Swimming - Round Ireland Challenge: Six Irish athletes are planning a 1,300km swim around Ireland.Are they insane? Seán Kenny talks to one of the participants.
"It's really cold at first, but you have to just jump in"
The kid at the Forty Foot in Sandycove is advising Ian Claxton on how best to immerse himself in the Irish Sea. It's a slightly surreal role reversal - the child counselling the old hand. The 28-year-old swims out from shore, fading from view till he's just a yellow swimming hat and a pair of arms ploughing rhythmically through the swell. He reckons the water temperature is around six or seven degrees - not the worst he's swum in.
Back on shore, the woman at the changing area wonders if he's training to become a lifeguard. It's a reasonable assumption. Lifeguards are 10 a penny. People in training to circumnavigate the country powered only by their legs and arms are not.
Come July, Claxton and the five other members of the Round Ireland Swim team will attempt to swim over 1,300 kilometres of ocean. If they succeed it will be the first time an island as large as Ireland has been circumnavigated by swimmers. They'll swim in relays for up to 12 hours a day, six days a week. They hope to get around in six weeks, depending on that notorious variable of Irish life, the weather.
Claxton knows his way around a swimming pool. He swam for Ireland for 11 years, picking up European and national titles. He's not a newcomer to sea swimming either, but this expedition is different: "I'm not sure what I'm expecting from all this. I'm not looking for fame or fortune. I'm doing it for the challenge. It's an extreme sport - endurance swimming in cold conditions with all the unknowns that can involve. Everything about it is extreme."
Accordingly, there are no half measures. He's up at five most mornings, in the pool by half past and off to work for eight. Then it's back into the pool or out to the sea after work. Most week nights, he's in bed by 10.30pm. Such is the monastic schedule of the top-level swimmer. You almost expect it to include vespers and matins.
It's a rhythm that suits him: "I've been training all my life, so it hasn't really made a huge difference to my lifestyle. I'm so used to the pattern of work, train, work, train. I wouldn't feel right if I wasn't training."
He's studying to become an acupuncturist too, so the working week merges with weekends of study or training or both. It's a relentless regime and he's looking forward to a rest when it's all over. He'd like to see his friends more often too. Still, he has an athlete's understanding of sacrifice: "I want to give this a proper go. I want to see how far we can push it."
For over a year, the team have been meeting regularly for weekend training sessions in coastal waters. Dingle, Donegal, Dublin; they've covered the compass points. It's serious stuff - deep-sea swimming accompanied by boats and divers: "It's been really intense. It takes its toll. You're in cold water, you can't see the bottom and it can be pretty choppy out there."
Speaking of choppy waters, he recounts one particular training session off Dingle: "There was a small-boat warning due to gale force winds. We were a mile out in the sea. Our boat couldn't wait for us because, with the waves being so big, it would have capsized if it had remained stationary in the water. So we were left alone in the ocean.
"I was swimming along when a dolphin appeared under me and swam with me all the way until I was safe behind the headland."
It's the kind of touchy-feely story dolphins are known for. Rather less touchy-feely, and significantly more populous, are the jellyfish that inhabit Irish waters. The much-maligned creatures can pose problems for sea swimmers.
It sounds faintly comical, but seals can take exception to humans encroaching on their patch too. We're not talking feeding time at Dublin Zoo here. And once, while the team were training off Tory Island, orca (also known as killer) whales were spotted only a few miles away.
"I don't think I'd like to meet an orca," he says with delightful understatement.
The major challenge faced by the Round Ireland Swim team is rather more prosaic, though: the cold. It comes up again and again when you ask him about the expedition. Lest there be any doubt on the matter, Ireland's coastal waters are cold, extremely cold.
The team have trained in water as cold as five degrees; that's around 25 degrees lower than the temperature in a swimming pool.
The average sea temperature in July and August is 14 degrees. That's colder than it sounds. Fina, the water sports regulatory body, forbids sea swimmers the luxury of wet suits. Out in the water, getting cold means slowing down. Slowing down means getting colder.
"We can all handle the cold. That's a big factor, the cold, because it will drain you and that accumulates every single day. It takes a long time to recover from being so cold, about four or five hours. Then, if you're getting into the water again that day, it accumulates even more."
He's been told to gain a stone in weight - they reckon he'll be shedding that much out at sea. The physical challenge of the expedition, though monumental, is fairly clear-cut. You train hard; you hope for the best.
The psychology of spending two months in the water is rather more complex: "It's the mental side of it that's the real challenge. When you're in the water, if you think about being cold then you'll actually feel colder."
Then there's the sheer, dark unpredictability of the sea: "You can get pretty scared swimming in totally dark water. My mind will play tricks on me, of course - I'm human like anyone. You just have to deal with the fear. I feel I'm psychologically tough."
He loves being out there in the water and is relishing the challenge, but he knows it's going to be hard. He talks about training on the west coast and the warm welcomes from the fishermen, who know well how brutal the ocean can be on a bad day. You don't disrespect the Atlantic when it can slap you in the face with a 30-foot wave.
He has a mortgage to pay, but he's leaving his job for this. Jobs come and go like the tide. World record attempts do not. He's taken a lot from swimming: "I've learnt discipline from swimming and brought it through my whole life, not just in sport - in work and everyday life too. If I want to do something, I'll go about it in such a way that I can get what I want."
He pauses and smiles a little awkwardly: "Does that sound big-headed?"
It doesn't. There's no hubris when he speaks. You lob little grenades toward him - the possibility of entering the Guinness Book of Records, for example - but he bats them away like flies. And anyway, there are always fresh challenges ahead. He'd like to do an ironman event. Maybe swim the channel solo. He wouldn't want to be idle.
Seán Kenny is a freelance journalist from Dublin
ROUND IRELAND TEAM
Ian Claxton
The 28-year-old Dubliner has claimed national and European titles in the pool. He is also an experienced sea swimmer and competes in triathlons. As someone who enjoys pushing himself physically and mentally, he is relishing the challenge posed by the swim - and is further motivated by the opportunity to achieve an Irish and world first by completing the expedition.
A biochemist, he works in the pharmaceutical industry in Dublin.
Nuala Moore
Coming from a fishing family, the 38-year-old Kerrywoman has almost literally been steeped in the sea since childhood. She is a seasoned sea swimmer and veteran of the Chicago Triathlon; in 2004, she broke the world record there in her weight category.
She sees the expedition as a way of pushing her personal limits and being part of a team of like-minded people. She is owner of the Strawberry Beds linen shop in Dingle.
Henry O'Donnell
The 42-year-old Donegalman is leader of the expedition. In 1992, he sustained multiple, life-threatening injuries after breaking his neck during the bicycle leg of a triathlon. He recovered to become the first Irishman to swim the nine miles aroundTory Island. He also completed the 24-mile Donegal Coastal Challenge Swim in 1997.
In 1991 he first conceived the idea of swimming around the Irish coast. Having assessed the feasibility of the expedition, in 2004 he recruited five other swimmers, forming the Round Ireland Swim team.
He is a former member of the Irish Army's Special Forces and is now a self-employed security consultant.
Anne Marie Ward
In 2003, the Donegal native became the first woman to complete the treacherous nine-mile swim between Tory Island and the Donegal mainland.
The 40-year-old considers the expedition to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and was honoured to be chosen for the team. She is a disability services manager for the HSE.
Ryan Ward
The 33-year-old brother of Anne Marie has had his sporting life shaped by the topography of Co Donegal - mountains and sea. Apart from being an experienced swimmer, he is a surfer, diver and canoeist. On dry land, he is a hill walker and mountain climber.
Having grown up within spraying distance of the sea, he has always had a love and respect for the water and is looking forward to the challenge posed by the expedition.
He is a general operator with the medical device manufacturer Boston Scientific.
Tom Watters
Originally from Meath, the 28-year-old is now based in Galway. His selection for the team was the culmination of a life spent in and around the water.
He has participated in numerous competitive water sports at national and international level, including water polo, pool swimming, surf-lifesaving and ocean swimming. Aquatic pursuits also characterise his professional life.
A qualified swimming and lifesaving instructor, he holds a diploma in physical training and works as a manager in the fitness industry.
