Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 126, January 2020 | Page 43

MULTISPORT
New Zealander Tracy Clark shouts
encouragement to Howard from the boat
However, more medical problems lay in store. He also
picked up a middle ear infection, and just two weeks
after getting the sinus problem under control, Howard
did another choppy Robben Island swim, and the
constant waves hitting him in the face every time he
took a breath took their toll. “When I got out the water,
I had very little vision in my right eye, so I went straight
to an optometrist friend, who asked me if I had been
in a fight, since my face was all puffy and red from the
swim? He told me I had ruptured my eye and lost 75%
of my vision in that eye, and sent me to a specialist,
who told me the Channel is off, because the slightest
splash on goggles would cause further damage.”
“I just told him, sorry, I’m still going – after all, I’ve got
125% vision – 100 in the one and 25 in other! He said,
OK, carry on, go blind yourself, but at least let me inject
the eye with a type of stimulant every 10 days to build
more plasma. Now I hate needles, so I had to get three
people to hold me down for those four injections, but I
did it, because the English Channel was it for me. Today
I still have limited vision, about 40%, and the experts say
it will take up to five years to recover, if ever.”
Besides the sinus, eye, ear and shoulder problems,
Howard had another issue to contend with. Just five
months before his Channel swim, he met his online
swim coach in person for the first time, and she told
him he needed serious stroke correction, because he
had a serious pre-exit problem with his arms. “Here
was this little German woman saying, ‘You vant to
swim ze Channel vhen? Can you postpone, because
ve need to teach you to swim first!’ Apparently my
arms were flapping all over the place, and I had to
quickly learn to keep my head down, get my arms all
the way down, and let my thumbs gently stroke my
hip, but I felt I got it right.”
More Hurdles
Having done all the training, overcome all the pain
(or learnt to live with it), used up countless files and
10-second moans in his head, and even picked up
10kg of body fat (by eating a ton of junk) in order to
be more insulated against the cold of the Channel,
Howard now felt ready for the big swim.“Prepping for
the Channel was extremely tough, but I kept thinking
back to Comrades and the lesson I had learnt there,
to make a plan, break it into ‘files,’ and deal with them
one by one. Also, I had never bailed anything in my
life – the only Comrades I didn’t finish, was because
I woke up with a needle in my arm, so technically,
I didn’t bail. The word ‘fail’ simply is not in my
vocabulary, so every training session I start, I finish,
no matter what, because my rule is that if you build
failing into your training, you are training to fail.”
Two months before his swim, he attended a swim
camp in Dover, where he did two six-hour swims in
the Channel. “They took us to one bay where we
swam for three hours against the tide, to simulate
what it will be like on the day. You’re lucky if you can
do 4km in that time! Still, it was a thrilling experience –
it felt like running a section of the Comrades, or riding
a part of the Tour de France route.”
Two months later Howard was back, one of four
swimmers due to go in that first week of July with
his specific boat and skipper. (There are several
companies, boats and skippers who offer the Channel
swim service.) He was given the second slot of the
week, and then had to wait for the skipper to say when
they would go. “The first swimmer went off in perfect
conditions and made it, but I didn’t get a call on day
two or three, as it was too windy to go. I just had to sit
there on a bench high on the cliffs of Dover, looking
at the Channel, meditating about the challenge that
awaited me. Then on day four, the crew visited us and
told us that the windy conditions could last for days,
even weeks, so the other two swimmers had already
decided to go home. I knew I couldn’t just go home
and come back, due to the costs, so they said I could
go the next morning if I wanted to, but warned me it
would likely be even tougher than usual.”
Another speed bump awaited Howard. With a 3am
start time, he and Elmarie set an alarm to be up at
1am, to give him time to eat breakfast, go to the loo,
Reaching the Franch coast, and finally the dinghy is brought up
43