Research project, and swimming to Bordeaux...

I decided that it was time to relaunch my "Becoming a Channel swimmer" research project, in the hope of getting as many people involved as possible as early as possible in the training cycle. I posted a message on the discussion forum and got a really good initial response, and a number of people are already either letting me use their blogs, or sending me offline journal entries or e-mail updates, and quite a few have already offered to be interviewed as the year progresses. All very exciting. My funding bid is still with the Economic and Social Research Council - the decision should be announced by the end of Feb, so fingers crossed.

To make it a bit clearer what the research is about, I've written a brief project summary, including the key research questions and how people can participate. If you're interested in learning more about the research, or want to take part, you can find the summary here, or via the link on the right side of this page.

On a completely different note, I've been feeling fairly pleased with myself having calculated that I've swum 850km this year, which is not record-breaking, but will get you as far as Bordeaux in France, which is quite a pleasing thought. But then I watched the "Duel in the Pool" this morning (a swim meet between the US team and a three-country European team), and the commentators happened to mention that David Davies had had "quite a heavy" couple of weeks of training prior to the races ... Something of an understatement as it turned out - he'd done 200km in two weeks!!!! Okay, so now my 850km in a YEAR is looking pretty lame... not that comparing myself with elite swimmers is ever going to be a good confidence-building strategy, mind you...

Having said that, the swimming was just beautiful to watch. Those people are amazing. And it's great to see so much swimming on TV - the Robson Green open water documentary, the Great Swims, and now this.