Break Dancing Chicken

Portland Oregon resists ICE

Cold Water Mania

Along with my hard-core swimming regulars who I meet at the Richmond pool three or four times a week, I have been introduced to another community of athletes only this group meets Friday mornings at sunrise to swim in the Thames due West of the Teddington Lock. 

In the summertime, the water temps will reach 20 or 22C and warm enough to swim to Kingston and back or about 5km. This time of year, in winter, the river drops to 6-7C on its way to the coldest days when it may be 1-2C, depending on the air temperatures. At this range, we stay in for maximum 3 minutes - no wetsuit - it can be dangerous for longer - with our recovery clothes on the riverside at the ready - in my case, a down jacket rated to -20C.

As to the why ? While the health benefits of cold water swimming or showers is yet proven, the after-event high is real. We huddle over warm tea and cake; some bring a hot water bottle and all of us bitch about the cold.

On my mind is the North Channel connecting Northern Ireland to Scotland in August 2027. Perhaps hardest of the Oceans Seven swims due to the cold water, I will be in sub 14C for 10 hours or so.

Central America

Madeleine uses her hard earned dough as a barista at Hermanos Colombian Coffee Roasters in Barnes, frequently opening the shop at 6:30AM, an ungodly hour for anyone but especially a 23 year old who needs her sleep, to travel Central America with Tilda who she meets in Nicaragua.  From there, our gal goes to Guatemala and El Salvador where she hikes to the peak of an active volcano, explores rivers and rain forests and meets like-minded young people in the hostels she visits.

Post Manhattan and pre business school, I worked in Belize for a period of time helping set up the country's eye-health program with the Belize Council for the Visually Impaired and the Pan American Health Organisation as partners.  Belize a beautiful country and poor with then-undeveloped cays a Cessna hop from Belize City. The emerald Blue Hole, a submerged marine cavern where hammerhead sharks in the thousands circle and mate, can be found at a nearby atoll. 

As for the eye care, it became a model for primary care delivery in Pan America and a Harvard Business School case study, "Help The World See", published in 1997 and still in classroom-use today.

The Six Million Dollar Man

"Steve Austin, astronaut.  A man barely alive.  Gentlemen, we can rebuild him.  We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic man.  Steve Austin will be that man.  Better than he was before.  Better... stronger... faster."

The opening credits on The Six Million Dollar Man shook my world every Sunday night in the mid 1970s.  My eyes gaped as Steve bent steel or jumped tall hedges. It made sense that he was launched from a submarine into the Pacific to prevent a planet-destroying weapon being built on a deserted island. The "nyosynthetic" (advanced bionic) sasquatch - created by an alien colony hiding on Earth in the Pacific Northwest - required a double Bigfoot episode and a "to be continued" still-frame - Game on !!

Us boys debated the whole Jaime Sommers bionic woman love affair and thrilled to Max, the German Shepherd whose bionic legs and jaw gave him super strength and speed. There was good and bad in the 70s but, as a kid, it did not get better than the bionic man.

Catalina Strait

Catalina Strait start 

The official Big Swim season ends, at least in the Western Hemisphere, around early October when water temperatures drop below comfortable levels. I take advantage of July to swim around Manhattan ( 29 miles in 8 hours, 30 minutes) and September for the Catalina Strait (22 miles in 10 hours, 49 minutes). With the English Channel, I am the 394th person to complete the so-called "Triple Crown" of big water swimming.

The Catalina swim notable for its 11pm start-time to avoid the windy afternoon swells along the Southern California coastline. The darkness disturbing but, even more so, the unlucky British swimmer, also swimming the straight, nipped by a great white shark the night before my jump. The poor fellow pulled from the water after two hours, bandaged and greeted by the coast guard, then ambulance and fire engine at the Long Beach docks, and raced to the emergency for a few stitches to his leg and hand, all reported dutifully by the local news channels and hitting the BBC and Times just in time for Sonnet to worry. A truism I accept : The only strategy for sharks is to not think about sharks.

Cliterati and DeepMind

Laura, Sonnet's first flatmate post-college in San Francisco's North Beach neighbourhood, now lives with husband Chris in Bernal Heights following a long-tour in Lower Manhattan. Laura took an academic route - PhD in British Literature from Columbia, professor of literature at Yale and The New School (NYC) and, most recently, teaching courses on Ulysses and the MeToo movement at Stanford.  She also writes about culture, gender and sexuality - a few of her academic papers include 'The Cult of the Clitoris', 'Stein's Tickle' and "Third Rail Erotica: Anais Nin's Auletris" (independent.academia.edu). She recently engineered Harvard's acquisition of an extensive collection on women, gender and sexuality in American History as part of Harvard's Schlesinger Library, collected, in part, from San Francisco's sexual underground movement beginning in 1970s.

Chris, meanwhile, is a Senior Director at Google's DeepMind where he leads teams in Information Quality, Media Integrity, DeepFakes, Cheapfakes, VFX Tech, AR/VR, Human Pose and Face Analysius & Synthesis with launches in Google Search, Ads, T&S, YouTube, DayDream, Phots, JigSaw and other product areas.

Katie Protests

Brooklyn

There is plenty to protest in 2025 and, for posterity, it must feel like 1968 or the year the US revolution did not happen. Could there be a civil war in the United States? No, but it's not impossible either. The 2024 elections failed to save us from Trump 2. Will the 2026 mid-terms see us through ? If the Democrats take the house and the senate Trump will be impeached and removed from office, straight to the Manhattan Court House who owes him a sentence on 34 criminal convictions for falsifying business records and payments to Stormy Daniels.

James Murphy Live

Brixton

LCD Sound System

Pre-concert

Eitan, Rachel, JC and I see LCD Sound System at the Brixton Academy on a Sunday evening. I am the hero for navigating, mid-concert, a packed crowed, from bar-to-front with four times 1-liter open-containers of beer. Try it.

Afterwards we have a dinner and the only joint to serve us at the late hour is a local Jamaican restaurant, which stays open for us, serving their house specialties, to the delight of the Jamaican lady-owner.

Post-concert

Simon in Full Bloom

Simon and daughter Sophie

Simon turns 60, celebrated with a party at a Soho Italian. Over dinner I meet Sam (attorney working on criminal investigations), Fran (Cambridge PhD earned in her 50s now teaching english literature at .. Cambridge), Nick (investing public equities at Al Gore's Generation) and Andrea who is a classical  recitalist, piano, and technology banker and solar industrialist. This, mind you, at my end of the table.

Sophie, meanwhile, pursues her career as a serious gumshoe journalist when not doing stand-up work at the London comedy clubs. 

As for Simon, he invests in the climate transition and is active in climate policy and the geopolitics of energy. He chairs the Octopus Energy Climate Ventures Advisory Board and, before that, was a vc (founder, Fidelity Ventures and Generation) and the CFO of a startup from business plan to $1bn IPO. Simon's books include 'Terror Vanquished - The Italian Approach to Defeating Terrorism' and the Center for American Progress blueprint for defeating violent white nationalist extremists. He was Chair of the Foreign Policy for America in Washington D.C. and now chairs the board of the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

Gibraltar

Rock of Gibraltar; Jade and Tim 

Following Eitan's marathon and S of France, I head for Tarifa, Spain, the wind- and kite-surfing capital of the world, to swim the Gibraltar Straight with three friends from the Croatia camp plus our Red Top coach Tim. Alas, the beautiful spring sunshine during the week is matched by windy conditions over the channel putting a cork in the bottle.

Sub 3

Eitan at mile 19

Eitan runs his first marathon in Paris in April, opening the summer in style with a 2:56 effort. An Orenstein has finally broken three hours and I can go to my grave in peace.

Eitan informs that the last several miles of the race was hard-going but he persevered across the worst of it. Sonnet and I catch him at several points along the route rewarded with a small wave and a big smile. From here to here.

Sonnet and I arrive in Paris in time to meet Eitan and his wonderful friend Fleur for the pre-marathon carbo-heavy dinner and to see the David Hockney paintings at the FLV in Bois de Boulogne. We visit Guy and Jeanine in the 7e joined by Marshall and Veronique who is a trustee of the Centre Pompidou and on the acquisitions committee.

In real time, Sonnet proof reads her book on Elsa Schiaparelli that will accompany the 2026 exhibition; Eitan continues his work at Legal Aid and prepares for interviews with law firms; Madeleine works for October Films researching serial killers and other compelling subject matter.

Ping Pong

Sonnet a natural in el lay (July this year).

In 2018 Sonnet did a Fellowship at the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA). During this time she lived in Venice Beach, joined by Madeleine and Madeleine's friend Willoughby (ages, 16) who had never been out of the UK let alone the West Coast.  The two of them enjoyed un-parented days of skateboarding and surfing for an endless California summer.

Noah Davis

From NYC, Sonnet and I visit Gracie in Berkeley and drop down to Santa Monica to bop around LA including the UCLA Hammer Museum where we visit a wonderful retrospective on Noah Davis (b June 3, 1983- August 29, 2015), an influential black LA artist and co-founder of The Underground Museum to bring museum-quality art to the Black and Latinx community. 

We stay at the Prosper Hotel complete with sun-soaked rooftop pool and bikini bar. 

Manhattan 20 Bridges

The blue dot is me

I complete my second Big Swim on July 20 circumnavigating Manhattan beginning, and ending, at Pier A on the island's southern tip, next to the Staton Island Ferry, which runs every 15 minutes, forcing me to scoot from the start while keeping an eye on the boats. During the swim I'm accompanied by my cut man Ethan (an opera singer, comedian and extra on Law & Order), the observer (otherwise an exec at Goldman Sachs), the Pilot Dave and a kayaker.  It was an A-plus team and the swim never in doubt.

And what a swim. From the git go there were the icons - The Brooklyn Bridge ! The Williamsburg Bridge! The Manhattan Bridge! - within the first hour. Then the Empire State and the Chrysler building and the United Nations. Eventually things string out on the Harlem River (NB NYC resides in a tidal estuary and the East River and Harlem River are tidal and not rivers) while 15 of the 20 bridges cross here.  Finally the mighty Hudson's flow brings me home, ending beside Wall Street lit-up like a 100-story Christmas candle.

Sonnet, Kate, Brad and Deborah follow me around the island, notably at the Washington Bridge connecting NY to New Jersey where they hoot and holler from the little red light house. Then, 8 hours and 30 minutes later, Sunday Midnight/ Monday morning, it is over. Sonnet and I find a strictly saw-dust-on-the-floor and cheerful Irish pub for a Guinness and an intimate celebration.   

 

Me and the cut man at the Little Odessa boardwalk, pre swim

Barney In Full Spring

Barney is a California native who I recently connected with in London while he toured Europe with his wife and family. 

I met Barney in Maida Value,  W9, the neighbourhood of our second flat, in 1999. Barney had completed his B.S. at Stanford (Symbolic Systems) and Ph.D. at Cambridge in computer science and AI. 

And what does one do with such credentials ?  Work at NASA, of course, where he was the Software Architect on the Remote Agent, the first s/w agent to fly onboard a deep space probe during NASA's Deep Space One Mission, and widely considered one of the top achievements in the history of AI  and awarded NASA's "software of the year" in 1999. 

From there, Barney founded PowerSet, a neural networking application, backed by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, and sold to Microsoft becoming Microsoft Bing. A fellow has to make some money in his 20s, afterall.

Barney has gone on to found and fund over 200 AI-related start-ups in SV.  We frequently see each other, and I am always refreshed by his ideas. Back in the day we agreed to form a venture firm together but that would have required my relocating to the Bay Area, which Sonnet and I were not ready to do then.

And So It Be

Sonnet and I at Anthony's 50th birthday at The Queen of Hoxton night club that offers several floors for disco dancing beneath the sky terrace.  

I can't not reflect on time-gone-by given I met Ant in 1999 at eZoka.com, my ill fated Internet 1.0 start-up (and what a ride). Before eZoka, Anthony was a host at the original Soho House, swagging with celebrities and models, before it became a global phenom w venues in Manhattan's meat packing district assuring the meat packers could go somewhere else to pack their meat. Repeat in other cities. Today Anthony lives in North London, has a daughter and an owner of a bar-inventory management company. As far as it goes, I would describe his lifestyle as "alternative".

Speaking of alternative,  I meet Andy at the party who owns the club and two others in similar edgy-cool locations. I'm intrigued and wonder, at 58, if there is yet a few late nights left in me ? I tried, last year, with Madeleine, then at Manchester University, to go clubbing until sunrise yet, despite her willingness to engage - combined with an open bar tab for her friends - I was done by 1pm.

Not Your Usual Athlete

My guy Mitch

Mitch Hutchcraft - who I met in Croatia - accepts Mission: Impossible, completing the world's longest triathlon, starting with the English Channel, biking 10,000 kilometres across Europe, the Middle East and India to Nepal, trekking/ running to Mount Everest's base camp and, finally, climbing the mountain's peak. In all, it takes nine-months and collects several hundred-thousand Instagram followers, including me, who become invested in Mitch's success.

Mitch nearly bonked on Day-One taking 17 hours to cross The Channel and, admitted by him - it was touch and go.

St Tropez

Well we have ripped thru the summer and, following this week's "bank holiday Monday", a collective groan can be heard across the UK as traffic levels return to normal, kids go back to school and the adults, work. It is already autumnal and, due to dryness, following the dryest summer on record, the trees are turning early colour under duress.

The beginning of the summer started in the South of France as Sonnet took a break from her Elsa Schiaparelli exhibition, which opens in March 2026; from there I went to Spain to meet my coach and two Croatia camp friends to swim the Straight of Gibraltar, which did not happen due to wind and sea swell. Instead, we hung out in Tarifa, which is not a bad place to hang out, with perfect sunshine and Morocco in plain sight.

Gibraltar, while an Oceans Seven swim, is only nine miles - less than 4 hours of swimming. Instead, it was to be a warm-up for the Manhattan Twenty Bridges, a 29 miler circumnavigating the Manhattan island.

Adulting 1

Madeleine celebrating with Katie in NYC

Since the last posting : Madeleine started her first full-time job last week and post uni (where she achieved an academic "first" in Psychology at Manchester) working for October Films as Research Assistant. Not only did she independently source the position via active networking, her interviews occurred while our gal at a youth hostel in El Salvador (which, in my opinion, made her all the more appealing).  

Callum Hudson-Odoi

Callum Hudson-Odoi

When Eitan was in the thick of his football career, I wondered what it would have been like to see Wayne Rooney or David Beckham or Christian Ronaldo in their early years as players - would each have dominated the sport in similar fashion as they did in the Premiere League ?

Well, my question answered by Callum Hudson-Odoi who Eitan defended in the 2014 Surrey Cup Under-13s final when Hampton School defeated Whitgift on the last of the PKs in the most thrilling football match I have watched to this day. Callum, for his part, went on to play for Chelsea and now the resurgent Nottingham Forest where he plays 'winger' and has scored five goals this season, so far, including the Saturday winner against Manchester City. 

Eitan recalls the Surrey Cup when Hampton's strategy to staff two defenders on Callum who seemed to barely to notice the inconvenience. I recall a kid who was slippery as an eel and as sure footed as anyone I had seen on the pitch at age-13. He read the field perfectly and always in the right place to set up the action or to make a strike. 

Now, interviewed after the Man City match, I observe a thoughtful young man who gives credit for the game-winner to the team-mate who set up the angle. Callum is football at its best.

Gracie In Purple

Grace decides that it is time for a change, at 84, and asks: “what do you think about dying my hair purple?” I’m all-in on the idea and suggest to Gracie that she calls her Granddaughter to affirm the style. Madeleine grants an enthusiastic validation and Kiki, my mom’s hair dresser, arrives at the house to provide the colour.

Brixton Ac

Wonderhorse, Brixton Academy

Brixton Academy has re-opened after two people killed dead in a crush to see Afrobeats artist Asake in December 2022.

I am there solo last night for Wonderhorse and, better, the opening act HighSchool recommended by Christian and seen together with him, Sonnet, Madeleine, Eitan, Flora, uncle Anthony and Dylan & Fred from the Surely Knots at OMEARA, a club in SE1 with maybe a couple hundred people last year October. Both bands formed in 2022 and coming up, deservedly, big.

Rep Gabe Vasquez

Photo from the El Paso News

Eitan is working his socks off on the Gabe Vasquez re-election campaign in the 2nd District of New Mexico on the border with Mexico. In 2022 the 2nd District was the most closely contested congressional seat in the US where Gabe defeated Republican incumbent Yvette Herrell by 1,224 votes out of several hundred thousand cast.  

A first-generation Mexican American, Vasquez represents a predominantly hispanic community who tend towards anti-choice and anti-immigration (a reality is that first generation immigrants are the most aggressive on closing the borders) and a hard patch to till for a Democrat.

Eitan briefs Gabe on existing and potential financial supporters, their profile, and how to stimulate an investment in the campaign. Less than 30 days to the elections, Vasquez has out-fundraised Herrell by c 2:1, which is promising, but certainly no assurance of victory. 

Oslo Connection

Me and my new homey

I join Sonnet and Madeleine for the last two nights of their 11 day visit to Norway which criss-crosses the fjords, mountains and country,  

While sitting in the sunshine drinking coffee outside our Oslo hotel I spot Erling Haaland who is in town for the Norway v Austria Eurocup qualifier the day before where Haaland hits the winning goal in the 80th minute on Norway's 2-1 victory. Given Haaland is a world top-3 active player alongside Messi and MBappe, he was generous with his attention while informing he felt poorly for Eitan's love of Manchester United (Haarland plays for Manchester City).

The Final Journey

Below, the route I took from England to France. Across the top, from Dover to the separation zone, the tide was gentle and I was on a true course to Calais. A hard Southeast tide, on the second half of the swim, carried the Viking Princess II past Cap Gris Nez and added maybe file miles to the 22 mile crossing.

Channel Blog

Dear all

I am slowly posting the Channel notes, all 43 of them, into one place on my blog.  And here it is.

Have a mighty summer.

Jeff

 

The After Action Report 43

Other than feeling like a fire truck hit me, I am mostly thinking, wow - did that just happen ? and then: I am glad that I am not swimming the Channel today.  Or tomorrow.  And likely again.

But the swim : 3:15am wake-up alarm, 4am meet-and-greet the pilot, ECA observer and Nils (Red Top coach) at the boat, 4:15am chug out of the harbour to a pebbly beach below a chalky cliff, slide into the sea (cold ! salty!), 5am start swimming.

The pre-sunrise water ghoulish and my goggles fill instantly and keep filling.  Fuck.  The heaviness of the swim made worse by the Dover Cliffs which never disappear no mater how far I go.  This btw mirrored the second-half when the French coast stuck in place as I fly, parallel to the shoreline, on a strong tide eventually past Cap Gris-Nez missing the sandy Calais beaches before eventually landing on a rocky edge (NB I had to swim hard to reach France unaware of the potential drama of being swept back into the Channel and missing a beachhead altogether).

On the up, the sunshine on my back was divine, I had an amazing crew, and the Channel mostly flat eg perfect conditions.  Interestingly, to me, when I switched to a higher-tempo stroke to counter the tide I could no long hold a thought, nor sing a tune, and the swimming rhythm became meditative causing a trippy perception of time speeding up, noted from the programmed 30-minute hydration/nutrition feeds, which started to feel like five minutes apart.

Making the landing a lifetime highlight, yes, triggering a euphoric feeling that has yet to leave me.  A feeling that all the effort has been many times rewarded.

I am hopeful that the story will be retold, by me, my family and friends, well into the future, sitting on a sandy beach, looking into a never ending blue horizon.

A Final Thanks 42

Thank you, everyone, for your love and support on the Channel "project."

I have felt your presence during morning practices (which seemed like Midnight in January), the Croatia camp (87km in one week), cold water preparation in the SF Bay (down to 10C) and the Thames (to 5C, with a wetsuit) which has powered me through the hardest days (six hour swim ! 5:45 wake up !) and the best days (six hour swim ! 5:45 wake up !).

Your emails, texts and wishes will be on my mind this Sunday.

Ready, Set, Go 41

As it stands now, I will swim the English Channel on Sunday, July 28, early morning UK with the exact start-time TBD. I will update as the swim gets closer.

Soon to meet Goliath.

From Berkeley 40

I am still on the Berkeley High leader board with records for the 500 yard and 200 yard freestyle set in 1985.  There have been a few close misses over the years and I am cheering for the times to come down.

BHS swim coach Michael, a Berkeley High graduate around my time, keeps me up to date on the men's program while childhood friend Amanda (my year, '85) does the same for the BHS women as head coach of water polo and, until recently, swim teams.

The work, the swimmers and swim-teams and friends, the communities and the coaches and the race times jumble together.  What is clear : it is the journey where the adventure lays rest. 

Photo from a 'yellow jackets' swim meet earlier this year in Berkeley.

'Tis The Season 39

Below, senior year.  The flat-top from local barber Tony who got rich from customer stock tips and retired at 50.

I was going to shave it all for the Northcoast Championships only the finals were the same day as Senior Prom and my girlfriend Malaika was having none of that.  Going into Northcoast I was seeded first in the 500 yard and 200 yard freestyle and came in 4th and 6th, respectively.

Well, and here we go, the English Channel season is open with water temperatures at 16C (60.8F).  A few awesome swimmers from the Croatia camp have now made it across and also reaching Calais this week is Berkeley High senior Maya Merhige who finished in 11 hours and 39 minutes (no pressure here) making her one of the youngest swimmers to complete the Triple Crown of open water swimming, which includes the Channel, the 20-mile Catalina Channel and the 28.5 miles "20 Bridges" around Manhattan.  Maya has one hell of a college essay.

The Coaches 38

I am indebted to my coaches Tim and Nils at Red Top Swim for focusing my imagination on the English Channel and convincing me that I can do it.  Both have swum the Channel and Red Top has successfully taken c 200 swimmers from Dover to Calais.  In short, the best. No fooling around.

I do not train with the club given the Red Top pool is located on other side of London yet I feel Tim and Nils' influence on most things I do in the pool.  Specifically, beyond the coaching, they have devised a distance program, including the Croatia camp, and held me accountable; secured the VP2; provided a hydration and nutrition schedule for the crossing and carbo-loading beforehand; and offered encouragement throughout.

Nils, at the bottom of the photo, will be on the boat and is intense. I fear that he is going to make me do 100 push-ups once I reach Calais.

Spider Man 37

I wore the yellow cap and embedded goggles to age-group and early HS meets concerned that my 'compi' goggles (no longer made) would fill with water from the block-dive.  I was aware it was intimidating to the others swimmers.

The picture appeared in b&w in the 1983 Berkeley HS year-book with the singular caption "spider man" and the original photograph lost forever until I visited the newly rebuilt, and modern, Berkeley High School pool several years ago when, there it was, taped to a metal cabinet in the coach's office.

For the Channel crossing to be valid, the English Channel Association dictates a latex cap, pair of goggles and a swim suit not falling below the groyne.  Animal fat smeared on the body is optional - some use it, I won't.  There will be an official ECA observer on the Viking Princess II to ensure the regulations are met.

The Pied Piper 36

Simon, pictured below in the River Thames, I call the 'Pied Piper' as he has 'led', for 20-years, a group of 30 masters who gather weekly to swim in an open bend of the river west of the Teddington Lock so non-tidal. 

The group is seasonally agnostic and happy to toil in the pitch dark pre-dawn wintertime, wearing luminescent lights, when the water temperature can drop to below 5C. Wet suits are optional.  The comaradarie is obvious from the complaining.

I join Simon and maybe one or two others to head further up the river and back, sometimes as far as five miles.

A comment on water quality : UK rivers struggle from under-investment in infrastructure and lack of care for >20 years.  Thames Water faces bankruptcy and will likely be nationalised again soon.  Yet, on the up, there are 24/7 monitoring sites for all UK rivers and available apps show most days are clean and green-lit for swimmers (in short: don't river swim after a storm). 

A better sign of the river's health : we are joined by a friendly seal checking us out two weeks ago.

Simon is the founder of Outdoor Swimmer magazine, at your local news rack anywhere.

On Distance 35

I was (am) a distance swimmer for the simple reason that I was less good at the shorter lengths and other strokes.  My freestyle technique, a two-beat crossover, was not pretty and, further, I was a small kid, 5'8", 98 pounds, until Switzerland when I grew three inches in one year.

To compensate for the lack of, well, everything necessary to be fast, I worked and worked and worked.  School mornings were two pool hours before class, by myself or with Katie, thanks to Berkeley coach Bill G. who made special workouts for the two of us from age 11, and afternoons with the team.  I added weights, chords and stretching to the routine, showing up to workouts early and finishing late.  By 9th grade I snuck into the Cal Memorial football stadium to run bleachers (80 rows) before practice and to this day the hardest and most painful thing I have ever done to myself. 

There was zero distraction and little teenager angst given the family and community around me.  Today I train with a similar group of committed diehards who are often chasing personal objectives beyond PBs or winning.

From today I start tapering, reducing from 37km last week to 20km this week and 10km the next.

Photo from 8th grade:

The Berkoff Blastoff 34

An athlete changing a sport is a rare thing while there are many swimmers/ races that have reset the high-bar - to name only a few, Mary T Meagher's 200m butterfly WR in 1981 took 20 years to break; Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps of course.  Tracy Caulkins was the greatest multiple-stroke competitor of a generation and the marvellous Katie Ledecky still reigns supreme in the distance events.

But here I focus on Dave Berkoff, Harvard '89 (my graduation year and friends with sister Katie, also on the Harvard swim team). Physically unremarkable at 5'10" and 155lbs, his revolutionary backstroke start and turn dove underwater for 35-40m in a 50m pool using a wavelike dolphin kick and streamlined locked arms.  It was a novel thing and, Berkoff realised, faster than surface swimming.  

Using this technique Dave won NCAAs, US nationals and four Olympic medals and set backstroke WRs across his career.  Berkoff's races elicited loud uninterrupted cheers until he popped up to take a breath and stroke or two before the wall then back underwater. 

Today most every elite swimmer has strong "underwaters" regardless of the stroke.  Fittingly, Dave's daughter Katherine qualified for the Paris Olympics in the 100m backstroke.

Photo of Dave Berkoff from the collection of Carl-Johansson/ Olympedia (1987)

The Great Vladimir Salnikov 33

Soviet distance swimmer Vladimir Salnikov was the first person to swim the 1500m under 15 minutes which he did at the 1980 Moscow Olympics with a time of 15:58.27.  It was then the equivalent of the mythical four-minute mile or today's two-hour marathon.

I had the below poster of Salnikov pinned to the wall of my bedroom next to back-stroker John Nabor and Cheryl Tiegs.  According to Swimming World magazine, Salnikov trained like blood and nails which, in an era of more-distance-is-better, was something I could relate to.

Salnikov dominated the late '70s/ early '80s winning every race he swam (400, 800 and 1500m) accepting once against Californian Jeff Kostoff in 1981 in the USA-USSR "friendship" dual meet. During this time Salnikov bettered 12 world records yet never received broad recognition due to the US boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the Soviet Union staying away from LA in '84.

Today the 1500m world record is held by China's Sun Yang in 14:31.02 (highly likely doped) while there are six 16 year-olds who have gone under 15 minutes with Turkey's Kuzey Tuncelli finishing the distance in 14:41.90 at the Euro Junior Nationals last week Thursday (July 4).

My best 1500m time was 16:35 at 16 swum in Switzerland.

Vladimir Salnikov under 15 minutes, first time, July 22, 1980.

L'Equipe Suisse 1984 (32)

My junior year of HS (1983-84) was spent in Geneva training with Geneve Natation 1985.  To do so, following manoeuvres by the Berkeley Barracudas, my parents and the Swiss national swimming coach (Tony Ulrich), I found myself living with a Swiss family (strictly French speaking) on rue de l'ecole de medecine while Claude, on the counter-exchange, stayed with my family (which btw did not work out as Claude expected Baywatch and got Northern California).

During this time I attended College de Candolle with all my coursework in French, a language that became helpful later in my professional life at Astorg, a French investment firm in the Paris 8e.

The real motivation for the year was, of course, the swimming where I trained with Dano Hallsal who set a world record in the 50m freestyle in 1985; Etienne Dagon who won Switzerland's first Olympics swimming medal, a bronze in the 200m breaststroke; and Theophile and Francois David and Thierry Jacot who competed in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics.

From the right, Theo, Dano and Etienne (I do not know the fourth) at the 1983 Euro Championships.

Water Logged 31

 My training so far (NB I committed to the Channel on December 31, 2023) :

For comparison, as a kid thru college, I spent four hours a day in the pool typically hitting 14,000 daily yards across double workouts equalling, roughly, 360km (225 miles) a month (assuming Sundays off).

The below photo, maybe 1981, is pretty much how the weekends went - my Dad, in the blue hat, examining a time-sheet or doing some legal work.  Kirk, the barracudas' coach, passing the day between events.

Katie 30

Ours was a swimming family which meant up well before dawn and training in well-lit pools after dark, rain or shine.  

My dad enjoyed the morning company since he was on his way to work anyway.  Katie, on the other hand, a night owl to this day who persevered on limited sleep through high school and four-years swimming at Harvard (I swam two seasons for Brown).  On the car ride to morning practice we counted every stop-light preying for red.

Surprisingly I do not have many age-group photos from the pool or at swimming meets, where we spent most of our weekends, commuting with other swimmers, Moe volunteering as a timer.

Here is Katie, my support team in most things.

The Summer of '86 (29)

The summer following college freshman year I swam with the local club, Little Rhody (eg Rhode Island) at the Brown Aquatics Center, a 50m by 25yd pool too shallow at the competition-end with an odd timber-roof that one could climb on to when one was drunk.  Not that one would do so.

Sidebar: unsurprisingly the roof became structurally unsound and torn down in 2010 to make way for one of the best pools I know - the Katherine Moran Coleman Aquatics Center, which opened at Brown in 2012 and is big, deep and fast (racers feel it).

So the summer of 1986 I trained from 6-8am then painted houses until dusk then washed dishes at the upscale restaurant Cafe At Brooks (in the dicey Providence neighbourhood of Fox Point) which was fun since the head chef, Joe, was a RISD graduate with no culinary training.  He would look at me and say, straight faced, "this one is coming back."

The waitresses were pretty and we were allowed an after-shift drink at the long brass bar after closing hours.  Sometimes Providence mayor Buddy Cianci would drop by to tell stories about Federal Hill or the mob.

For some reason known only to a 19 year old I wanted bleached hair so, after morning practice, I added a lemon juice and salt mixture to my scalp. Below.

Here I am at summer's end painting the stairs of my parent's Berkeley house (Moe informed that my fees to be offset by the rent, a never ending joke between us (of course I paid no rent).

Cor Tenebrarum 28

Everyone, or at least most, has their moment of doubt and I feel nothing less for the Channel. 14 hours is a lot of time to spend in a physical activity dreaming whatever comes to mind and struggling undoubtedly with fatigue and doubt.  Once I start, there is no turning back accepting for the tides or hypothermia.  The rest is mental.

A fair question, then, is why ? A considered answer, why not ? The English Channel is outside my comfort zone at a time (age 57) when the stuff that worries me most is mostly under my control or, at least, I have experienced it before.  We will all be 73 one day or already, Ottis Thaning's age when he set the mark for oldest crosser.  My body is not the limiting factor (says he). 

I have made new friends whose similar journey is inspiring.  The goal itself has given meaning beyond the Channel itself.

But, but, but the Channel - I fear the wide-open space and not seeing the shoreline. The fading-out of sea-light to black beneath my gaze.  My imagination.  Starting in darkness.  The true time of a day.