Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 126, January 2020 | Page 44

MULTISPORT
Howard says about 10 hours in he made a big
mistake. He looked up, and then looked back. “I
couldn’t see France, and the cliffs of Dover still
looked right there. I was being stung, bumping into
debris and driftwood, and I realised why so many
people don’t make it across the Channel. I just burst
into tears, but that’s when Elmarie saved me. She
had hidden laminated pics in her bag and started
showing me pics of our daughters, and our sausage
dog, Noodle. Those pics made me think of home, and
funny memories, and I told Elmarie afterwards, my
goggles filled up again thanks to that, but it made me
want to get to France even more.”
Howard and Elmarie celebrate back on the boat
Elated to have made it!
and get himself ready and get down to the harbour,
but he had forgotten to reset his alarm to UK time.
“We were woken by people banging on our door,
saying they’re waiting for us. We were running an
hour late, so I had to jump up and rush breakfast, and
I couldn’t go to the loo. When I got onto the boat, it
was already rocking in the harbour due to the chop,
which made trying to chew my oats properly even
harder! After paying the skipper the balance of the
boat fee, the official observer read me the rules and
checked my gear, and we were off.”
Rushed Start
After a 30-minute trip to the start point a little bit up the
Channel from Dover, to account for the tide, Howard
applied a little bit of Vaseline to chafing points, then
was told to jump in, swim to the beach, signal when
ready, and the horn would sound to officially start
his crossing. “I had barely finished my oats, hadn’t
been able to go to the loo, and there was no time to
meditate. I kept thinking, this is what I wanted, it’s
now or never, so I jumped in. Immediately my goggles
filled with water and my swim cap began sliding off.
When I got to the beach, I just stood there in a state of
stupidity and numbness... it’s an unreal and frightening
feeling, being there all alone. It’s nothing like the start of
Comrades, where you’re surrounded by fellow runners,
and everybody wishes you luck.”
44
“I only had 10 seconds to do my final prep, then it was
hand up, horn blast, and off I went. Three metres in
and my goggles filled up again, the cap was popping
off, and I was losing it within the first few metres. So
then came my very first 10-second ‘file.’ I just told
myself, get over it, get over it, get over it. I had written
the names of my daughters on each arm, Sherry
and Kyla, so looked at their names for strength, and
swam. When I got up to the boat, they asked what is
wrong, since I was clearly not swimming smoothly yet,
but I just said let’s go.”
Given his bad right eye Howard was swimming on the
side of the boat where he could sight the boat with his
good eye each time he took a breath. However, the
tide kept pushing him towards the boat, so two hours
in, the skipper told him to swim on the other side. This
made the conditions smoother for Howard, but now
he couldn’t see the boat clearly. Then the first jellyfish
got him. “It stung me on my hand, shoulder and belly,
and under my feet. It was like a hard slap! Meanwhile,
my nose was burning, due to the Channel being far
more salty than our SA sea, and I had to signal every
time I went to the loo, because they monitor you
carefully to avoid kidney failure. Those first two to
three hours were hell, and I didn’t know how I would
do it, but I kept going.”
Vital Inspiration
The jellyfish stings became his constant companion
as the hours dragged on, and Howard says he just
kept going back to the 10-second rule. “Every time
I was stung I told myself, shut up and swim, you’ve
got 12 hours, maybe 13 if it’s a bad day, so get on
with it. I knew there would be more jellyfish, so I just
accepted it. In fact, I got so preoccupied with my
filing system that I just lost 10 hours. I can’t remember
anything about that time, but the crew told me
afterwards that my stroke rate remained the same.
And when we got into the shipping lane, I even picked
up my rate without needing to be told do so, I just
picked up without realising it.”
Due to the choppy conditions, Howard was
swallowing a lot of salt water, and it was getting in his
eyes, but he says he still could see the most important
person on the boat, Elmarie. “The Skipper said
afterwards they normally don’t like having spouses
on the boat, because it can interfere with the swim,
but they had never experienced such a connection
between a husband and wife, because she knew
exactly what I needed just by the look on my face.”
ISSUE 126 JANUARY 2020 / www.modernathlete.co.za
Channel swimmers are never told what their
swimming time is, because the tides can make that
35km crossing a much, much longer swim. Howard’s
only indication of time was therefore counting the
feeding times every 30 minutes. “At feeding time, I
couldn’t actually respond to questions, because my
jaw was locked due to the cold, but they told me my
stroke had remained constant throughout. There were
four boats with swimmers in the water that day, and at
one point Elmarie told me I had pulled way ahead of
the other swimmers and the other boats were out of
sight. Then later, I heard that the other swimmers had
pulled out.”
As the cliffs of Calais came into sight, the crew told
Howard he just had a Robben Island swim left. “I was
elated, and thought, now I’ve got this, so two feeds
later, I thought I must be almost there, and made the
same mistake of looking up. I could no longer see
the cliffs, and realised I had missed Cap Nez due to
the tide, which meant I now had a much longer swim
still to go. My heart sank, but I filed it and got over it.
I decided screw this, I came here to swim to France,
so even if it takes me two days, I’m carrying on. That
was the toughest moment, like in Comrades, when
you have dig deep to keep going, where your true
character shows through. I promised myself I would
not look up again, just swim as hard as I can.”
The last mile of the Channel crossing is often the
hardest, as swimmers have to contend with a tide
that pushes against them, threatening to sweep them
into the shipping lane, and thus they have to increase
their pace and push even harder to make it. Due to
the adverse conditions, this stretch took Howard a full
four hours, in spite of him pushing like crazy! “When
I looked at the boat and saw that the dinghy towed
behind the boat was still there, I knew it meant they were
Howard’s prized
French pebbles
Images:
Just a Little Further...