When It’s Time, It’s Time

We drove down to the coast Saturday night and I was ready to go. Everything looked good - the weather, the tides, the swimsuit, the “feeding...” I did a short one-hour “fitness” swim and we headed to dinner. That’s when the call came - high winds, no go. Not sure when we can fit you in again. Shock. How could I wait? I was ready now. Another week of pining over this and I would potentially go completely mad. The pilot says he’ll meet me in the morning to talk options. I attempt to calm down.


The evening progresses and my head is spinning. My Mom is here. The team is here. I am mentally HERE. A week could turn into a month. A month into next season. I am no fun. The morning comes. I talk with the pilot. No space the rest of the season, but a possible cancellation at the end of the month. Possible cancellation. Another month of waiting. The expense of lodging, food and the like. My Masters degree. Mom is here now. The team is here now. I am ready now.


The decision is made. I’ve got to do something now with this frame of mind. I need to target this focus. I need to prove to myself I can do it. “I’ll swim a marathon in the harbour instead. I’ll prove to myself I can do it. We’ll save the thousands of dollars it costs to rent a pilot boat. More money for Harvey. A way to close this chapter of my life and still feel like I’ve done something amazing. It is on.



I’m in the zone. Sunscreen on. Suit On. Vaseline On. Cap On. Goggles On. Crocs On. The final walk down the pebbly beach of Dover. “This is it,” I say to myself. “Lets bring it home.” I chuck my Crocs to shore. This is between me and the breaker wall now.

Hours one, two and three go slow. There are no half-hour feeding stops on shore. The cold sinks in, as usual, just after the second hour mark. I come in to feed at three hours and I’m shivering. “I’m cold,” I shout to the beach. “Remember what your coach said,” Lianne reminds me. “You’re not going to get any colder.” Realization. Happiness. “Oh my gosh, I’m not!” Back to the water I go.


My mind twirls on about the good weekends and the bad. What I’m going to say afterward. The knowledge that this could be my last dip in Dover Harbour. Happiness. The cold starts to fade. The soreness in my shoulders diminishes. It is on. Now all I need to do is kick the hip pain. I get to the wall at four and a half hours and am greeted by a swarm of jellyfish. How about we split the harbour equally between us? Thoughts? Reactions?


The half-hour feeds make things easier. “Just to the wall and back,” I tell myself, again and again. It becomes my mantra. “Wall and back. Wall and back. Wall and back.” Suddenly I’m at hour five. Aditi and Lianne give me new topics each time so I don’t get bored. Name a song that starts with every letter of the alphabet. My perfect partner. How to improve LSE. Biscuits vs. Cookies. I’m in a zone. My hips loosen up and nothing can stop me. My mind is busy, my pull is strong, my legs are coming with me.

At six and a half hours people start showing up. I am greeted on the beach by a swarm of friends and of course, my amazing mother. They’re with me, and their energy begins to recharge my batteries. John tosses the feeding bottle to me and I sip it quickly. The cold is completely gone now. Just two more hours and I’m there.



My mind drifts back to the first two hours. “If I could do those, I can do these.” Now, all of a sudden, I’m thinking about how I’ll miss all of this. Not spending endless hours cold on Saturday and Sunday, but pushing my limits. Doing something human beings should not do to help someone in need. I decide that something must come next. Something equally difficult but a touch warmer.

Without warning I’m in for my last feed. Just 30 more minutes to hit the near marathon marker. I’m churning away - lots more effort to go a distance that now seems quite far away. My mind drifts back to the first hours. I begin to wonder if I’ll cry, laugh, smile, feel indifferent. I begin to wonder how I should feel. How I should react. A happy dance is definitely in the cards. I reach the wall for the last time. It feels good.



My arms are flailing and my legs are dragging behind as I pass the last beach marker. My hands are hitting the sand below. I can stand up and walk in! The smile comes. So does the happy dance! I did it. I did something I never thought possible. Pushed my limits beyond reasonable, and all in the name of service.




In that moment I may have never been more at peace. I did it and no one can ever take that away from me. Next stop: Kilimanjaro.



You can still support Harvey online by clicking here. Thank you!

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Kyle Taylor

Channel Swim Becomes A Dover Marathon

When life hands you lemons but you really need oranges, just make lemonade. That sort-of sums up what happened vis-a-vis my Channel swim. The bags were packed, the crew was on time, but then the darn wind hit 40mph and I was beached.


My pilot wasn't comfortable going Sunday with the wind, and was certain it would carry into Monday and Tuesday as well, which meant my assigned swim window was closed. He had some additional dates at the end of July but unfortunately, I don't have the money to stay and wait for the next month and my Mom and support crew could only be here through the 14th of this month.


I wanted to do something big while they were here for them, for me and for the 4-year old boy who lost both his legs to meningitis who I was swimming for. We had all the Maxim mixed, all the snacks prepped and I was in the mental zone, so I decided to prove something to myself in the Harbour, which has been my worst enemy these past 10 weeks. That way, no matter what happens, I’d have that accomplishment and no one could take it away from me. So swim I did. 25 miles, in fact, and an average crossing of the Channel is usually roughly 22 miles. The water was still freezing (60 degrees, which I braved for nearly 9 hours), the wind was still blowing at 40 mile-an-hour gusts and the water was still rough. The difference - I started and finished on a beach in England. The final feeling - Incredible!


It was so amazing to do it surrounded by family and friends. As many Channel swim regulars have said: this whole experience can be life-changing, and it has been for me as well. I've learned so much about myself and about my motivations. Somewhere along the way it stopped being about getting to France for me and started being about sharing this journey with everyone in my life, beating the cold water and doing all I could to help Harvey run.


I started to realize, in many ways, how selfish this whole thing had become - everyone waiting around for me to swim, spending nearly $3,000 on a pilot boat, sucking the time and energy of everyone around me just so I could say "I swam the Channel." This was supposed to be about challenging myself to do something physically incredible and re-ignite what swimming means to me while raising money for Harvey; a young boy who is in need of so much compared to my - in perspective - rather selfish desire to "say I did it." My decision became clearer and clearer. So, seeing no real opportunity to swim to France for countless reasons (at which point I could have just walked away) I decided to face my personal challenge and donate the $3000 I would have spent to cross the Channel directly to Harvey.


These past 10 weeks have been brutal on me mentally, emotionally and physically. The thought of waiting for something that I felt I no longer needed to do to prove something to myself was just too much. Instead, it had become about the fear of what people would think or say if it became impossible to do it. The politics, the stress and the lack of ability to do anything else had been wearing on me for months. Knowing there was a “third way” to prove to myself what I needed to prove while doing even more for Harvey seemed so “me,” if that makes sense.


That's the story. I hope I haven't disappointed anyone or let any of you down. I am on cloud nine at the moment and totally satisfied with how it went, and that's all I wanted - to beat my fears and help Harvey. I hope I did that, and inspired a few folks along the way. Life is unpredictable but as friends have taught me:


You must adjust to circumstances beyond your control.
You can’t live every day in fear of what others might think.
There is more than one way to do something.
Putting service above self can be an even greater accomplishment than any one feat, larger or small.
Suit, goggle and cap tans can be wildly uneven and rather hilarious.


Additionally, I think we may have invented a new swimming challenge - the Dover Open-Water Marathon: Further than the Channel, 3000 times cheaper, just as cold.



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Kyle Taylor

The Final Training Weekend

The jig is up. I don’t like going to Dover to swim in the harbor. It is exhausting, painful, cold and miserable. In fact, I don’t know of anything in my life I have dreaded this much. I can barely sleep the night before because my heart is racing and my mind won’t turn off. Then, after the swim, now that I’m doing 6 hours in the hot sun, I radiate heat for days, sweating right through my clothes while I sit, stand and even sleep. I eat everything in site and since I’m supposed to gain as much weight as possible, this eating usually consists of junk food (which is really not my favorite).

Needless to say, knowing this would be my last weekend of training (and Saturday my last LONG swim), I was both dreading and anticipating the trips down. Fortunately, John (the Rotary Dad) offered to drive me down both days and crash at his place. This is an excellent option, as the food is amazing, the conversation is interesting and the sofas has powered recliners built in.

My other issue is that I like the “big game.” That is, I did 6 on the day I had to do six because I had to do six. On the actual day, I’ll [hopefully] swim to France because I have to swim to France. If you tell me to do something, I’ll just do it. Now, having made my qualifier and not actually enjoying the experience of swimming in the frigid harbor, I just want it all to be over with. Many have asked me, “if you knew what this was going to entail would you still have done it?” I am incredibly tempted to say “no.”

In the end, however, knowing it was my last swim and wanting to prove to myself that I could repeat six hours, I put my head down, got my mind drifting to the next six months (planning each and every day with explicit detail) and I took it one hour at a time. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.

Unfortunately, the weather isn’t looking to great the next several days, which means I may be swimming toward the end of my tide and not near the beginning. I just want it to happen so I can get on with my life! 10-month build-up, 8 weeks training in Dover and now the waiting game...

Please send me happy thoughts. I’m in desperate need of MANY.

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Kyle Taylor

Welcome To The Maison Dieu Guesthouse!

Just a quick shout out to Barry and Di French - owners and operators of Maison Dieu Guesthouse - my Dover home. Absolutely the most adorable rooms, the most delicious breakfast, the most hospitable service and, hands down, the most divine hot cocoa I have ever sipped. Thank you thank you thank you! Click here to find out more and book online!

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Kyle Taylor

Dover Update: Weekend 7

Good news - exams are over, which means swimming the Channel is now the only item on my life agenda (for the next few weeks). That’s right, for the past 7 weeks I have been studying, exam-ing and training for Dover all at the same time. It has been exhausting, but totally worth it! After a few hick-ups in planning and coordination, we’re on track for a July 4th-7th swim depending on tides, weather and so on!


That said, these past few weekends have been incredibly tough. I got, as they say, “stuck.” What I mean is that, for whatever reason - mental block, psychological fear, exhaustion or just that I have next to no body fat - I wasn’t able to get past three hours. Then, the weekend before last, out of nowhere I skyrocket to four hours and twenty minutes! It was uncanny. As Irene said so well, “you cracked it. It’s all over now. Nothing stops you once you’ve cracked it.” How right she was. I returned Sunday for a whopping FIVE-HOUR swim, bringing my weekend total to over 20 miles. Not too shabby for a guy with bad shoulders and no body fat. “It’s a head game,” Freda told me, “and you just won.”

“You were beaming when you finished five hours Sunday,” Michelle, a former Channel conquerer and now beachside expert said to me. “That smile was just priceless. You are so determined!” Indeed, determined I was, and continued to be the following weekend. More on that in the next entry. In the meantime, here are a few shots of us “feeding.” We come in every hour on the hour starting with hour two for a small cup of energy drink and, when we’re good, a Cadbury’s chocolate roll or Milky Way. I love those breaks!







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Kyle Taylor

Dover Weekend Four: Three Hours Or Bust

After a week of reprieve from Dover thanks entirely to Carly deciding to get married (I’m sure that was her top reason for getting hitched! Thanks Carly!), I headed back down to Dover to re-embrace the good times. You know, 52-degree water, polluted harbour currents and of course, a rather mixed bag in the weather department. Thankfully, I had two bonuses this time: a cloudless sky and Josh around to dress me post-swim.

I had done two hours in California, where the water was 63 degrees and the waves were much larger. The only reason I stopped, really, was because I was mind-numbingly bored. Naturally, the Dover group had made their most significant distance increase ever, leaping from 90 minutes to 4 hours while I was gone. Super.

If I know anything, it’s my own limits. Wait, I don’t know them at all. Anyway, I was certain I could not reasonably leap from 90 minutes to 4 hours, so I decided on 2.5 hours as a happy medium. I like baby steps. If you know you can do 2, then it’s just 30 more to 2.5 and so on. If you know you can do 2, it’s TWICE AS MUCH to 4. That’s mentally and emotionally defeating when you don’t finish. So important to set reasonable expectations (beyond the fact that weight 160 pounds and have - by far - the lowest BMI (body mass index) of anyone attempting to swim the Channel this year.

This time we added one additional element to training - feeding at two hours and every hour after on liquid energy carbohydrate maximizing explosion of warm goodness. It’s basically spiked gatorade served warm. When you’re shaking violently and have little clue as to where you are in relation to land, water and other people (never mind attempting to find your mouth with your hands), it’s heaven on Earth.


I did my 2.5 on Saturday and ended up getting out because the beach monitor said “oh yeah, he’s freezing. Get out!” I naturally said to him, “I feel like a failure.” He looked at me perplexed. With everyone else doing 4, I wanted to be with the big kids! Josh dressed me (the usual shaking ensued) and we hit the Guest House for some cocoa and a hot shower before lunch and studying (which turned into chit-chat, naturally) before watching the finale of Britain’s Got Talent and calling it a night.

I was determined on Sunday to hit three hours. It felt like a threshold for me, though I’m not sure why. I just really needed that mental boost to get me over whatever hump seemed to exist in my mind about this swim. What’s odd is that after your body is freezing cold, it just becomes about sustaining for however long you’re supposed to go. Part of my issue is that swim quite a bit faster than most, meaning I cover much more “water” in the allotted time. It’s beneficial when there is a fixed distance (England to France) but more difficult when there is a fixed time (training) because I’m using quite a bit of energy when my swim isn’t any shorter than everyone else’s.

The Sunday swim is always easier - you know the water temperature, you know the “settling point” and you know that you can swim at least as long as you did the day before. That said, it’s still freezing. The first 12 minutes are the same - pounding ice cream headache. That evolves into a rather comfortable first hour. The second hour is cold but not unbearable. Post feeding, however, all the muscles in my stomach and legs lock up. My hip flexers start to ache and my jaw becomes permanently stuck in a half-open position. I fight the chattering of my teeth and keep my arms moving so as to ensure they don’t lock up too. The key at this point is to keep my mind busy. The less I think about being cold, the less I want to make for the beach and get out.

At 2.5 hours it really hits me - I am freezing cold. Any movements outside my normal freestyle hurt quite a bit because my muscles aren’t stretched out enough to really move in that direction. “This is go time,” I say to myself. “30 more minutes. You can do this!” I stroke and stroke and stroke. “Just to the wall and back and it’s over. Wall and back and over. You can do this!” My stroke is shortened and I feel like I’m not moving. “Focus and calm down. Stroke. Relax. Stroke.” What feels like only seconds later I am being dragged up the beach by Josh, who is saying to me, “Good job mate. Good job.” I look at my watch: three hours and two minutes. I made it, and it feels good.

Next week it’s four hours or bust. Bring it Channel. Bring it!

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Kyle Taylor

More Shivering


Since the last one was so wildly successful, I decided to do another. This is just after my 82-minute swim last weekend. I’m totally delirious. So funny!

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Kyle Taylor

Dover Weekend Three: The Stacey and Kyle Show

After an exhausting weekend for John (driving back and forth to Dover TWICE in two days as well as feeding and caring for me) it was agreed that the role of “#1 Supporter” might best be shared by a larger group of folks. Fortunately, I have incredible friends who all volunteered to spend a weekend helping me put my leg through my pants post-swim! The first lucky contestant was Stacey. An speech and language therapist by trade, Stacey and I met at the Laos/Cambodia border last August while enduring a 14-hour bus ride with no air conditioning and no windows. That is, she is a trooper.




Because she’s a real person (as opposed to a student), she has “things.” Thankfully, one of those things was a car. Not quite sure what to expect, she waited with trepidation for me to complete my first of two swims on Saturday. Fortunately, it was the same routine as last weekend - one hour, go away for an hour and come back for another hour. The shivering was about the norm, though I do think it took Stacey by surprise. “Oh my gosh, you really shake, don’t you?” Still, she was phenomenal - pouring cocoa, cheering me on, carrying my towel down to the water...just great!


Sunday’s swim, however, was quite the experience. We were supposed to do two hours or “as long as you can last.” Basically, a max-out swim at peek effort/stamina/ability to be as cold as possible without dying. I lasted 82 minutes, which was longer than some and not as long as others. Why did I come in? To begin with, conditions were miserable. It was windy and raining. Waves were literally CRASHING out at sea. The swells were at least 3 feet, which meant there was quite a bobbing situation. Basically, it was ROUGH. I came in, however, because I could no longer figure out what time it was. That is, I knew I got in the water at 9:55am on my watch and I knew that two hours would be 11:55am. I floated there staring at the current time, 11:17am, but could not for the life of me figure out how long I had been in or how much longer I was supposed to stay in. It felt similar to my post-Dengue, unable to think stage of existence. Unable to compute basic time math I thought to myself, “I should probably get out of the water.” Upon surfacing the grease guy swooped me up and slid on my flip flops while patting me on the back and shouting, “great job! Great job! You knew your body. You knew it was time. Well done!”




I was so confused. Stacey basically carried me to my clothes and within minutes she and the other Channel “Mom” were putting on my shirt and sweatshirt, sticking their arms up the legs of my pants and pulling my feet through and patting me top to bottom asking me simple questions that seemed a little bit difficult at the time. Fortunately, I was fairly cognitive. We raced to the car, where I sipped some cocoa and filmed another rather entertaining video (see tomorrow’s blog) to keep everyone abreast of this whole experience.






The swims aside, we had a lovely weekend trekking along the White Cliffs, wandering through endless fields of rapeseed, stopping off in the tiniest of English villages and dining in genuine country pubs. Oh, and we stayed in the most adorable B&B I’ve ever seen - The Maison Deau. So while the swimming itself is excruciating, the weekly escape from London is a welcome addition to my routine. Plus, the English countryside is DIVINE. Perfect. Wonderful. Just like you’d imagine it in a fairy tale. Onward to week four!






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Kyle Taylor

MOVIE: Shivering Like Crazy

So just after my first swim of the day on Saturday John (Rotary Dad extraordinaire) whipped out the video camera and decided to film we shivering like mad. Basically, following an hour in the water (or any length of time, I'm starting to think) my body shakes violently for a solid 40 minutes as it tries to naturally warm itself up. The first 10 minutes are awful - I just can't wait for it to be over. Then I get used to it and just embrace how ridiculous the whole thing is. Enjoy, and if you can, please donate by clicking here: