Paula Foreman

You jump off the back of your boat, swim out to the shore and then, when they sound the horn on your boat, you start.

A little birdie told me, it was actually a seagull. I bet it was! That you have achieved something quite rare – a double Channel Swim. I had a little dig around the Channel Swimming Association’s website and it said that the number of people who have completed a solo swim across the channel is less than 2,000 since the organisation was formed, some 150 years ago. I think less people have swum the channel than have climbed Everest. That must be the case, there are queues on Everest but I just can’t see that happening at Dover! It is getting busier and busier. 25 or 30 years ago there were 8 of us on the beach, but if you go there today, there’s usually a good hundred or so down there. Outdoor swimming has massively picked up – a lot of people are entering triathlons, but open water swimming in general, sea swimming, has increased massively. Those people in Dover aren’t all lining up to try and cross the channel though, are they? No, you have all sorts. You have relay swimmers, where there are normally 6 in a team, there will be solo swimmers and then there will be the odd 1 or 2 like me, who are going to attempt the double.

Can you try and take yourself back to 1992 and your first attempt. What time of day did you set off and what was happening when you woke up that morning? We set off from home at about half past four in the morning. When I say we, I mean my sister Claire and I because we were scheduled to swim on the same day, but on completely independent swims. You have to have your own boat/pilot and official observer – so we were apart, but we started our swims at the same time. Our swims started at 6.30am. From different beaches? No, we both went from Shakespeare Beach. We were actually due to swim the day before but just as we were going to bed, we got news that my sister’s boat had had a fire and as we desperately wanted to swim on the same day, it became quite stressful. Luckily, they managed to find another boat for Claire, which meant we could try again the following day. I had Mum and Chris on my boat, Claire had Dad and Uncle Bill on hers and we had other friends and relations with us. There were a few people waiting on the beach to see us off which was really lovely. You jump, or dive, off the back of your boat, swim out to the shore and then, when they sound the horn on your boat, you start.

And prior to that, were there butterflies in the stomach, how were you feeling? Nervous, but that’s a good sign because that means you’re up for it. I can’t speak for my sister but I think she was the same. You’ve got to have an element of nerves to get you through and it shows how much the achievement means to you. I can’t imagine what must have been going through your head. I think I was apprehensive but at no point did I think I’m not going to finish this. You obviously have that little worry in the back of your head because things happen, things that are out of your control, but you have to go into it with a positive attitude. You know it’s going to hurt and I think that’s what my nerves were about, if I’m honest. I was thinking, I can do this but how much is it going to hurt?

There was just 1 question I had in my mind that I wanted to ask you and now is probably the appropriate time – prepare yourself because it’s a long one, ‘Why – why do you do this?!’. Okay, so why? I learned to swim at a young age. My mum and dad are not great swimmers and I was recently told that I had a great uncle who drowned and that is why they put us into swimming lessons so early. I loved it and actually reached national level in sprint swimming by the age of 11, but by my late teens my times were no longer what they used to be. I was going to leave swimming but a friend of mine said, why don’t you try coaching instead – give something back. So, I took my teaching and then my Assistant Club Coach qualification. Were you one of those nasty coaches that shouts all the time?! I do shout, but I’m never nasty. Anyone who knows me, knows I’m quite a gentle person, but put me with a swimmer, and I will do what I’ve got to do! Whilst coaching, I thought, ‘I’m still not finished with swimming’. I realised that I wouldn’t be able to swim faster, so I thought why not see how far I can go instead – that literally was the start of it and I tried a few open water swims – to test the water (literally!). What age were you then? 23 – I started by swimming a lake in Wales, which was 4 miles, and then Loch Earn in Scotland, which was 6.5 miles. My sister and I went to a celebration event following that swim and an absolutely fabulous Scottish guy suggested we should swim Windermere next. He said that if we finished that, then we were basically halfway across the channel. That was the seed and I signed up for Windermere straight away.

You said that you knew the first channel crossing was going to hurt, did it match up to expectations? Yes and No. Oh, was it more or less? Less. I’m not saying for one minute it was easy! It was tough. I was exhausted when I finished, but I remember thinking that I had more to give. I didn’t give it much thought at the time but at the awards evening, my coach laughed and said, so what are you going to do next year – the double? She’d thrown down the gauntlet! The very next day, I phoned my boat pilot and observer and asked them if they thought I could have swum back again, based on what they had seen? Both said yes straight away, so I signed up to swim the double Channel the following year. My mum is my biggest supporter but when I told her, she freaked and went quiet on me for a day until she got her head around it! I think she was just scared for me. But she soon came round and, with Chris, was supportive throughout.

Take me through the training, what does that involve? You keep yourself fit in the pool through the winter months with sprint sessions. How long are they? An hour or two – I was probably swimming 3 or 4 times a week to get my speed up. Then, from the first weekend in May, which is the official start of the outdoor swimming season, we moved to Dover Harbour. Because it’s so cold at that time of year, you only get in for 10 minutes to start with, before getting out again to warm up. Then you’re back in again for 20 minutes, etc – that’s tough and you’re actually quite glad when they say you’re going to stay in for an hour, because you don’t have to keep getting in and out. You build from there, I think my biggest sessions were about 5 and 6 hours back-to-back – 5 hours on Saturday followed by 6 hours on Sunday. How long did you train before you were ready to attempt the swim? I did my swims early in the season because I didn’t want the training to go on too long, so I booked July for the single and the following year, August for the double. What was the weather like for the swims? It was absolutely beautiful for the single. When it came to the double, it was lovely going over but got tough half way back, when it really rocked up. What was the worst thing you’ve experienced during a crossing? It was really warm during the single swim, so the jellyfish would come to the surface and we had about a mile and a half of them – they’re actually quite pretty. I can still remember looking down and it was like seeing different coloured stars in the night sky. If I’d have been able to stop and take a photo, it would have been wonderful. When you’re swimming, you just have to carry on, so it’s likely that one will catch you somewhere at some point.

And would that mean it’s game over for that attempt? Oh no, you just have to dig in and swim through them. So, you did get stung? Oh gosh, massively, I got lots of stings. They’re a bit like an electric shock or a nettle sting, you can feel it instantly. I guess that takes your mind off things for a bit though? Absolutely, especially on the double. I had an injury which I had sustained several years previous and that started playing up and then the weather turned as well. It was getting really tough but, like you say, then you hit a jellyfish and the sting takes your mind temporarily off of your current pain – it’s bizarre how the mind works. They always say it’s 80% mental, 20% physical – I have seen amazing swimmers go out into the channel and do a few hours but then can’t cope, and you wonder why? It doesn’t make sense when they are fit and have done all the training – but you have to be mentally strong, or it can become overwhelming for some. I can understand them though, it must feel as though they’re entering into the unknown, so there’s a new sense of danger. That is exactly how it looks to them. They’re just like, ‘no, my head’s not in it’, even though they haven’t even swum as far as they did in training. So, where do you think your head space comes from? I have no idea. Honestly, I don’t know, but my sister is the same, she ran the marathon the year that I did the double. She didn’t want to do a double, so she ran her first marathon instead and she’s since done Ironman competitions.

Have you done anything apart from swimming. Yes, I am the worst runner in the world but I’ve run four half marathons but at the speed of a snail – a lady was pushing a pram up a hill faster than me once. I’ve also walked the 100K from Richmond to Brighton. I’m not built for running, but there’s just something in my head that tells me that I have to do these things, just to prove that I can. I struggle to motivate myself to keep fit if I don’t have a worthwhile challenge, and the success at the end is worth all the hours and hardship endured during training. Although most training sessions, no matter how tough, can be a huge lift in themselves when completed. So, you’re still swimming now? Yes, I did a channel relay this year and swam Loch Ness last year – that was 23 miles. Wow. So, that’s further than the channel – is that the furthest you’ve swum? Outside of the double, yes. The channel swim is 21.5 miles in a straight line, but the tide takes you in a bit of an S-curve, so the distance you eventually swim depends on how many S-curves you do. They clocked the distance for my double and I covered 50 miles. And what was the time for that? 22 hours and 11 minutes. Let’s not forget the 11 minutes!

Ok, let’s talk about those things that you probably don’t want to talk about – human needs. When you’re training, you come in to shore every hour but you will stay in the water. You get a warm multi dextrose drink and you might get something on the sugary side, like a chocolate bar or jelly babies, and then off you go again. So, if you’re doing long swims, you’ve got several hours of this stuff constantly going in, so it’s got to come out at some point! It’s important that it does actually and is something a good coach will ask. And, so that I understand the rules, when you are in the water and you need to take on food and drink – how does that work? No one’s allowed to touch you, and you’re not allowed to touch the boat. So, do you tread water? Yes, you’re allowed to stop at any time but you just can’t touch anyone or the boat. Is the stopping a bad thing? No, it’s great. I literally swim to every feed and that also gives you a good idea of how far you are as well. My observer would lay on the deck with a plastic cup with drink or food in it for me to grab. We used to just throw the cups away but of course that’s not allowed these days, so they throw out a line with a bottle on it for a drink, or a little tub for food. You just have to hope that you get someone that’s good at throwing. That’s what I had to do at Loch Ness but the boat was bobbing around a lot on that day – I was going one way and the boat was going the other, so they were running out of line. There were a couple occasions when the bottle just got whipped out of my hand.

I had assumed lake swims would be comparatively calm. Much more than the sea, but there can be the odd waves and we literally had every season for the Loch Ness swim, my poor long-suffering husband was on the boat and I think he had a harder day than I did. It was beautiful when we started, but within half an hour a thick fog came down. It was only a small boat, so they were having trouble to navigate because, unlike the big boats, they don’t have radar. They were literally trying to find their position on their iPads. I was quite happy in the water doing my own thing, but they were having to deal with all sorts of seasonal weather conditions. Your husband doesn’t do anything like this? No, but he is absolutely brilliant – I think it’s so important to have family and friends that are supporting you, and I should also put a shout out to my amazing parents, who basically set me on a path that has allowed me to get involved in these amazing adventures. I’m a bit like a rubber ball though – I’ll do a huge swim and then I’ll say, ‘That’s it, I’m retired now, no more’, but then a couple of years go by and I bounce back and start thinking, ‘what’s next?’. So, for the last couple of swims I’ve planned, I’ve literally sat the family down and said, okay, this is what I’m thinking of doing. I’m not going to be around much, I’m going to be training, dinner’s going to be all over the place, are you prepared for this? Every time, they just yes, just do what you’ve got to do – I couldn’t do it without the support of Jason and my boys, Callum and Liam. They know how I roll and never believe me anyway when I say I’m retiring.

I can still remember looking down and it was like seeing different coloured stars in the night sky.

I’m thinking there’s got to be a slightly addictive element to this because you keep going back for more. There’s the addictive nature of physical activity, but is there anything else? When you get into that rhythm of swimming, does it become almost meditative, what are you thinking about when you’re swimming? So many people ask that and it’s a really hard thing to answer. You’re really thinking about the job in hand most of the time. There are times when you zone out but because of the timing of the feeds, you may think about every day life for a while but you’re soon back in the game again. So, no thinking about next week’s shopping?! Not for me. I know other people sing in their heads – I used to, but for some reason I don’t any more. And you don’t get bored? When training yes, but not on the swim itself, there’s too much going on. What was the hardest swim for you? The double. The most difficult thing you’ve done in your life? Yes. Childbirth? Oh, well, you forget about that, don’t you? And what’s the recovery like afterwards? Not too bad, actually. I went shopping with my sister the day after the single. We were like a couple of old women hobbling around. But I would say on the double, probably 3 or 4 days, and it was the same with Loch Ness last year. And what’s that experience feel like? Is it just literally exhaustion? Yes, although you are exhilarated and relieved, you’re so exhausted, you can’t sleep. You think you’d be out like a light, but you’ve gone past that. It feels like your adrenaline is still pumping, so you don’t sleep for the first night. With the channel swims, even though you put Vaseline on, you still get salt rubs and I also had the jellyfish stings to deal with. I had to have physio on my arm and leg after the double because I had a job to straighten them out. Oh, and the salt! It kind of burns your tongue and mixes with all those sugary drinks, so your stomach isn’t great for a couple of days either. And you go back for more! Well, it’s just a couple of days and then the reality of the achievement sinks in and you realise it was worth all the blood, sweat and tears.

I spotted that the oldest female to do a solo was 71. No, I’m not going there!  I think the problem with achieving something as huge as the double is where do you go after that? How many women have achieved that? I was the second British woman and the fifth in the world to do the double, but I don’t know what the numbers are now. And the first woman, Alison Streeter, seems to be an amazing character. Alison is fantastic. Sometimes in life, the stars align and as a kid, I bumped into Alison after she’d completed her first channel swim. It was bizarre. She was one of, if not, the youngest at the time and I met her at a school swimming gala. I was painfully shy then, but I stopped her to say well done and we went on to become pen pals – back in the day! So, after being told that I ought to think about attempting the channel, I rang Alison, because she’d swum it numerous times by then, and told her what I was thinking of doing and asked her where I should start? She told me that her mum was the channel swimming coach in Dover. I mean, what were the odds – I had no idea? So, thanks to Alison and her mum, Freda, who’s a phenomenal coach, that’s where it all started. Have you ever failed a swim? No. You have just given me a funny look, is that like wishing an actor good luck before he goes on stage? No, it’s just that I’ve never actually said that to anyone before. No one has ever asked me that question. I was a bit embarrassed to say it really. But do you see people who do fail? Yes, absolutely and it’s heartbreaking when people don’t achieve that dream. People react to it differently, some suck it up and go back and have another go. I’ve seen that many a time and it almost means more to them than if they had done it the first time. I’ve also seen it affect people quite badly. And would you put those failures down to ability, or psychology? We’ve seen so many swimmers who absolutely fly in training but get out there and just can’t do it. That’s fascinating, isn’t it? When we start coaching new people, we’ll ask them to swim for an hour or so, just to assess them and make sure we’ve got people that can cope with sea swimming. You’ll rank them in your head but by the end of that week, it’s so different to how you thought it was going to be. We had a lad last year, who was a phenomenal swimmer, he was absolutely flying, but ask him to swim for longer than an hour and he just couldn’t cope with the cold. Others who look to be slow burners astound us by the end of a weeks’ course. And are there any that you have to gently advise that you don’t think they’re in the right place? Oh yes, definitely – it’s an extreme sport. You have to be true to yourself and tell someone if you don’t think it’s for them.

With other long distance events like marathons, the athletes often get sponsored – does that happen for swims? Swimmers can get sponsored but I’ve never been. However, I have swum to raise money for charity. I did my solo swim for multiple sclerosis, because my aunt had MS. I think the total raised added up to about £25k, and that was in 1992. The charity had a really old ambulance at the time that they used to transport patients around and the sale of that, combined with the money that I raised with my sister, meant that they could buy a brand new ambulance, which was amazing. Following that, my friend Julie, who is a marathon runner, got breast cancer, so I naturally wanted to raise some money for Breast Cancer Now. I thought I can’t run a marathon but I can damn well swim one, so I swam the distance (26.2 miles) around Holborough Lakes. It was 105 laps in total, which was hard going because you can’t zone out there – you’re literally turning a corner every 100 metres! I raised £8k. And then for Loch Ness last year, I was deciding which charity to swim for when I met this amazing lady who told me that she’d had cancer, so I went home that day and said, that’s it, I’m doing this one for Cancer Research and raised £7k. Although swimming for these incredible charities adds some pressure, it’s an amazing privilege.

I’m trying to sum you up in my mind – you’re highly motivated, you don’t shout about your achievements, you seem to just do these things because you like doing them. I think I just enjoy a challenge that is maybe different to the norm, and because I was always fairly good at swimming, it obviously took me down that route. Are there any other challenges out there that you would like to take on? Well, I feel I’ve almost come to the end of my swimming career but as you know, I say that every time I finish a swim. My husband, Jason, just says, ‘whatever’ because he knows that there will be something else. I had a lot of physical issues when training for my last swim, which I’ve never really had before. I’ve had issues, but not to the extent I had this year, so it’s made me think. I’m 55 now and I’ve been doing this for a long time, I’ve put my body through a lot. But my sheer passion is open water coaching, so I will continue to do that. Are you creaking a bit now in the mornings? Luckily no, but I think it’s something to note that I was having some problems with the menopause and that was why I decided to do the Loch Ness swim. I was struggling for a little while and didn’t feel myself, so thought if I focus my attention on something else, it might help as a distraction. I seriously think it did – as soon as I started planning, most of the menopausal issues went away and have mostly stayed away. That’s not going to be right for everybody but I think it helped pull me through that menopause blip that I had. I wonder if your previous experiences of adversity gave you the confidence and self-belief needed to find your own solution? I’ve never looked at it like that but yeah, I think they probably did. There’s just some strength there somewhere. I don’t know where that’s from.

Jason and your family are obviously a massive part of your achievements, so let’s end by asking you how you think Jason would describe your character? He’d affectionately say I’m a pain in the bum! But he quietly sits in the background and lets me get on with it. He just listens to it all, the moans about my training, my aches and pains, the bad weather – he’s supported me throughout. He would probably say I was stubborn and resilient. He’s really proud though and that’s the lovely bit, he’s the proudest one of all.

Editor’s Notes

We asked Paula if there were any tracks that had a special meaning for Paula in relation to her swims – you can listen to the ones she chose below:

Living on a Prayer – this became my sister’s and my song because, at the time, we knew that if we swam Lake Windermere, we would be ‘Half Way There’ when it came to swimming the Channel
Eye of the Tiger – I just love the Rocky films!
ROAR – this is all about fighting through adversity
Walking on Sunshine – I’m a total 80’s chick and this song is so uplifting!