Training in full swing

After a terrible few weeks of dropping temperatures and sicknesses, training is finally back to normal. Club training is continuing as normal and open-water training is finally starting to pick up. This week the temperatures in the river rose to 11 degrees, a good improvement on 8 a few weeks previous. Today we did 4km in the river. A good sign that we can start to swim as we would for the rest of the summer.

First swim in the Blackwater in 2008

Last Saturday 23rd February was the first swim in the Blackwater this year. There were only two of us, myself and Dave Mulcahy. The water was 9.5°C, which is unusually warm for this time of year. At its coldest in January it's about 7°C. So it's well on the way to warming up for the summer. This is the earliest we have ever swam in the river. Last year we started in mid-April and continued until November. Hopefully we will be swimming twelve months a year from now on.

First Post

Hello and welcome to my blog! I started this blog to keep everyone up-to-date on my attempt to swim the English Channel. I am signed up to make my swim somewhere between the 11th and 16th of September 2009, and if I am succesful, I will be the youngest Irish person to have swum the Channel.

I will keep you posted,
Owen.