Team Total Immersion takes on the English Channel!
 

A Total Immersion Team appropriately named The EC6 is training to set the relay record for crossing the English Channel. Six very fast and fit forty somethin' baby-boomer swimmers looking to finish in under 6:52. Stay tuned and hear about their journey both in training and when they cross the channel this August.

Read about The EC6 in the Daily News of Open Water Swimming, select this link: Gen X Looking to Test Time

Stuart

Far out! All the very best to them :)

Steve West, swimmer on the Total Immersion Team The EC6, takes top honors 2.4 mile swim, 40-44 age group at the Nadadores Rough Water Swim, Dana Point, CA. And Steve also nabbed overall fastest swimmer (all age groups) at 44:28.3 for the 2.4 mile distance. Steve was asked, How'd you swim so fast? His response, "Long strokes".

Congrats Steve!!

Follow Steve and his crew, coached by Terry Laughlin, on facebook: The EC6

Any videos of these swims available?

Hi Talvi,

Unfortunately, other than some pictures on the Rough Water site, I don't think the Nadadores took any video of the race. However, I will suggest and encourage Steve and The EC6 to film their swims in open water and pool whenever possible, post to their FB page and possibly on this thread too.

Stuart

Thanks :) I think it could be really instructive.

The EC6 is ready to launch after 7am (UK time)
 

Team EC6 is scheduled to launch on their English Channel record breaking attempt tomorrow morning after 7am (11pm PST tonight). Here's the link to the GPS tracking site for CSPF, The EC6 will be on the Viking Princess. Select: CSPF Tracking

Good luck Team EC6!

Hear hear! And thanks for that tracking link. Exciting stuff! :)

Oh Wow: just found out myself! Can someone pass on our collective Forum good wishes and cheers?

Team EC6 are cruising: See their live track, select Viking Princess Live Tracking

Here's a few seconds of Steve West rocking the third leg of the swim. Steve took top honors in May at the Dana Point 2.4 Mile Rough Water Swim finishing in 44:28.

MORE VIDEO !!!!

Fabulous conditions too, way to go :)

... and Wow!! 2.4miles in 44:28 is 1:07 /100m - or is my arithmetic screwy again?

Swim 7 hours 3 minutes! Missed record by just 11 minutes! But they also have an extra 120 years of age combined compared to their younger counterparts that hold the record set in 1990. Team EC6 demonstrated that your 40's are the new 20's. Never too old.

Incredible effort and accomplishment. I don't think we've seen the end of Team EC6. Congrats to all swimmers and those who supported this effort!!!

Some photos of their journey: https://www.facebook.com/The.EC6/photos_stream

Any more videos??

Yup - that's right, and converted mile pace : 18 min mile. And at a tempo of 1.0 secs/stroke or 60 strokes per minute. Not sure of Steve's height, but I believe he's under six feet tall. Incredible!!

Dat stroke looks gooood!

Congratulations to all involved!. An inspiration to all of us in middle age!

Turns out The EC6 did break the Channel Swimming Association (CSA) record of 7 hours 17 mins set back in 1981. AWESOME!

Read more: http://channelswimmingassociation.co...nglish-channel

Amazing job Team EC6!

Are all of the team members Total Immersion trained swimmers?

I watched a couple of the clips of the team members swimming and noticed their strokes don't appear Terry/Shinji-like. Perhaps it is because they have chosen to use a higher stroke rate compared to what we typically see on TI videos. But also their kicks look more than 2-beat...perhaps it's 2-beat with extra flutter?

Hi drtse,

They are close to 60spm or 1.0 sec/stroke. May not look like Terry or Shinji's slower turnover demo strokes, but both (Terry & Shinji) easily swim with consistency at 60spm and higher stroke rate maintaining precision. Steve West's short clip (9 secs) is 60 spm and a 4 beat kick, or 1 and 3.

Steve's pre EC race was the Rough Water 2.4 mile Swim, Dayna Point, CA where he took top honors at 43:23 overall. He was asked how he swims so fast. His response, "long strokes". Some/many circles would characterize "long strokes" as an "over-glide". Whatever the characterization or understanding, then it must be a pretty damn fast glide.

Happy and fast "gliding" :-)

Stuart

No, but it's good marketing to vaguely imply that they are.

btw, Stuart, the link you posted doesn't say what you said it says. The record (6:52) still stands.

Hi drtse, here's a video with Terry and Shinji both doing sub 60spm (about 0.95 TT) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFmnJnmahLw.

I'm obsessed with numbers today ... and it seems dyscalculia again unseated me earlier .. so, fwiw I am pretty confident that:

1. Steve West's 2.4m in 44:28 is a pace of 69.48 secs/100m (not 1.07!?!!), and he's covering about 1.44 m/sec.

2. From that FB clip, he's doing a stroke every 0.95 secs, so, with a 3 beep push off = 2.85 secs = say 4m, he's doing a SCM at between 14 and 15spl.

3. At 0.95 sec/strk his stroke length is about 1.37m, so if he's say 1.8m tall (just shy of 5'11") that's about a 75% conversion ... all maintained over a continuous swim of nearly 4,000m, in OW!!

4. He's taking 17:22 to do each 1500m .. Sun Yang does it in 14:31 .. in a pool!


I'm going to go lie down!

Excellent work Sherlock! It is quite incredible the speed Steve can swim for almost a 5k or longer with the metrics you laid out. In many circles his 62 spm would be considered "gliding" and that's bad? It's tough to argue with that success, elite swimmer or otherwise.

Long strokes!

Stuart