English Channel Swimming Survey

Dr. Julie Bradshaw MBE, Secretary of the Channel Swimming Association Ltd, sent the following survey questions to the individuals who completed a crossing of the English Channel. The questions include the following:



General:
1. How many times have you swum the channel?
2. What age were you?
3. In what time did you swim the Channel?

Preparation:
1. How long in advance did you begin to start training to swim the Channel?
2. What was your reason for doing so?
3. How many hours did you train on average per day?
4. Did the number of hours increase as you trained?
5. What did your training consist of?
6. Did you train in the gym as well as in the pool?
7. Did you train any particular muscle groups or your whole body?
8. How did you combine your training with the rest of your life?
9. Were you working etc whilst you were training?
10. Did you have to follow a special diet whilst training to swim the Channel?
11. Why or why not?
12. Did you have to undergo any health checks before you were allowed to swim the Channel?
13. How far in advance did you begin to acclimatise to the conditions of the Channel?
14. Had you swum a comparable distance before you swam the Channel?

The Swim
1. What did you eat whilst swimming the channel?
2. How did you eat?
3. Which swimming stroke did you use?
4. Did you adapt it at all?
5. On which date did you swim the channel?
6. Was your swim affected by the tides?
7. Did you plan your swim with the tides in mind?
8. Did you risk your health at all as you swam the channel?
9. Did you become at all ill?
10. How did you avoid hypothermia?
11. Did you only swim when it was light?
12. Or did you also have to swim when it was dark?
13. Did you come across a lot of sea life?
14. If so what exactly?
15. Did it pose a problem to you?
16. How many people were in the support boat?
17. How did you swim without getting in the way of ferries and other craft?
18. Did you come across any whilst you were swimming?
19. What was the closest distance you got to one?

Other
1. Did you swim to swim or did you also collect money for charity? If so which one and why?
2. Was it a prime motivator?
3. If you did not swim the channel for charity, what was your primary motivation?
4. How many parts of swimming the channel are individual and how many are team work?
5. Would you please send a copy of your filled in questionnaire to the CSA.

Photo of Julie Bradshaw is from her website and her record-setting 34 hour 32 minute triple relay crossing of Loch Ness. Among Bradshaw's many open water swimming accomplishments was an incredible 14 hour 18 minute crossing of the English Channel - at the age of 38 - doing nothing but BUTTERFLY!