The North Irish Channel from my POV:

Training: Cold tub 20 mins twice per week from October to end of April. Brutal through the winter but it really works. My perception of cold has shifted from 16c down to below 10c with 14c being perfectly acceptable to swim in. Lots of cold lake swims starting 1 June with a double Bala and ending with the Bristol channel with 9 hours at 14c. Anyone looking to do the North channel should consider the Bristol channel at the end of June as the temps are similar and it was so helpful for the North channel to know I had that under my belt.

Pre swim: Pre swim nerves are usually a killer lasting weeks in advance, this was certainly the case for me on the English and Catalina channels. I remember meeting the pilot of Pacific Moon with Tim in LA harbour who said to me, you have an option due to the currents on whether you want to start from Catalina or LA harbour. I was so anxious with pre swim nerves that smoke was coming out of my ears, my brain was mush and the only thing I could do was let Tim take over! The thing is I have now done six big solo’s and with the North channel, whilst I was anxious it wasn’t too bad; Matt and I had a good conversation with Jaqueline from Infinity about loads of practical points which we got consensus on quickly. I was still nervous it’s just that it was less than the other swims, which amazes me given the North channel’s reputation.

The coach: Red Top coach Matt was absolutely brilliant, there is no way that I could have done this swim without him. I have had serious issues with nutrition on a couple of swims which have nearly jeopardised the success of them and whilst I know the theory I have not typically executed it very well. Matt sorted all that out for me with what we ate the night before and especially with what we ate that morning. I have a habit of over hydrating before a big swim because I think it will stop cramp but Matt stopped that as well. Anyway the point is this advice is right and this is the first long swim where I have been able to hold all my liquid nutrition down for the whole swim, never felt sick once and that is down to Matt. I didn’t have any dialogue with Matt throughout the swim it was a case of not hanging around to get cold. Despite that I was getting loads of positive feedback which is so helpful, you could really see that Matt wanted this to be a success as much as I did and that helped loads with the mental side.

The swim: The wind was westerly and there was a fair breeze with some gusts, the marina was showing the breeze at 15 knots with gusts of 20 knots but Matt said it was all very much less if you looked at the wind guru average model, in any event nothing you can do about it. The good thing was it was westerly so the waves were going to push us in the right direction.
The sea state was lumpy with those waves, mainly westerly but with some from the side. I surfed what I could and the other went over me, managed to drink a lot of sea water because of it. The good thing is this sea state kept all the jellies 3-5m below the surface so at least that was one less thing to worry about. The sea state tried to flatten a bit after 5 hours but you could still feel the lumpiness. At about hour 10 there was a squall that created some interesting conditions and the boat had to put out a parachute to slow it down to my speed. After that the last two hours into Scotland felt fairly smooth but I got a bit complacent about the jellies and one lions mane ambushed me during the last 15 mins. I can confirm that the little bastards really hurt.
The water temp was about 14c dead and my expectation was that it would be this way through the swim. In fact it felt very much like the Bristol channel at the end of June and the way through that is with extra pace to keep you in that space where you are comfortable with uncomfortable. At about hour 5, however, I noticed that my feet were no longer numb and that I was not fighting the cold as hard, the temp had increased by at least 0.5.c. Matt later told me it was more like 15c – how lucky is that! We also lucked out with sun, during the first four hours we had full sunshine and no cloud, then we had broken cloud/sun for 4 hours ad finally no sun for 4 hours but at that stage it didn’t matter. Air temp built up to around 17c maybe 19c so that wasn’t too bad either. All in all I would say that we had a lot of luck with the temperatures and that was certainly a factor in the swim success.
I got quite fatigued at hour 7-8 and received extra gels or banana or Twix together with my hot feeds, like I said the whole nutrition thing just really worked for the first time and that is 100% down to the coach.
The last two hours was a bitch as you could see the cliffs of the Rhins of Galloway but they just were not getting any closer, shut your eyes and just keep ploughing on, when Matt jumped in I thought we were still miles away but that was a real boost, we were nearly there.

The psychological bit: Depending on who you talk to they will say that the physical part is between 30% and 50% of the swim, the rest is all mental, so splitting the difference let’s say it is 60% mental and 40% physical. The physical bit is easy, you train, it is in your control. The mental bit is a lot harder to train for. In all my longer swims during the first 5-6 hours I have hit some pretty dark places where I ask myself, what the **** am I doing this for, I’m cold, my tongue is *****, my shoulders hurt, I’ve spent a damn fortune and could be sitting on a beach in California, I’ve got hours to go, am I really just doing this to get my name on a stupid list? What the ****. It’s worse again if you feel nauseous or get bad hip flexor pain. It can be really, really bleak and make you want to end the swim. Well on the North channel I had all these same thoughts as usual but knew from my other swims that I would have to rise above them to get to the end if I was going to achieve the glory of finishing. Knowing this I was sort of able to put a lid on the darkness and not let it bother me as much as it has on some of the earlier swims.
It’s amazing how these things can change though, it’s always important to see how you are after the next feed etc. but at hour 5 Matt said you are half way. **** me, half way in 5 hours that is bloody amazing. Everything changed from that moment and my inner viking let me know I was going to succeed even if I was to die trying. Let me explain this a bit more. My inner viking lives in my gut (your gut has as many neurons as a dog’s brain so is essentially a second brain in the human body – true fact), my inner viking is really just a gut feeling. I did not know it even existed until the demands of the English channel. Anyway when the inner viking (affectionally known as Ragnor) comes out it sends a message to my brain and tells it that no matter what negative thoughts you throw out you are ****** because I will slay them, the real amazing thing is that brain obeys. It’s primitive, neanderthal-like but it trumps conscious thought – very, very bloody useful when you want to swim a long way in arduous conditions. I needed my inner viking yesterday and Ragnor came back from Valhalla to help me as he has done before!

The bottom line is that the North Irish channel is generally thought of as the first or second hardest channel swim in the world depending on what your view of Molokai is. It is very, very ******* hard but with the right cold and distance training together with experience from a lot of other swims and yes lots of luck on the day it is very much a swim that can be conquered. Interestingly whilst this is the most physically demanding swim I have ever done it is not the most mentally demanding one, I would attribute that honour to the English and Catalina channels.