Last August, a co-worker mentioned that she would like to buy a package of swim lessons for her husband.  He had a cycling and bodybuilding background and was looking to stay in shape through the winter with swimming to change things up.  I met with Todd Paul for the first time soon after in the pool and could immediately tell he was an athlete, although his swimming was going to take quite a bit of work. At the beginning of our third meeting he announced that he wanted to swim the English Channel.  I said ok, let's go home and think about this and talk more next session.  At the next session I wasn’t too surprised that he was still serious, so we plotted a course of action with checkpoints along the way.  

 The base prep period mainly concentrated on technique and building up aerobic fitness.  He had no problem handling the increases in yardage, a very good sign.  It was January when we sat down to really get serious.  Plans needed to be made and reservations completed.  Was this really going to happen?  

 The next build-up phase went very well.  Aside from a sickness and some heavy business periods, Todd was well on his way.  He was starting to get anxious about the swim, not just the distance but the cold as well.  He was itching to try out the lake.  Initially I caught him on the phone one day early April, he was at the lake with his dog, a pair of rubber boots and his kitchen thermometer taking the lake temps.  He purchased a new long sleeve wetsuit and thermal cap – I suggested he stay out of the lake until it hit 50 degrees.  It was a short while afterwards that I called him on a Monday after a long-swim weekend to check in and he sounded sluggish and his speech was slurred.  Fearing it a bad cold, I asked how he was feeling only to find out his long swim which was supposed to take place in the pool at Northwestern University, actually took place in the lake.  Todd had swum for 3 hours in a wetsuit and thermal cap water temperature of 40 degrees.  I told him to take his body temperature as soon as possible and he reported back that it was 93 degrees.  He had, at the very least, moderate hypothermia for more then 24 hours.   

Long Swims
The next phase consisted of the big build up to the event.  Our intent was to get in a final long swim of 19 miles prior to his trip to the UK.  We felt that was optimal to prepare for the distance of the Channel – 21 miles.  The main problems we encountered with the long swims were conflicts with some of his business obligations and the fact that Lake Michigan decided to freeze over in the middle of August.  In a way, the lake temperatures being so cold (hitting 50 degrees at one point at South Blvd beach) were a blessing as he did make some attempts at swimming at that freezing temperature in nothing but a speedo and some Vaseline but it did limit the amount of time that he could spend in that cold water.  Each swim in those temperatures knocked his body temperature so low we realized it was taking him at least a day to recover.  The worst of it came on a swim at Foster Beach.  

I was swimming just a stretch of the 7 hour swim and carrying fluid and fuel in a water bottle tied around my waist.  I was, of course, in a wetsuit and Todd was in his swim speedo and coated in Vaseline.  As I started part way into Todd’s swim, I couldn’t understand why it was so incredibly painful for me to swim.  I was in a sleeveless wetsuit and had coated any part of my body that was bare in Vaseline for more protection from the cold.  Breathing was terribly hard.  This is something Todd and I talked about quite often, how you explain what your body feels like in cold water. It is akin to ice cold sheet metal pressed hard against your skin causing a burning sensation as if all your nerve endings were on fire.  Todd had been swimming for just about 2 hours and he asked for some tea.  The tea was warm, which didn’t seem like a bad idea at the time.  He had done warm soup before in a qualifying swim for the English Channel (6 hours in less than 60 degree water without a wetsuit) done in Diamond Lake, MI in early June.  Unfortunately, the reaction to this tea was not good.  Todd’s whole body locked up completely in a giant spasm.  We were not too far from where his wife was waiting on the beach with our belongings and after getting him to the shore, we wrapped him up and got him warm.  It was not until we got home that we found out that the lake temperature recorded at that beach that morning was 52 degrees. 

Logistically, trying to swim for 6-10 hours continuously becomes a problem.  This proved to be one of the biggest obstacles to overcome.  During Todd’s longest swim of the year, he was on a business trip to Florida and had to pay a kayaker to stay beside him while swimming in the ocean.  Unfortunately, the seas were angry that day and a 9 hour swim turned out to be a 4 hour swim of fighting huge undertows and 4-6 foot chop and nasty swells.  He was able to finish the day in a local pool completing a week of swimming 25 hours.  

Up until two weeks prior to the swim, it was easy to be the cheerleader.  Todd was doing great.  He was putting in the time needed in the pool and doing his best to hit all of the practices that I set up for him.  He swam some ridiculous sets each day; for example, 6 x 1,000 meters keeping the first 4 steady and descending the last 2 on just 30 seconds rest in between.  If asked what separates Todd from others, it is this. He has an amazing ability to shut his brain off from other things and just do the work.    

The other remarkable thing about Todd is that for someone who began swimming outside in May, he never tanned.  As a coach for Triathletes and a competitor in Triathlons you mainly see people swimming in wetsuits.  Todd almost glowed in the water so it was easy to keep track of him when swimming together.  It came to me on an early morning in Lake Michigan with water temps in the low 60’s that he actually looked a bit like a polar bear.    

As the event got closer, naturally everyone began to become a bit more anxious.  Todd was to be accompanied on the trip by his wife Jennifer, his mother Mary, father Don, me and a friend James who took some of the early swimming lessons with Todd.  Todd did a lot of mental and physical preparation outside of the pool and lake for the swim.  He was doing regular visualization exercises and repeated strong affirming phrases or “mantras” as he swam.  He also didn’t take a warm shower for months. During those early morning swims in Lake Michigan, if he wore a wetsuit on those cold lake temperature days in August, he would take the suit off afterwards and spend some time getting used to the temperatures before getting out.  

As a collegiate swimmer and professional swim coach, I have a lot of respect for open-water swimming.  Swimming the English Channel is often referred to as the Mount Everest of open-water swimming.  It is the most coveted long distance endurance swim.  It used to be the case that only 1 in 6 attempts to cross the Channel were successful but now the percentage has improved steadily to about 80% successful crossings a season.  The average swim time is between 10-15 hours.  Some of the major complications are, obviously, water temperatures at 55-65 degrees Fahrenheit and, along with that jelly fish, seaweed, and rough open waters.  To top it all off the Channel is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes with some 400 large shipping vessels passing through everyday.  Find out more about Channel swimming at http://www.channelswimming.com 

The Trip 
Todd arrived in the UK a full week prior to the swim with his support crew showing up throughout the week.  We stayed in a small cottage in the very small town of Blean 15, miles from Dover where the start of the swim would take place.  Todd was able to meet with the Captain, see the boat in Dover Harbor and get an idea of where his swim was to begin, the actual starting point was just a bit south at Shakespeare Beach

The day prior to the swim, the support crew and I drove Todd to Dover where he would stay with his wife to get some rest and be ready for the boat by 4:30 am.  This was an exciting moment because we were able to finally meet Freta and Barry.  Freta and Barry hang out on the Dover beach, May – October on weekends.  They run the beach for the Channel swimmers that congregate throughout the season.  Freta sells Channel t-shirts and, more importantly, the blinky lights that swimmers are required to wear.  As Todd purchased his lights, she mentioned they were 8 lbs. I had a moment of panic thinking that he couldn’t carry that much weight during the swim.  That quickly got straightened out.    

Freta and Barry are real Channel history.  Freta’s daughter has swum the channel 43 times including one triple (no rest – 36 hrs) and 6 relays.  It was strange to watch a nearby swimmer who had crossed just last year sheepishly admit that she had only crossed once.  We spoke with them for quite a while. As Freta leaned over to give me some advice on training, she mentioned that it was possible to train for a double but that the triple, “nah, you don’t train for a triple. You do the double and feel good enough to do a triple.”  Three people have accomplished the triple.  

The Swim
The night prior to the swim, no one slept but Todd.  Todd, Jennifer, Mary, Don, and I arrived at the dock that morning prepared for just about anything.  There was no fanfare.  It was pitch black.  The air temperature was less than 50 degrees which certainly didn’t help.  It was a short trip on the boat for the starting point, Shakespeare Beach.  On the way, Jennifer and I worked on covering Todd’s body with Vaseline.  He wore 1 silicone swim cap, 1 raggedy suit a good luck item that had been with him all year, and 2 blinky lights – 1 red (a bicycle light)1 green (from Freda) and he was off into the water. This looked like something out of Close Encounters or a submarinesque Christmas tree.  Todd had to swim about 200 meters to get to the starting point on the beach and raise his hands to begin the swim.  He reached the beach, the horn sounded and he began to swim.    

 It was just about the 4 hr mark that we hit the first bump in the trip.  Todd’s stroke rate fell off rather quickly from 56 strokes per minute to 44 strokes per minute.  He was having trouble getting his hands out of the water during the recovery phase of the stroke and his legs weren’t moving very well.  We weren’t quite sure what was happening but knew Todd was experiencing some trouble.  I jumped into my wetsuit and hopped in hoping to better help motivate him from the water. During a break he described numbness in his legs moving up into his abdomen, feeling hypothermic and also a bit of euphoric.  

The boat captain and the observer weren’t too keen on this.  It seemed that this was it!  I swam with him for about an hour, hoping to keep him focused and keep him talking to me and not to the people on deck.  I had to get out of the water after an hour of swimming per channel rules and this was about the 5 hour mark, things were grim.  The captain and the observer were in a high state of alarm.  They were watching for everything.  If Todd didn’t answer a question, they were on it. (Unfortunately, he had an ear plug in due to an ear infection in the ear that was facing the boat.)  They were looking at his stroke, his kick, his spark, listening to his remarks (or lack of).  The signs were not good.  We were just over 5 hrs in.  Talking to the support crew after the trip, all agreed this was the darkest hour.  Todd did not look so good.  He wasn’t really going anywhere.  He was stopping frequently, his legs were barely moving (if at all), and he was having some trouble peeing. He was talking but physically he looked spent.  

I’m not entirely sure why he didn’t get pulled out at this point.  I was talking with the captain frequently and the observer just sat shaking his head.  Jennifer and I really didn’t talk too much at this point about how he was doing.  I think both of us just tried to keep the negative thoughts to ourselves. The problem really wasn’t how Todd was feeling but how he was doing. The captain was tracking his progress and the results were not good.  

Looking back at that point, we just stuck to our jobs.  Todd’s job was to swim.  His will was to hit land (with no perspective as to where that land might be).  I didn’t think there was any way that he would voluntarily come out of the sea.  Jennifer’s job was the feedings.  She did this with precision and we had great teamwork.  We started out with 30 minute feedings and we were keeping them very short.  After I came out of the water, we switched to 20 minute feedings to get and give more feedback.  Our hopes for a quick crossing were all but dashed. Now it was more just get him across. 

My job was to talk to Todd.  I was never sure if he could hear me.  The earplug was in the ear closest to me.  He never quite answered a question (I stopped asking, actually) although he would look at me if he could.  His parents were incredible!  You could see their anxiety and emotion for Todd in their eyes but they never voiced a word of doubt.  I never once felt pressure from them to throw in the towel.  They were there to help any way they could and they were incredibly positive in the face of things.  The “doom and gloom team" as Jennifer and I had renamed the Captain and observer….well, they weren’t always so helpful.   

Jennifer was awesome!  Did I mention that before that I think if Jennifer had showed doubt to me or I to her, it would have been a different trip. A short trip.  Don (Todd’s dad) had taken over the feedings with her and I would yell at Todd as much as possible in as short a time as possible.  Jennifer and I would talk a few minutes prior to the feeding and set up a small smorgasbord for Todd to choke down.  This consisted of either carbo pro, chocolate, broth, chicken soup, FRS tablets, Gatorade (Gatorade only once or twice early mixed w/carbo pro), and flat Coke (which we started to run out of b/c we started it early. Eventually it became partially mixed with Diet Coke, then Diet Pepsi and even a bit of water.  Todd got it down as quickly as he could, swimming breaststroke to keep moving.  

Just over the 6 hour mark things started to look better.  It looked like Todd was finding a rhythm and a report came from the captain that he was up to a mile in 35 minutes. I yelled “That’s GREAT!”  and gave the Captain a good slap on the back.  From that point on, neither Jen or I wanted to hear anything negative from “doom and gloom”.  It wasn’t going to be a fast trip.  Jennifer and I talked, looked at all we had and prepared for what might be over 16 hours.  

Todd kept swimming.  He wasn’t looking great but he was swimming.  He was getting a decent push from the waves behind but not a lot of leg movement until after he finally peed.  Mainly he just kept moving his arms.  At the 7 hr mark Jennifer remembered we had a radio and then we were jamming.  Todd perked up. The captain despised Jay-Z and Kanye West …. even Pearl Jam, but more importantly, we were all noticeably more upbeat!!  

Todd was in the shipping lanes for what seemed like forever.  There are two lanes with hundreds of huge vessels crossing each day, seemingly very close.  Todd kept swimming, Jennifer kept feeding him, and I kept yelling at him.  I may have told him some small white lies at several points to help encourage him. He might not have been as far along as I told him but he needed positive feedback and I thought this would help keep him moving.  

The second shipping lane was brutal.  I think this was most of the swim.  I did my best to not feel sorry for him or allow myself to worry about him.  I did keep a close eye out to make sure that nothing was truly going wrong.  There were some things that didn’t look good – the growing abrasions on his left side from friction and salt water, the crumpled shaking hand trying to get food out of the basket, his shoulders were turning dark (my guess was the strain on the blood vessels), the lack of kick.  He basically seemed coherent, you could say his legs were moving a bit, and his recovery was mostly clearing the water.  For the most part, he just kept moving forward.    

We started to get some more good news on his progress.  The trip trimmed down from a 16 hr plus day back down to 12-13.  It all depended on the current and the wind.  Things had been in his favor up to this point but that all could change quickly.  

During the trip, we saw dolphins playing, we played cards at one point (until we started to feel seasick), we did some fishing for mackerel, we learned the history of channel swimming, we took pictures of the oncoming freighters and Todd kept swimming. 

The final stretch was the worse.  The captain was really getting on me to push him.  There was a real sense of urgency!!  The longer Todd spent in the water, the longer the trip was going to get due to the currents pushing him down the coast.  This is not like a foot race where you have a pre-determined distance to go.  You still have the start point to stop point which is your shortest distance but due to the wind and currents, some swimmers have taken up to 28 miles to get across.  For example, we got within a mile of the coastline and could clearly see everything on the French shore but we were still 2 hours from making landfall. It was difficult to keep Todd with the boat.  The boat was traveling in a straight line. However, for the swimmer (as I found out while I was swimming), it is extremely hard to navigate with just the boat as perspective.  Todd often was trying to do some sighting as it was clear he could see the finishing point as well.  We had to keep him next to the boat as this was the shortest path.    

I don’t know how he swam those last hours.  Sheer will.  We shouted at him continuously for the last 2-3 hours.  We wrote signs, jumped up and down, clapped, cheered, anything.  I don’t think his mom left the railing from about 3 hrs in. We had to keep him moving.  The final current was 3-4 knots pushing him north. This is particularly bad as the French coastline recedes at this point and this would add miles to the swim.    

The final stage of the swim was excruciating as far as wanting it to be over for him. It was actually some of his best swimming, though. Finally the finish came.  The support boat parked itself about a 1/4 of a mile from the projected landing point. I hopped in a dingy with assistant crew member Gary, who manned the craft. Todd followed us to the beach. This was extremely tough. He was, as they called it, shattered (exhausted). He was pushing to get to the beach. The current, unfortunately, was pushing hard as well and that made things extremely frustrating  with Todd seemingly going nowhere. 200 meters from shore was almost unbearable in the dingy. It was getting dark and the crew could no longer see us. Todd kept swimming and finally got to a place where he could stand (after being stung by a jelly fish). Using a kind of crawl and fall method, he stumbled up onto the beach and I was there to finally catch him and wrap him up in a towel. We were both overcome with euphoria and delirium. It was dark by then and the air temp had completely dropped so the beach celebration lasted about 2 minutes. I got him out to and in the dingy and we were off for what seemed like forever back to the boat. Todd was freezing! I wrapped him up in more towels and a jacket in the dingy. Once at the boat, his dad and the captain hauled him in and Jennifer and Mary did their best to get him dry and warmed up as quickly as possible. The trip back to Dover couldn't have been fun. I think he slept on and off for most of it (with Jennifer and I keeping a close watch) which was about 2 hrs. I don’t think he remembered anything after stumbling up on the French shores.  

The total swim took 13 hours and 35 minutes.  What did Todd get?  A very sore shoulder and some serious chafing while probably not being very aware of what he had accomplished.  He did get a t-shirt and his name will go up on a website as one of the few individuals to have successfully swum English Channel.  As far as WHY did it,  you will have to ask him.