club who guided me in the early hours of Easter Sunday on my 60 lap, 48km World Record swim across Bondi Beach least year. His team star in the 'Bondi Rescue' Channel 10 show and won the teams category in 4hrs38min52sec.

Another exciting development includes being able to announce my calendar for 2012! My main swims are as follows:

1. Rottnest Island 20km swim, AUSTRALIA – COMPLETED, February 25th (Race)
2. Lake Zurich, SWITZERLAND – August 5th, 26km, (Race)
3. English Channel Triple Attempt, ENLAND- September 7th-14th, 112km+, (Solo event)
4. World Record Swim Attempt- To be Announced… (Solo event)

My major swims will require some MAJOR FUNDRAISING which I am working on now… I would love and REALLY APPRECIATE your support. I will let you know how you can help in the next blog

Also, some recent media:

• Effortless Swimming Interview with Brenton Ford- covering English Channel swimming: http://effortlessswimming.com/podcast/8-the-english-channel-episode-with-chloe-mccardel/
• Swimstyle Magazine- http://www.swimannual.com/2011_edition.htm (page 50 & 51)

I will be in touch soon! Happy swimming :)

Chloe

* A Big THANKS to Paul who came all the way from Melbourne to support me, Mark (paddler), Jane (assistant), Daniel (navigator), Chris and Paul (boat owners and pilots) and the Rottnest Channel and Swimming Association who put on an extremely well-organised, safe, professional and enjoyable race (a special thanks to Stacey and Jess too!). Thanks also to Dr. Soultanov and all the Bioeffectives team for bringing me back to great health

(Left to Right) Daniel, Chris, Myself, Paul, Mark - and Paul McQueeney is taking the photo!

Celebrating the win with one of my supporters - Matt from the beautiful Brighton Baths Health Club! brightonbathshealthclub.com.au

Our paddler, Mark, surfing at Mon Repos Beach near Bundaberg

Myself and Charles Wooley after an interview on Brighton Pier. Copyrite to 60min

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

Filming in beautiful Sydney Harbour!!

It takes the ferrys as little as 90min to make the crossing...

28/ 7/2011 Thanks to everyone who followed my swim and sent me lovely messages! The channel won this round – but with the fastest crossing this year so far (9hrs3min) it’s not all bad news Hope to get back to everyone within the next week

Chloe

****************** SWIM START DELAYED 12 HOURS ******************

The wind from today was supposed to settle by this afternoon but it had not so we are now leaving English Shores at 5.45am tomorrow UK time – 2.45pm Monday your time! I am actually happy because I get to swim off the back of a night’s sleep and now I only need to swim through one night not two (the air temp is lower at night and there is no warmth from the sun). Thanks for your patience, I will blog and update my Facebook Athlete Page after the swim :) 
 
Chloe & Team McCardel
————————————-ORIGINAL BLOG —————————————–

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,-
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
Shakespeare, Richard II, 2. 1

So now we leave the safe haven and blue birds of England and venture out into the channel.  We are confirmed for a start at 5pm today (Sunday) the 24^th of July GBT (Monday 2am Melbourne time). From the start of this journey until the end I will be at the mercy of the tide, wind and water temperature and under the trusted guidance of my support crew and pilots.

Getting ready for a training swim in Dover Harbour!

For many, swimming a single solo crossing of the channel is a lifetime dream come true. For myself, my original goal was to swim a double crossing. Having achieved that goal the next challenge was always going to be the penultimate of marathon swimming – the Triple Crossing of the English Channel. A swim they said was ‘impossible’ until the first man successfully completed the Triple in 1981. In the nineteenth century they also said that a single crossing of the English Channel was ‘impossible’, until Captain Matthew Webb crossed successfully in 1875. Impossible is just a word, anything can be achieved.

I know that today will mark the start of the hardest, most painful, longest swim I have ever undertaken. The most challenging two days of my life. Today I can start to make a reality what I and in many ways my husband and all of ‘Team McCardel’ have been driving, working, swimming, planning, preparing and promoting towards for the last 12 months.

By Tuesday lunchtime I hope to finish this swim and join the very short list of incredible champions to have conquered the channel thrice – without stopping (currently only 3 on this list). It has been 21 years since anyone has completed a triple, it is time a swimmer from this next generation steps up to the mark!

Join with me on this adventure by following our GPS tracker*

Lastly, a big thanks to my incredible husband Paul, Dr. Vagif Soultanov and all the team at Solagran and all those who make up ‘Team McCardel’, you have been an integral force getting me to this start line – now the rest is up to me!

See you on the other side!

In the last few days we have been joined by Murph Renford an accomplished marathon swimmer in his own right (English Channel solo in 2007 and Manhattan Marathon place-getter 2009) and also the son of Des Renford (who swam 19 solo English Channel crossings). It’s been wonderful to have company up and down the many laps of the Dover Harbour! This is not the first time Murph and I have swum together. Only a week before leaving Australia Paul and I headed up to Sydney for his work and for some cold water swimming which I dragged Murph along to!

I really enjoyed the trip to Sydney and I wished I had to time to blog about it earlier. Murph and I completed a 6 hour swim at Coogee beach which featured incredibly clear water and amazing fish. I also swam a few more times at Coogee during our stay. One of my personal highlights during our trip was going to the festival of lights which showcased some of Sydney’s most iconic buildings using a variety of different lighting techniques (see pics at the bottom of this blog).

While we were in Sydney we also managed to squeeze in some time for filming. This brings me to the exciting news I promised in my

David (kayaker) and I before the swim!!

last blog! Just after the Bondi swim 60 Minutes Australia approached us to join ‘Team McCardel’ to become part of my triple crossing swim. 60 Minutes has a team of the industry’s best professionals, producers, film crews and editors many of whom have been with the show for many years. Besides reaching such a large Australian audience (1.1 million+ viewers per week) this show will give Aussies a better understanding of the challenges of swimming the channel and also introduce more people to the amazing sport of open water swimming. It is also wonderful to continue our great relationship with Channel Nine!

I am really proud that they have chosen to become part of my journey to become the first Australian and fourth person in history to complete this enormous triple English Channel challenge! All going well this segment will air within a few weeks of me finishing the swim.

I have been running (or swimming!) into quite a few channel swimmers in Dover Harbour since we arrived and since I am swimming so much they ask Paul what I am having for feeds during the swim – no joke! As far as my preparation regarding endurance and nutrition is concerned I have been trialling an array of “Bioeffectives” from my major sponsor Sologran. Dr Vagif Soultanov and the team from Solagran have put together an amazing program of feeds, drinks and supplements for the swim. These substances including Siberian Red (which are completely natural) have been used by Russian Olympic teams!!! They have already enhanced my performance and I am thrilled I will have them for the swim

So for now we will keep watching the weather updates and cross our fingers for great weather! Again, at the moment we are hoping for a Sunday/Monday start. As soon we know more you will be the first to know too!

Happy swimming

*A ‘window’ in channel swimming terminology is a timeframe based around the Neap (low) tides around England. There is less movement of water during Neap tides than Spring tides which is the other type of tide (this tide is higher). Swimmers usually book their positions on Neap tides as there is less tide to swim against than on Spring tides.

Paul and I really enjoyed the festival of lights!!

Luminous Flying Octopus!!

Touching down in the UK!

Sorry about delay since my last blog! Paul and I have been very busy with the back-end organisation of this swim and I have been very busy swimming at home/ travelling to Sydney (twice) for swimming/filming/experimenting with a new feed schedule and conducting core-temperature testing!!

Paul and I touched down in England on Monday, picked up our hire car and drove straight down to the South East of England! It was a beautiful English summers’ day and the drive was very enjoyable :) We then settled into our cottage accommodation at St Margaret’s at Cliffe. A few hours later Paul dropped me at Dover Harbour and I went for a swim. This is the third year in a row that Paul and I have been drawn to this picturesque White Cliffs area of England, it felt like we were coming home…

On this same day upon which we arrived a combination of 9 aspiring channel solo swimmers/ relays left the English Shores for the journey across ‘the ditch’ to France. Just two made it. Historically only 10% of people who attempt to swim a single crossing of the channel are successful. This highlights just how difficult a challenge I have chosen!

Since our first day here we have had a wonderful time staying in St Margaret’s (in 2009 we stayed in Dover and in 2010 we stayed in Deal, all neighbouring cities). Paul has been running each day and on the second day he discovered the cutest, most scenic teahouse in all of the South East! It was formerly a Coast Guard building and retains all its maritime time charm with a lower level renovated homely interior which seats only a small number of guests, fostering an intimate experience. Whilst you sit inside the historic building sipping your tea and enjoying a slice of cake or a scone, your eyes are irrevocably drawn across the expansive English Channel. The water looks like a highway where many large passenger ferries are making frequent trips between England and France (the busiest passenger ferry route in the world).

Enjoy some fine British tea & carrot cake!

For now Paul and I are using our St Margaret’s accommodation as our base while I swim in the harbour and the local swimming pool in Dover and Paul runs and continues working. We are both waiting for a few things too… for our other support crew person to arrive, Michael ‘Murph’ Renford, and we are waiting patiently for our window to open, from the 20th of July, and even more patiently for the wind to disappear!    

I would also like to announce my sponsors for this English Channel Triple Crossing Attempt. For the third year in a row Solagran is joining Paul and I on this incredible journey. This year they have become my major sponsor and an absolutely integral part of my team! The Aussie company, headed by Dr. Vagif Soultanov, produces a range of unique & powerful natural pine needle products from Russia called Bioeffectives, one of which is “SIBERIAN RED”. They have offered a great level of support with my day-to-day nutrition and my actual channel swim nutrition plus a specially formulated channel grease all of which contain Bioeffectives. I also welcome Burson Autoparts for the third consecutive year as a supporter.  My next blog will be on the 21/22nd of this month and will feature some more exciting news, specifically information about the media group covering our swim. Stay tuned!!

I will also post a quick blog just before the swim starts which will have a link so that you can follow our GPS during the swim :) Likewise, my Face Book athlete page will be updated too, to browse or ‘Like’ jump to the page here https://www.facebook.com/pages/Chloe-McCardel-Marathon-Swimmer/199900896709592.

Paul and I are just about to head down to the harbour for a swim.

Safe swimming!

I will be taking Siberian RED during my swim!!

Stretching

There is so much I wished to share with you about the Bondi Record swim that I could not fit it into one blog update! This is Part Two of my blog, Part One can be found here http://www.chloemccardel.com/blog/page/2/.

Paul’s and my alarm rang at 2:30am in the morning. We had some breakie and then walked to the Bondi Surf Life Saving Club. We got there at about 3:30am and met up with Tim Stackpool (our PR guy who is also very handy with a camera!) and Murph Renford. Cyril joined us soon after and we all entered the club and started to get ready for the swim. I was awestruck by the amazing history of the Surf Club! All the walls of the hall were filled with photos, awards and memorabilia. This Surf Club is one of the oldest in the world and they are certainly a very proud bunch with a great history :) All I needed to get ready was some vaseline and a light stick. The first paddler arrived at 3:50am, a young professional lifeguard, named Adrel. He bought his own paddle board with him which he would use to cruise alongside me and guide me back and forth between two orange buoys, 800m apart. After a quick chat we headed to the beach to begin the Record Attempt!!

Needless to say, it was very dark and there wasn’t a soul on the beach! The morning had a wonderful stillness and calmness in comparison to my energetic anticipation and the excitement of my small team around me :) Adrel and I entered the water on the North side of the beach in front of the North Bondi Surf Club and the apartments. I was a little nervous about avoiding the rocks but I needn’t have worried because Adrel would do a fantastic job all early morning guiding me! We found a rhythm fairly quickly and we spent the next two hours doing laps until another paddler took over when the sun had starting coming up. In fact this routine would continue all day, I would have paddlers for about two hours and then there would be a change over and we would say good bye. The IRBs joined the swim at about 7:30am and were very helpful with the feeds as they could come to and from shore to drop off finished feeds and pick up fresh ones.

Swimming the 60 Lap Bondi Record Swim

On shore Paul was doing an unbelievable job preparing feeds, communicating with the IRB crews via a radio and chatting to nearly all the paddler and IRB crew before they joined on the water to inform them about the feeding schedule. He also handled media for a large part of the day and coordinated pretty much everything that needed to be organised. As most Surf Life Saving volunteers were with me for only two hours there were a large amount of people involved in the time I was in the water. Although I had left multiple copies of notes about the feeds and Paul tried to catch everyone before they headed out my way there were definitely some funny moments, including a time when my feeders asked me ‘What’s a feed?’.

From midday onwards the water became a bit lumpy which slowed me down a little but I was still in good spirits. I had invited swimmers to join me whenever they pleased between 8am and 3pm as long as they gave me a two metre wide birth and didn’t swim in front of me. Many swimmers came down for a swim, some did half laps and cheered from the ends were I was turning at the buoys, some took photos under water, some swimmers from Vlad Swim (www.vladswim.com.au) joined me at various times, most swimmers held my pace, some pushing me to swim faster and some swimmers were a little slower but it didn’t matter what speed everyone was going because we all followed a ‘keep the buoy on your right’ system (just like swimming up the left side of the land in your local swim pool!) so there were no collisions and minimal confusion!

Feed Stop

There were no real dramas or hiccups on the day. Paul and I have organised feeds for my last three swims so we know pretty well what I needed on the day. It was hard for Paul to monitor me from shore as I was 300m away! But this was a relatively short swim (my next marathon will be over 30 hrs) in warm water and pretty good conditions so I didn’t really need monitoring anyway!

Towards the end I had two or three swimmers around me, including Murph who had swam many laps with me and had done a tremendous job navigating me when he was in the water. On the last lap I cranked on the after burners – even though I was only approaching this swim as a training swim for my next marathon! After touching the large soft orange buoy to finish I turned around and thanked all of those around me – I hadn’t realised there were about 20 people either paddling or in IRBS. They told me where to swim to shore so that everyone could see me swim in, even though I had already finished the Record. I swam in between the flags to a couple of hundred of people smiling and clapping which I hadn’t really anticipated. I said a quick ‘thank you’ to those involved in the organising and/or running of the day (Paul, Murph, Cyril & Bondi Surf Life Saving Club) and those who came down to watch for the day.

That evening Paul, Murph and his family, Cyril and I went up to the Surf Club and caught up with a small group of Surf Life Savers, we all enjoyed celebrating the day and sharing stories. A few days later Paul and I left Bondi and headed back to Melbourne!

Until next blog, safe swimming!

Chloe

A quick post-script…

Photos from the evening celebrations:

Celebrations Photo

*** Many thanks again to the Bondi Surf Life Saving Club for their amazing support in the lead up to the day and during my swim***

For those of you interested in the media activity around this swim I was interviewed for more than 14 separate articles across paper/radio/ T.V./internet. These include an interview in the studios of Weekend Sunrise on the 16^th of April http://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunrise/weekend-sunrise/-/24929288, rolling coverage on Weekend Sunrise during the swim and an interview during the marathon swim on Weekend  Today, both of which are featured here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chTYtGyFSxo&feature=youtu.be 

I heard after the swim that many people had found out about my swim in the

Post-swim fun

media in the lead up to the event and travelled to Bondi especially to be there on the day, thanks to all those who came down especially :) Thanks also to those who lined both ends of the beach near the turning buoys so I could see their support and the few hundred who were at the finish line.

There has been a lot of excitement building for both of these planned swims. Being an athlete and an event organiser I have had to focus first on getting myself physically, mentally and logistically prepared for the Bondi Swim ahead of any media commitments. When Paul and I were staying in the city I was training at the Andrew (Boy) Charlton pool, which is an amazing outdoor 50m pool bordered by Hyde Park on one side and Sydney Harbour on the other! It also has an unbelievable few of Navy ships only a few hundred metres on the other side of the Harbour! It was great swimming with Coach Vlad at Boy Charlton who always has a smile on his face and runs his own Swim School and masters squad (www.vladswim.com.au).

Paul and I moved from the city to our Bondi Beach accommodation on Wednesday. We had been exploring Bondi for a few days leading into the swim. For training I had been swimming across the beach, a course similar to the course set for my Bondi Record swim. Swimming in Bondi is an absolute delight! The water quality, colour and clarity is excellent. Whilst training I saw many beautiful small sting-rays nestled into the sand and funky schools of brilliantly coloured fish. I also had a great swim session on Friday with Leo, Gii and another swimmer at the Bondi Icebergs outdoor 50m pool – talk about an amazing view of Bondi Beach and the ocean!!

On Saturday afternoon (the day before the swim) members from the Bondi Surf Club, in IRBs, marked the course using GPS and three orange buoys. My Bondi Record Swim was the first Bondi Marathon to be marked according to Global Positioning Systems (GPS), which hadn’t been available for the other 50 lap marathon swimmers years ago. They placed one buoy at the North end of the beach and another at the South end of the Beach.  A third buoy was placed in the middle to help navigate.

That evening, Paul and I had a lovely dinner at Tratorria with Cyril Baldock, Carina Baldock (Cyril’s daughter) and Murph Renford. Murph is the son of legendary marathon swimmer Des Renford who swam 19 single crossings of English Channel and is still the Australian with the most number of Channel crossings! Murph also swam the Channel in 2007 and has been a marvellous mentor for both myself and Paul over the last two years. He originally suggested this swim to us as his Dad was the first person to swim 50 laps of Bondi Beach. The 50 lap mark was also reached by two others including Cyril himself. Cyril and Murph have done an incredible job organising most of the logistics of the swim for Paul and I. We had a very early dinner, starting at 6pm, because we were all (except Carina) meeting at the Bondi Surf Life Saving Club the next morning at 3.45am.

When Paul and I returned home I had my last media interview about the Bondi swim for radio. Everything was already packed and organised for the next morning so we spent some time winding down and we tried to get to sleep at 7.45pm. We were staying close to a back packers lodge and they were a very noisy bunch!! They finally quietened down at about 1:15am, we fell asleep soon after! At 2:30am our alarm went off and we were up to tackle the current 50 lap Bondi World Record with an hours sleep! We both thought that this was, in fact, a good warm-up for swimming in the English Channel where I will be sleep deprived for at least half of the swim!

There is so much I wish to share with you about this swim that I could not fit it into one blog update! Remember, more frequent updates can be found on my Face Book Athlete Page ‘Chloe McCardel – Marathon Swimmer’.

Safe Swimming!!