My employer's internal newsletter Commission en Direct (56.000 copies) carries a nice article this week about my Channel swim project - unfortunately not externally available online. I hope it will generate further interest in the project and, obviously, more donations (click here to make one :-) ) for the great work of the Center for Injury Prevention and Research, Bangladesh (CIPRB).
No very long trainings this week until Sunday. Coach Marcel van der Togt warned me against overtraining and suggested for this week a schedule of five 2-4 hour trainings with a lot of variation and sprinting (useful for dodging fast approaching oil tankers in the Channel...). I can already feel the benefits. Nice to notice also that my recovery time between sprints has improved tremendously - a clear effect of all the hard work over the past couple of months.
For next Sunday however we've planned a huge training session: 10 hours, which is approaching the length of the actual Channel Swim. We're still trying to find a boat to train in the IJsselmeer. If not, it will be a 10-hour slog in the river Maas.
The Swim is now approaching fast. I have made my final payment, and have started discussing with crew members (so far: coach Marcel van der Togt, my wife Asha, and Andre van Tol, a friend from Lith) how to organise ourselves to get to Dover. The difficult thing is that, due to the ever changing weather conditions in the Channel, you don't know for sure that you will actually swim until appr. 12 hours before the swim. That is not a lot of time to get a team organised and transported to Dover, unless you decide to go to Dover and just hang out until you get the go ahead from your pilot. Not a very attractive option.
't Wordt echt spannend nu zeg!
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