Guest Blog – Dan Martin, Extreme Endurance Athlete

When extreme endurance athlete Dan Martin was sat in our reception area yesterday waiting for his session, I had a chat with him about his current training regime. He’s about to swim a North Sea crossing as a prelude to next year’s global marathon, so he’s spending a LOT of time in the water; up to 120 miles a week…

I figured you guys would find some of it pretty interesting, so I asked him to tell us a bit more. …being the seasoned professional that he is, he emailed me an entire blog entry…

Training, Over-Training and then Training Some More

A 120mile week.

120miles is a long way. It’s nearly five marathons. It’s almost six times the distance of the English Channel. It takes me 60hours to swim this far, almost three days of constant swimming and I do it in a week.

I vary the distance each week from anything from 40miles to 120miles and swim the majority of it in the sea or rivers near me. I do a few pool sessions a week to keep me sharp but cold water is key to my training. It all seems a bit excessive but when compared to the trip I training for, swimming the Atlantic, then it all comes into perspective.

In the Atlantic I’ll be swimming 8hours a day, 7days a week and only taking breaks when significant storms blow through. I hope to be holding 2mph for most of the trip depending on the weather conditions. On top of this the route that I’ve got planned should maximise the benefit I get from the Gulf Current. The Gulf Current is up to 5mph near the eastern sea board of the United States and slows down to about 1mph in the middle of the Atlantic. With this in mind I’m hoping to cover 25-30miles each day in the 8hours that I’m in the water and then GPS mark the point I get out at and get back in there the next day-if this all goes to plan then the crossing should take around 100days.

The main problem with this is the real world never holds true to the theory. The Gulf Current has countless spurs and turns which will at best make my route longer and at worst mean I’m swimming into a head current. On top of this you’ve got to consider culmative fatigue and likelihood of repetitive strain injuries; before you even think about the water being between 6-18Celcius, the effect of being in salt water for long periods of time and all the creatures of the deep that are in there! To this end I have to prepare myself to be out there for twice as long-maybe longer. The good thing is that there’s an end, there’s a fixed finish line and it should always be getting closer no matter how slowly.

Doing 120miles a week isn’t too physically demanding – you get used to the movement, you get used to the exertion – it’s a mental task. Staying alert/sane while spending three strokes out of four with my head gazing down at the big blue nothing for 2.2million strokes is what the training is all about and it won’t be until I get out into the middle-miles from everyone and anything that I’ll see if the training has worked.

The start date for the trip is now May 2011 and we’re still looking for a headline sponsor. If you think you can help or know anyone who might be able to help on the sponsorship side of this project then please get in touch via dan@danmartinextreme.com. You can find out more information on the project at my site.

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