Chantal Lyons - Turning the Tide

 

Everyone wants to make their parents proud, right? My dad is a marathon runner, and I was a couch potato for most of my life until I was 23 when I took up running. I hated it at first, but I stuck to it and I started to realize why my dad loved it so much. I decided that just like him, I was going to run marathons. The only thing was that for a while, I'd been feeling some pain in my hips and my back, and the running made it worse. So, I went to the GP and I got tests, and I was told that I had something called ankylosing spondylitis, which I found out was a type of arthritis. And it's genetic and it is degenerative. 

 

Actually, before I want to go any further, I want to rewind. Back to when I was 13 years old and I was on a summer holiday in Majorca with my family, one morning, I was sleeping in, as I usually did, and my dad went out water skiing and he had an accident. My dad was run over by a speedboat, and the propeller cut through most of his left arm. He was saved, and the arm was saved, but we didn't know if it would ever work again. He really needed that hand because he was a surgeon. And in the aftermath of the accident, his colleagues did not think that he would ever go back to work. But fortunately, no one is more stubborn than my dad. 

 

So, even though the nerve was too badly damaged to be fully repaired, he found ways around it and he did go back to work. And years later, when I was diagnosed with arthritis, I was terrified. I was so scared of the word, degenerative. And knowing that for me, recovery would not be an option, I had to say goodbye to that vision of that final sprint down the mall in London. I actually had to give up running completely, because my body couldn't handle it. But I thought about my dad and how after the accident, he had just flowed around all the obstacles in his path. He had worked so hard to get back to where he was before his accident. I was sure that, just like him, I could adapt. 

 

So, after I'd given up running, I got into a swimming pool. I didn't enjoy it at first, but I stuck to it. I got stronger and I got faster. I got to the point where I was overtaking most of the men in the fast lane, which was amazing. But I still wished that I could do something as incredible as run a marathon. It was this ache that I just couldn't let go of. And then, just this year in January, I found out that there was a charity called Aspire. They were running relay swims of the Channel. 

 

Now, the way a channel relay works is you have a team of six people. And each person swims for an hour at a time, and then swaps out and you just repeat that until you get to France. Very simple. [audience laughter] So, I signed up. The training was very difficult. They make you swim for hours off Dover Beach with ferries in the background and jellyfish stinging your face. And the water, when you start the training is 11 degrees Celsius, and they don't let you wear a wetsuit. [chuckles] But I got through that training stronger than I had ever felt in my life. When the relay came around in September, I felt ready. 

 

The first swim of the relay went fine. It was cold, but it was fine. But the second swim was just after midnight in the middle of the shipping lane. When I jumped into the water, I found myself in the roughest sea that I have ever swum in. The waves just threw me around. I kept swallowing salt. The support boat next to me looked like it was either about to crash down on me or I couldn't even see it. I couldn't swim fast. All I could do, basically, was not drown. I wish that at that moment, I could say that at that moment, I thought of my dad and everything he'd been through and I knew I could do this. But to tell the truth, all I was thinking was, oh, my God, this is dangerous. When are they going to call this off? [chuckles] 

 

So, after that hour, which they let me finish, I got onto the boat feeling like a bit of a failure. But the team went on. We were allowed to go on. And a few hours later, it was my turn again, the third time, and France was close. And just before I went in, the boat pilot came out and he said to me that if I swam hard, I could beat the tide and land the team in France. But if I didn't, then the tide would turn and it would take us another two or three hours to get there. 

 

When I hit that water, I was exhausted, but I knew that this was the final sprint. So, while I was swimming, dawn broke and it lit up the coast for me. But that coast never seemed to get any closer, no matter how hard I swam. I tried so hard, and I didn't believe that I would make it. I actually felt sure that the tide was already taking me away. And then, I saw the seabed under me, and I kept swimming until I could put my feet down and I walked onto that beach in France. After I got onto the support boat afterwards, I took a selfie with a glass of champagne and I sent it to the family WhatsApp group. My dad didn't reply to say that he was proud of me, because he doesn't like writing or saying sloppy things like that. He didn't need to, because I know more than anything that I am my father's daughter. Thank you.