It's here! Our 2014 Rottnest Channel Swim Program!

QUICK NEWSFLASH! Massive congratulations to Ceinwen Roberts (née Williams) who successfully crossed the Catalina Channel in California between 3pm and 11pm on Tuesday (Perth time), taking a total of just 8h04m for the 32km crossing (an average of just a shade over 1:30 per 100m!). The first 6 hours of this swim were spent in complete darkness for fear of a shark attack (apparently you're less visible to them at night!). This was just 37 minutes shy of the world record and make Ceinwen the first of us seven "Swimming Sandgropers" to complete the Triple Crown of the English Channel; Manhattan Island Marathon Swim; and the Catalina Channel. Really in awe of Ceinwen's achievements this year, notably: Rottnest Solo (1-way), Rottnest Solo (3-way), Manhattan Island Marathon Swim (46km and 1st lady overall), Catalina Channel - when will this pocket rocket ever slow down?! If you tune into http://www.mapswim.com/catalina/ at 3pm today, you'll also get to see Lisa Delaurentis going for her Triple Crown too! Good luck Lisa...wish I was there doing it as well...next year...watch this space!

Dear Swimmers,

I'm not going to claim the same amount of monumental work as what went into this program as last year as this year remains largely unchanged building on the success and simplicity of the 2013 Rottnest Channel Swim Program. It is however all up-to-date and brimming with a few new nuggets of information which should see you well set for a great Rottnest Channel Swim Campaign, be it Solo, Duo or Team.

IMPORTANT: Next week I am planning to schedule a Google Hangout at 8pm WST on Thursday 3rd October for 60 minutes to discuss the program and answer any questions that you might have. Google Hangouts is like Skype essentially but allows me to readily share information on my screen, run through the program and field any questions with a large number of people. It'll be a great opportunity for those of you not living in the Western Suburbs and whom follow our program remotely to tune in and hear how to get the best out of the next 21 weeks of training. It'll be well worth dropping by.

To get started you'll need a Google Account and then download the Google Hangout Plugin - essentially Google creates a webspace for me to deliver the broadcast that you can tune into, watch and even type questions or (if you're one of the first 10 to register) be able to ask questions on live video - groovy! And if all that's too much for you, I will simply be able to post out a link before the broadcast which you'll be able to watch (but without being able to interact) through a simple YouTube video pane. It's very easy. And if even that's too much effort or you can't make that time, I'll even go to the trouble of recording the session and then uploading it to YouTube for your subsequent viewing pleasure in your own time. How's that sound?!

Further joining information will be sent out early next week - for now get yourself set up with a Google account and the plugin if you intend to participate - I hope you will!

Equally, if you have any pressing questions once you've gone through the program, please send them through and I'll go through them on the night.

The Program:

You can now download our 2014 Rottnest Channel Swim Program at the following link:

http://swimsmooth.com/pauls_images/Rottnest_2014.pdf

...it is only 2mb in size and is designed to be read on your computer as it contains links off to various other bits and pieces that will help you during your training.

Please take a good read through of the material for anyone doing (or thinking about doing) the event in a little over 5 months time. By all means circulate to friends, family, work colleagues etc - I simply ask that if you are planning on doing the event and seek to follow the program that you quickly email me to let me know if you're doing a Solo, Duo or Team and then I shall watch out for you!

A few notable points:

• most of the early morning squads are already close to capacity and as such, if you're not already swimming in some of the sessions which feature in this program, please email me on swimsmooth@me.comto be kept informed if / when spaces become available. I can't guarantee to be able to get you in but will keep you posted.

• we do have 5 places available in our Tuesday / Thursday 6.15/30pm session (note this will go back to 6.30pm for the summer season from 6th October onwards) and also our Saturday 1pm session for the first 5 people to raise their hands for interest in these. 

• given that the squads have been so busy, it may not be possible for those of you who sometimes do a double 5.30am to 7.30am session on a Tuesday and Friday to do this this season, however, three solutions: 1) swim in the 6.30am session and then continue on to 8.30am when the pool is much quieter (I'll still be on pool deck with a 1-2-1 which is good); 2) do the double at 6.30pm on a Tuesday evening, i.e. two separate sessions in a day - if you've never tried this it's actually very effective; 3) swim with me on a couple of the sessions listed in the Program to boost your volume at quieter times.

• if you don't already have a copy of our new book and are planning to do quite a bit of swimming by yourself, I'd highly encourage you to order a copy as there are literally over 5,000 possible training session ideas in there that you'll be able to use to compliment the longer, more specific sessions that feature in this program.

• we start on Monday 30th September and run for 21 weeks to Saturday 22nd February 2014 (race day).

Cheers everyone, can't wait to get cracking!

Paul