#dart10k

A week has already past before I was thawed enough to write a report of the Dart 10K swim… This is what happened last week:

In true Emily style, I flew in from Melbourne to London and headed straight down to Devon for the Dart 10k swim from the airport. In total, that was a 23hr flight and 4hr of sitting in a car.

Water temperature of the River Dart was allegedly 13.5C but other sources said it was 15C.  George, Jo-the-machine, the Channel Butterfly guys, Gee and I were a few of the lucky (or crazy) ones who were granted a non-wetsuit entry (only 22 out of 850 swimmers on Sat were sans wetsuit).  President Norman, however wasn’t so lucky, his application was declined and had to endure teases of being in a wetsuit.  

At the registration desk, we were duly greeted by a very enthusiastic Rod Newing who sorted out our entry packs. Plenty more familiar faces were at the start line, including a few #Wswim girls: Debbie and Catherine, who I used to coach, getting ready for their first 10k, as well as a colleague of Gee’s and a whole troop from the Serpentine swimming and running club.  I’d even managed to catch a glimpse of my good friends Meg and Rochelle from NZ who just so happened to be visiting in the area.  It felt like all my friends were gathered in one place, dressed up and ready to party, except the dance floor was a cold river and we were dolled up in swim kit and goggles.

On entering the river, it was apparent that the water was indeed 13.5C.  I powered out for 20m to generate some heat, Gee was at my feet until we merged with a massive pack of swimmers.  Spotting skins swimmers were thankfully easy, I could see George and Jo ahead and Gee a few swimmers in to my right.  I swam as hard as I could in order to stay warm, but after 3 km or so, I was getting colder.  I tried to kick harder, but all the sudden, for the first time ever my calf cramped up in a swim.  It must have been a combination of 27hrs of sitting and the cold.  I flexed my ankle and did a “thumb-up” with my big toe until it eased.  The trade off for relaxed kick was that I couldn’t generate enough heat, my teeth started to chatter and my mind started to wander into the dark end.  

The first feed station was at 4km, it was a floating platform in the middle of the river.  I grabbed whatever orange drink that was on it and swigged it while treading water against the current.  That brought on a new wave of cramp that crept all the way up my Quads and my entire right leg had ceased up.  I rolled on to my back and stuck one arm in the air waving frantically trying to catch the attention of the safety kayaker, who rushed to my rescue.  Thank goodness she wasn’t about to make a fuss and just let me hung on to the edge to straighten my leg out.  

By the time the pain had subsided and I could just managed to leave my legs trailing behind while I swim, the field had petered out.  George, Jo and Gee were no where to be seen, I was shivering quite badly by now, chattering in between breaths and groaning into the murky water clawing the water with numb hands.  “Get out, you can get out!” it kept repeating in my head, “Get on that jet ski, get out on that bank…” over and over again.  I tried to lengthen my stroke, get back into a rhythm, and staying as streamline as possible.  Every time I hear “Get out!” in my head, I’d reason with, “but Gee / George / Jo / the girls I taught are still in the water…” , “I can’t let the people who sponsored me down.”  Instead, I just focused on getting to the next feed stop.

Soon, I saw Rob and Kevin who recently broke the world record of swimming a butterfly English Channel relay, both in Speedos.  On a different day I’d have joined them for at least a little bit of butterflying as support, but not today.  I cheered them on in my head and continued to struggle to the next feed stop. It was rammed with people and at a part of the river where the current was particularly strong.  I grabbed on to some poor guy in neoprene, wrapped my legs around someone else for stability, and grabbed some jelly babies.  I later found out that skins swimmers could have asked for a hot drink!  If only I knew… it would have made a world of difference!  

The water tasted saltier and saltier, and the river widened so much that, at some point it seemed like I was alone in it (even though there were 850 people in the same patch).  I had to tread water and get my bearing.  In the far distance I could pick out a kayaker pointing to the right, there seemed to be a port with lots of sail boats on that side of the bank.  I was really hoping that was the finishing line and aimed for the shore.  Gradually, more people appeared around me, some from the slower pack who started half an hour before us and a few people in white caps from the fast group who had caught up.  I stumbled up the beach, shaking like I had Parkinson’s disease, grunting like I was at Wimbledon.  The walk from the beach to the actual finish line was cruelly long and sharp underfoot.

When eventually we got there, I was finally greeted with a cup of hot chocolate and escorted straight into the warm up tent filled with slightly hypothermic people.  Catherine was already there wrapped in multiple Ikea blankets looking rather pale.  “Emily!”, Gee ran over, she was dressed but clearly still blue on the lips and shivering.  She found my clothes and fed me tea.  It was another hour or so before we were warm enough to get out of the tent.   Outside, we bumped into George, Jo-the-machine and the rest of the Serpies such as University-Challege-babe-Sarah, Barrister-John etc.  The rest of the day we spent eating, drinking and sharing stories (sitting in a pub with wild hair and in a DryRobe).

It wasn’t until when we got back to London when Rod mentioned about swim time did we realised that Gee was first non-wetsuit woman out of the water at 2hr26.25, 4 seconds before Jo-the-machine, with me and George trailed behind at 2hr38 and 2hr41.  George then swam the same 10k again the next day with another 850 swimmers, where one of my previous coaches Dan Bullock of SwimForTri was the fastest swimmer overall at 1hr56min.  Both Debbie and Catherine successfully completed their first 10k!  

If you’re kind enough, please help me support Frank Water charity: http://www.justgiving.com/EmSwims