Dear Team
For all you budding squad Rotto swimmers (and groupies!), I have done up some sketches for a squad long-sleeve polo shirt (same brand / company as makes the official Rottnest Channel Swim shirts) and am planning on sending the artwork to the printers this afternoon for delivery just prior to the race. Given that we've all trained so hard together over the last 5 months, I thought it'd be great if we could all be wearing squad shirt over there on the island and when we're celebrating post race etc.
If you're keen on one of these shirts the cost is just $30.00 and payable in cash to me upon receipt of the shirt. You might even like to buy a couple extra for your support crew perhaps? I'll be doing this for my team. I need to let them know all the sizings by midday Tuesday 15th February (i.e. tomorrow!) so please let me know as soon as possible. They'll make a great momento for you of all the hard work we've been putting into this event.
I would like to thank Caroline Claydon for her help in the initial stages of designing this shirt - we have decided to go with a different design in order to keep the cost of printing down, and this new design is something Caroline has kindly helped proof for me and give her expert artistic opinion on it. Thanks Caroline!
The idea behind the design is that everything we have been doing in training this last 5 months has all been about getting you to become as efficient as possible over long distances, culminating of course with the Rottnest Channel swim of 19.7km in just under 2 weeks time. Some of you may feel like you've lost a bit of top-end speed in the process but have traded this for the ability to cruise for extended periods of time without blowing up. This is exactly what you need for Rotto! I liken this to developing your body's "engine" into that of a diesel engine, rather than a fuel injected petrol number!! I have a favourite t-shirt from the UK which is designed to look like the front cover of a Haynes motoring manual (it's for a VW Combi van) and is basically an exploded diagram of all the component parts. What better I thought than trying to use this idea as an exploded diagram of a swimmer's "engine" that has been trained specifically for the purpose of the Rottnest Channel Swim.
I do hope you like the idea and design and so if you could get back to me asap with your sizing (go with what you chose for your official Rottnest shirts and bear in mind that the sizings are generous and not that fitted and are available in XS to XXXL...I have done a preliminary sizing check of everyone and I reckon everyone would be suitable up to L or a max of XL, but this depends on your preference of fit I guess - I'm going for a Medium).
Here's the design - let me know:
