GRANT: My training was getting interrupted about a year out. I wasn't sleeping very well and I kept getting colds. I did some research that when you have a lot of sugar, you can spike your insulin and some people don't sleep that well and some people become insulin resistant. For my body it's not good.
I classify carbohydrates and sugar essentially the same thing. So pasta, bread, I removed almost all of that and in the end I was having about 120 grams of carbohydrates per day and about 4000 to 6000 calories.
The other thing was timing of carbohydrates. So I'd have some carbs immediately after a training session to help with recovery.
OWM: You were saying that it kind of turns into a job for you and was there ever a time when you thought it was just too much and felt like giving up?
GRANT: So my coach Chloe was terrific. She would write my programs but she was also there is a mentor. She wasn't there at every training session but every two weeks we would have a trial. But anytime I would get confused about training or injury management, I could call her up and she would tell me what I can do. I have this theory that if I did 100% of what she said then there would be a 100% chance I'd make it. If I did 60% of what she said, there's still a really high chance that I'd make it.
I remember calling her once after a session, I was feeling really bad and I think I was almost crying and I said can't do this. It was like December and she said “you’re crazy, we’re going to make it! I have no doubt about it at all. Everyone's going to have a bad session”. She said that she trains 10 times a week. If she has at least 2 sessions a week that she feels good, she’s happy.
OWM: It sounds like you were smart to give yourself that much preparation time. Have you heard of anyone deciding in four months to do the English Channel Crossing?
GRANT: I think I'd be on the extremely fast side. I would suspect that people would be more in the three to five year planning and they might be pretty good swimmers already and have done a series of marathons swims. I basically did it in 18 months which would be an outlier and I think possibly quite stupid.
OWM: You got an award didn't you, for the earliest Crossing?
GRANT: They have an award called the Earliest/Latest Swim. Whatever the number of days is outside of the median and then they give a trophy each year for that. It's in a little trophy room at the Channel Swimming Association Hall of Fame and there's the Fastest Triple Crossing of the Year Award and my award is next to it.
OWM: So who actually decides when your going to swim, is it the pilot's decision?
GRANT: Yes, the pilot decides which day and at what time you will swim. The pilot is an experience channel pilot, one of only 12 with a license to take aspirants across the Channel. They are definitely the boss. We have a seven or eight day window on a neap tide to swim. The pilot looks at five different weather sources for the forecast, tides, etc, and then uses his experience and knowledge of the swimmers ability and pace to decide which is the best time to go. For me, I got a call at 4pm in the afternoon saying “be at the marina at 3am. Tomorrow we're going to go”. So it happens really quickly. Then there is a mad panic to get your crew together, get all the provisions to be out at sea for 12 to 18 hours, finalise the swim plan, make the food and the swimmers specific feeds, and try get some sleep.
My pilot Andy (who is super awesome), said it's was going to be rough in the beginning and then all fine up. This became a very important statement for me. Because it was very rough in the beginning, and I kept trusting him
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