Ratifying - a very long swim

Last weekend at Dover was our 'ratifying swim' - this is the time in the water you have to do before you attempt the crossing. Well, not quite, that doesn't come in as a rule til next year, but it's currently the unofficial standard for whether you're up to the task.

Six weeks ago in a pub by London bridge, we decided that the 26th was going to be our date to do this.

The recommended aim is a two hour swim, followed by an hour's break, followed by another hour in the water - although, this can be altered depending where you've got up to and what standard you started from.

The good news is that everyone made their targets. The bad news is that it hurt (well for me at least and I'm sure I wasn't alone). Michael and I ended up falling into an informal race over the first two hours. That meant we really pushed ourselves - definitely a good thing. But by the time the second swim came round, it was sore just to swim at a decent pace. I think Michael may have fared better - managing to go a bit further on that second hour.

We also bothered to track our distance this time. In my two hours I covered 3.49 miles and in my second swim 1.76 miles.

So working our our speed, a (very) roughly averaged team speed is 1.62mph. That means if we swim in exactly a straight line, don't get caught in the tides, have excellent weather conditions, enjoy good water temperatures and don't tire as we go on, we'll cross the channel in a really speedy 13 hours.

I'm just thinking of the best case scenario here - the worst case scenario is a rumour of one team who took 25 hours!