The River Dart 10k Swim in Devon UK
“Do the Dark 10K Swim” they Said….. “It’s one of the all time great swims!”.
Ok I thought. I liked swimming and this has been on my bucket list for a while.
THE START
As I waited in the starting pen for the start of my wave I began to realise that I was fairly unique. Firstly, everyone I managed to speak to while standing there trying to hear the safety briefing, had done this before. And secondly; and more alarmingly, they were all wearing wetsuits. I was not. I was standing there with nothing more to contain my modesty than a skimpy pair of trunks, a swimming hat and goggles. Although, my feet were covered….. in mud from the “battle of the Som” conditions that were the field we were standing in. Had I seriously underestimated this swim? Should I be wearing a wetsuit to protect from the cold water and make the swim easier? I was beginning to have serious reservations. Then over the other side of the pen I saw a glimpse of flesh. Yes indeed there was another nutter among the mountain of wetsuit clad monsters. A fellow crazy person swimming without a wetsuit. I made my way over to him hoping for some words of wisdom to placate my doubting mind.
The man in question looked like he knew what he was doing. A veteran with a lifetime of swimming experience. This was the man who would set my mind at rest.
“No.. Never done it before. Looks bloody cold doesn’t it”, was his reply when I asked. Oh bugger! That flushed my confidence boost down the pan faster than a goldfish from a funfair.
As we were herded towards the boat slipway that constituted the start of the swim in the town of Totnes, a few more words were spoken by the organiser. Something along the lines of Good Luck, but I wasn’t really concentrating as all I could think about was the cold dark water I was about to drop into.
As I shuffled down the concrete slipway in the que of swimmers desperate to plunge into the dark water of the river, I thought to myself “Oh well here we go. It’ll be fine”.
Then my feet touched the water, and to say it was a bit of a shock was like saying Donald Trump can be a “bit of a dick”. As soon as my foot was submerged above my ankle it was like being stabbed in the toes. I had to stop moving forward momentarily, but was immediately aware of the hordes of people pushing me forward from behind as the mass of swimmers moved down the slipway and into the water. I moved forward and within a couple of steps, threw myself forward into the water.
Instead brain freeze gripped my forehead, like I’d just downed a slush puppy in record time. Then as I began to kick my legs hard to get some warmth into my muscles I got instant cramp in my right foot. A stabbing pain in the arch of my foot making my toes curl like I was a chimp grabbing a branch while hanging upside down. My face and lips in particular became instantly numb. I felt like I had had a visit to the dentist, collagen lip implants and a slap in the face with wet kipper all at once. My little fingers on both hands became so numb, that they seemed to flap around on their own, and I couldn’t seem to keep them straight. How the hell was I gonna swim like this.
THE SWIM
I mentally told myself to stop being a pussy and just keep swimming. The beginning was always going to be the nasty bit. So I knuckled down and tried to get into a rhythm. It was difficult as there were so many swimmers all clambering for space, like 50 frogs in a shoe box. After about ten minutes my face had become used to the cold, or maybe all the nerves had just been deadened. Either way, I no longer hurt. Even the pain in my foot had began to ease up. At least I didn’t have chimp foot anymore.
The first kilometre went by really quickly and the field of swimmers began to spread out a little making it easier to swim and stay out of everybody else’s way. As I began to warm up and get used to the water I got the chance to look around at the scenery every now and then, and appreciate where I actually was. It is a very beautiful swim. The river snakes down a steep sided valley with trees overhanging the water along the banks and sheep grazing in the scattering of fields. The river is about 30 metres wide at this point and the support marshals on jet ski’s and paddle boards were keeping us near the right side of the river to avoid the occasional boat passing by.
Before I knew it I could see the first feeding station about 300 metres ahead. But as soon as I did, I swam through a section of about 10 metres of water that was massively colder than the rest. And instantly I got cramp in my right leg. Both my calf muscle and the back of my thigh went into spasm and I had to stop swimming and roll over onto my back and float, while squeezing and massaging my leg as hard as I could. It was excruciating! Then I heard a voice behind me asking if I needed help. It was a guy on a jet ski offering me assistance.
“I’ll be alright in a minute” I replied with my mouth half underwater. I’m not even sure he heard what I said, he just looked at me, with a face that said “I really hope I don’t have to jump in this freezing cold water to help this idiot trying to swim without a wetsuit”.
“You’re nearly at the first feed station” he shouted at me.
I turned round back onto my front and started to swim again, though not kicking my legs due to the cramp.
I didn’t feel like I needed to stop for food or drink despite the cramp, but forced myself too, as I had the thought that if I didn’t bother, I might get another kilometre down the river and wish I had. So I grabbed the edge of the floating pontoon and immediately had a handful of jelly babies thrust into my palm. I reached up and took a swig of water from a bottle on the side, and shoved all the jelly babies in my mouth before pushing off down the river again, leaving behind a mass of panting swimmers clutching what looked like a raft constructed by some stock brokers on a team building exercise.
THE MENTAL CHALLENGE
As the river meandered through the valley, it began to get wider and the swimmers spread out even more. It was at this point, about the half way mark, that I began to set myself mental challenges to keep my brain active and stop from thinking “I could be sitting on a warm sofa with a nice drink relaxing right now…… what the hell am I doing here!”
I would pick a person swimming about 50 yards in front of me and make it my task to catch and overtake them. Then pick another swimmer, and so on and so on. This forced me to keep a good pace and feel mentally as if I was getting somewhere. I didn’t want to push too hard and knacker myself before reaching the finish, but I had to have a target to keep myself motivated. I wanted to complete the swim in around two and a half to three hours, but in order to achieve this, I did not have the luxury of hanging around. This is definitely not a swim for people at work who insist they are fit as they go swimming in their lunch hour, but spend 90% of the time floating at one end of the pool chatting. This was a real swim. The river at one point is nearly half a mile wide and filled with boats, buoys, rafts and all manner of flotsam and jetsam.
At one point a mass of seaweed the size of a double mattress and twice as deep enveloped my arms and legs, gripping me like a monster from the deep and threatening to pull me down to the abyss. The feeling of trying to swim over the top of this stuff, where front crawl actually turns into a crawl, as you claw and pull yourself over the top of this smelly mass. Finally clawing and pulling my way into free water, I momentarily stopped swimming to reach down and untangle the mass of weed now engulfing my legs and torso. If I got out at this point I would look like the creature from the deep.
I was now beginning to feel tired and started to take my mind off of my now aching body by thinking of other things. I remembered a conversation from the previous day from a friend about how to tone your core muscles when swimming. His method was to imagine you are holding a bunch of fifty pound notes between your butt cheeks while you swim along. The process of clenching like this forces you to also tension the core muscles of your stomach. So I thought, lets give it a go… If I could keep that up till the end of the swim I should have a six pack that I and my wife would appreciate. So clench I did…… for all of about 100 metres, at which point I decided that this probably wasn’t the best time to be using up double the amount of energy to swim the same distance. It’s knackering. However, I did have a go at this technique when swimming in the pool several weeks after the Dart swim, and the next day, it took me a couple of hours to realise why my arse hurt every time I sat down. I thought the padding had collapsed in my office chair. I was even on the internet looking to buy a new chair when the penny dropped and I finally realised the cause of my arse ache. I haven’t tried it since.
NEARING 7K
Anyway, as I approached the 7K mark I could see the 2nd feeding station a few hundred metres ahead. Feeding station 2 looked like a pirate ship in full battle being over run by marauding pirates, the crew onboard desperately fighting them off with jelly babies and lucozade. Having run out of bananas, they fort valiantly against the scrambling attackers, fending off the constant call for handfuls of sugary lumps and isotonic liquids. There were definitely a lot more people at this feed station than the previous one. It was mayhem. I reached out and grabbed the rope handle on the edge of the raft and slotted in between a couple of people. Someone grabbed my wrist while I was looking the other way and thrust a clump of jelly babies into my palm, just as I lost grip of the rope and floated away with the mass of other swimmers. It is surprisingly hard to chew and swim at the same time, but with the sugar now coursing through my veins, it was head down and carry on.
At this point I found it difficult to get into a decent rhythm and kept lifting my head every 100 metres or so, but it was around this time that I noticed that the water had turn very salty. We were now definitely in sea water as opposed to river water and it became choppy as well. It was only about 2k to the finish, but the wind had picked up and was blowing directly head on, whipping up the wave on this wide part of the river, which made progress hard work and seemingly slow. I moved in towards the right hand river bank where the waves were a little less intense, but a sudden smell of cow shit filled my nose. I thought to myself “it must be blowing off the nearby fields.. it was just the smell”, but then it must be running into the water too…eeeek I’m drinking this shit… I powered on swimming faster to get away from this shit storm of sensory overload, but it took up valuable energy that I really couldn’t afford to waste at this point.
THE FINAL STRETCH
Rounding the final bend, the wind and waves again were hitting us head on. Every time I lifted my head to try and see where I was heading, a wave would slap me in the face, just when I really didn’t need it. But having the finish within sight spurred me on to get to the end. It is absolutely true what they say, that the last bit always seems to be never ending. You keep swimming, but never seem to get any closer, then all of a sudden it’s 20 metres away. I swam as close to the shore as possible before attempting to stand up. As my knees scraped the bottom, I planted my feet on the stone riddled river bed and stood up, before getting a serious head rush and nearly falling over again. The shoreline was full of friends and family of swimmers cheering people as they stumbled out of the water. Once out of the water I started to walk along the shoreline for about 200 metres and the heavens opened. It started as that fine rain and quickly developed into a downpour. Now I began to feel cold and the shivers set in. Once I reached the main finish area I was handed a Dart 10K towel, a cup of hot chocolate and picked up my bag to get dry and dressed as quickly as possible.
With the taste of hot chocolate and sea water in my mouth I chatted with friends at the finish before heading back to Totnes for some much needed food and the long drive home.
The Dart 10k swim is without a doubt, one of the best swims I have done. It’s extremely well organised by the Outdoor Swimming Society and a great challenge. The people who take part in the swim and run it all enhance the atmosphere to make this the great event it is. If you want an adventure that is both mentally and physically challenging, then this is for you. Roll on next year…..
P.S. Thanks to my swimming buddies(you guys know who you are), who always help to keep me motivated.