Scott Ragsdale

As soon as I hit the water, Romain will post this blog… so if it’s up, I am in the dark (at least for the first 3 hours) swimming somewhere in the English channel.

Like many things in life, my swim challenge comes down to this simple thought:  finish or failure.

(the GPS tracker is updated every 10 minutes)

Over the past few months, (as I mentioned before) I have become buddies over the net with a few other people who were also training to swim the channel.

As of last week,  4 of the 5 failed in their attempts, and the 5^th after waiting two weeks, finally had to cancel his swim attempt and fly back to America because of bad weather. 

Last week, the most confident (cocky)  I have met training for this, failed … he quit his attempt just 6 hours in the water because of the cold …

But during this same period where these people quit, a few others have succeeded.

Every single report I have read about the English channel swim challenge states this challenge is 90% mental. 

Tonight I called my captain to find out how the weather was looking for my swim which will be either this Thursday or Friday. 
He told me everything looks good for an attempt on Thursday, Sept. 2nd.

We will start at 2:00 am and he expects me in the water by 3:00 am … and he laughing said,  “the water will be a lot warmer than the air… because the air will be between 6-8 degree’s celcius” (40-43 degrees F) and the water 16 degrees celcius (62 degree F) 

My first thought wasn’t   ”great!  I cant wait to start my swim ….” 
My first thought was   ”damnnnnn…. that’s cold ……” 

Sophie got me sorted straight away with her, “Of course its cold.  It’s the English Channel thats exactly why you are doing this“….

If I focus on the cold, before or during this swim  – I will fail. 

But…

It all depends on me. 

It’s interesting to think about life and how mental everything is.    

A week ago,  a friend sent me a book to help me mentally prepare for my english channel swim challenge.  

The book “Running on Faith” is the story of Jason Lester, a multi-ironman finisher, 2 time ultraman, he created “EPIC5,”  5 ironman in 5 days on the 5 islands of Hawaii…

What makes Jason’s story unique is that he achieves all of these adventure, endurance challenges with the use of just one of his arms. 

But I don’t think reading about JPL’s incredible story of making life happen in the face of adversity was the reason my friend sent me the book….

In the beginning of the book, Jason asks an interesting question: 

“When does the human spirit give in to the limits of the human body and just close up shop?  Or can we go as far as our spirit takes us?” 

Using his story, he shows how strong the human spirit can be when it is not blinded or consumed by negativity …. 

I won’t go into the details of the book – but it’s an interesting question or thought:  “can we go as far as our spirit wants to take us?”

My 4 different forum buddies who failed to cross the channel over the past 6 weeks … what separates them from the several who succeeded? 

Have you failed at something because you let negativity blind you/blind your spirit from seeing the finish? 

I think everyone has. 

Today – I fly to London to get ready for my swim on Thursday.

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For those interested in reading more about Jason Lester’s “Running on Faith” 
 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061965723/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1EFSHHA3WC3MQYAR3BMN&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

Great book —  I read it in one sitting.
I even read two of the chapters three times. 

Early this week, I was in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and met up with a friend of mine, an American journalist who is based in Riyadh.

We got into a discussion on my blog…

In particular he said he was “inspired” by my English Channel swim challenge, but he felt I was “not properly marketing it.” 

“Your writing style can gain a lot of readership – but you have to align yourself to a charity to be able to better market your English channel swim and all the other adventure challenges you are doing….” 

I tried to explain…. (we have discussed this in the past so our conversation was not a new one)

I am not doing this swim to market myself. 

I don’t give a damn about marketing my blog — marketing my blog would go against everything I stand for in this blog, hence, I do not allow naseba’s communication team to promote, link or market my blog in anyway.

He seemed annoyed by my response….  

Once again, he tried to persuade me that I could expand my readership of this blog and gain more media interest for my various endurance challenges if I aligned myself to “a cause.” 

By now I was annoyed and frustrated so sorted of shouted:  “ I AM aligned to a cause …” 

“My cause” is to remind everyone:  “but, we have to make our lives happen.”  

In my opinion… 

Too many people waste their lives on facebook.

Too many people live vicariously through movie stars and pro-athletes.

Too many people sit around and talk about what they are going to do tomorrow… 

How many people reading this have a goal or a “dream” yet have done nothing to try and go after achieving this dream?

Dreaming and setting a goal is a complete waste of time if you don’t go after (at least) try to achieve your goal.

Maybe your goal has nothing to do with physical activity … but whatever it is — try and make it happen.

How and why did I get the idea to attempt to swim the english channel?

I remember the morning/instant very clearly….it was a couple of months ago, around 3:30 am.

I was reading the news and drinking my morning coffee, getting ready for a 4 hour bike ride before work  – at the time, I was training for Ironman France.

On that specific morning, I read a news story about a business man who twice failed to swim the English channel.

The article stated that only 30% of the people who attempt to swim the English channel make it to the other side.

It went into explaining that summiting Mt Everest is statistically, more achievable than swimming the English channel.

More than 4,000 people have stood on the summit of Mt Everest.
Less than 900 people have successfully, swum the English Channel.

One site states that out of 4,370 attempts, only (just over) 800 have been successful (which is less than 20% success rate)

Thus, I discovered only 20-30% of the people who attempt to swim the English channel succeed.

I was hooked.

September 3^rd is the day my swim attempt is scheduled.

I have done two Ironman this year which gives me somewhat of a base to work with – and for the past month I have been hammering the weights, cross trainer, and swimming more hours than I have done in my life.

I lost a lot of body fat over the year, and my weight is down to 190-195 lbs ….but I read most people intentionally - gain up to 40 lbs for their swim.  The extra fat protects from the cold. 

I am lucky because my life style and working schedule is conducive to training – and my wife, Sophie is extremely supportive and does everything she can to accommodate and support my training schedule.

Although I work and live most of the year in Dubai, I have an office in Monaco and a house in the south of France.
Since my girls are on break from school in Dubai, we live in France for the summer and I work from my office in Monaco.

I  swim in the Mediterranean sea for 2-3 hours a day (either early in the morning or after work) and longer on the weekend.

I lift weights 3 times a week and do the cross trainer every day for 60 minutes.
I have also been working my core more focused than ever before.

To research and learn as much as I can about the swim, I joined a couple forums and emailed people who have swum the channel, etc.

A few months ago, I became forum buddies with 3 people who were also training to cross the channel.
Two of them have been training for more than one year (most people train for at least a year) ….
To my surprise, all 3 of these people failed in their attempts over the past two weeks.

Physically, I will be ready.

It will all depend on my adjustment to the cold water, the weather, and how strong mentally, I will be when the going gets tough.
13-14 hours in freezing cold water is a long time…

According to the captain of the boat who I hired (if all goes to plan) I will begin my swim from Dover, England around 2-3am on September 3rd and swim towards Calais, France.

It’s about 21-24 miles across, but because of the tide and currents, I can expect to swim about 30 miles.

I figure the swim will take me 13-15 hours.

A boat will follow along side me as I swim – and I will feed (drink something) every 20-30 minutes.

An official from the channel swimming association will be onboard  to officiate the crossing.

Why am I doing this?

Because I want to experience the cold, pain, suffering and see if I am mentally and physically strong enough to make this happen.

Only a 20-30% success rate makes the English channel swimmer part of an exclusive club.

On September 3rd – I will do everything in my power to make sure I join this club.

I am laying in bed in a small hotel somewhere in the middle of gorgeous Austria.

The weather in the south of france right now is perfect.

Sophie stayed at home this weekend to relax by the pool…while I woke up at 4am this morning to catch a small commuter jet at 6:00… to arrive to Munich, Germany … and then struggled to find my train which I then rode for 2 hours to Austria…. where it rained the entire day and is scheduled to do the same tomorrow….

…and I am here in Austria just so I can test myself and swim 6 hours non stop tomorrow morning in a 55 F degree lake.

Irronically, I had a comment today asking me to explain/do a blog on ”why” I have set the goal to swim the english channel?

Which reminded me of a discussion I have had off and on for the past 10 years with the Voice of Reason…. who thinks that all too often goals are set without being fundamentally grounded in “why” it is a goal.

His question is always the same: “Big or small, should not a goal be rooted in some type of value-based process?”

He has asked me numerous times…

Why do I want to do more ironmans?
Why do I want to travel to 120 countries?”
Why do I want to swim the english channel?

I keep telling him, if we think too much about why we want to do something, i.e. why we set a certain goal, we will end up just sitting around thinking about it – and possibly not go about trying to make the goal happen.

Surely, our biggest goals have an immutable “why” to them, but its never that simple — example,  “Achievement” is what drives me, but, my goal of traveling to 120 different countries has only to do with my love of adventure.

Furthermore….

If I sat around trying to figure out and understand exactly, why I have certain goals … I could easily talk myself out of trying to achieve them.

Even if one maps out and understands clearly why they want to achieve something — it is meaningless to set a goal  if one does not do everything in their power to achieve the goal.

I suggest going after a goal, and doing everything in ones power to achieve – even if one fails,  in the end, it’s still better than sitting around at a cafe thinking about “why” they should be setting the goal.

As for me ….

why am I sitting in a small chalet style of hotel somewhere in the middle of Austria getting ready to swim 6 hours in the rain in the coldest lake in this country…training for my attempt to swim the english channel in 7 weeks … why am doing this??  Why do I want to attempt to swim the english channel??????

I can make up some politically correct BS answer…

But to be completely honest -

I am doing this for the ”finishers photo.”