Santa Rosa swimmer channels his advice

<p>Around 6:20 p.m. PDT Wednesday night, Bill Bradley of Santa Rosa began to swim the English Channel. He is in the middle of an eight-day window of opportunity, weather permitting. Bradley tried it last year, became violently ill after four hours and had to be pulled from the water. He wanted to make a better go of it this year and so he called on Chris Blakeslee.</p><p>Blakeslee lives in Petaluma, is a vineyard advisor and broker, and most importantly and sensationally, swam the English Channel on Sept. 4, 2004, one of 900 swimmers to have done it since the first crossing in 1875. So I went looking for Blakeslee, curious as to what I would find.</p><p>For someone who considers swimming not a sport but survival, I stared and stared at Blakeslee, looking for gills, maybe a dorsal fin, for some manner of physical uniqueness. I stared and stared, looking for a facial twitch, maybe a peculiar phraseology, anything to set him apart from the rest of us who are content to tread water and not cross the world's busiest shipping lane.</p><p>Nothing remarkable revealed itself. He had then and has now a bit of a paunch, not uncommon for the age and gender.</p><p>His hands were good size, excellent paddles in open water I imagined, but nothing commanded a gasp. I would have to be content with a simple fact: Blakeslee's name is on the wall of the White Horse Pub in Dover, England, one of those 900 who defied sharks and ships and swells.</p><p>"Most people can't conceive of it," said Blakeslee, 61, as he looked at someone who readily agreed with him. "It's 21 miles from Britain to France but even the fastest swimmers will swim 25 miles because of the currents. It took me 31 miles."</p><p>It took Blakeslee 14 hours and 44 minutes to go those 31 miles. Averaging 54 strokes a minute, Blakeslee needed 47,736 strokes. Consuming 700 calories every 30 minutes, Blakeslee burned 21,000 calories. I revisited the notion that Blakeslee wasn't human.</p><p>I was also fairly confident Blakeslee didn't relay that information to Bradley, inasmuch as it was his job to encourage Bradley, not drown him with seemingly impossible numbers.</p><p>"I told Bill the best thing he could do," said Blakeslee, "was slip into the water and swim easily, methodically for the first hour. Get into the rhythm, into the breathing. Make peace with the conditions."</p><p>"Become one with the water?" I joked.</p><p>"Yes, become one with the water," said Blakeslee, who wasn't joking. "If you don't, if you fight the conditions, you won't make it."</p><p>Blakeslee suggested to Bradley that he train more, that he become obsessed with regular in-water feedings. Bradley did all that. As driven he is to test his spirit and body – riding a bicycle across the United States, running from Death Valley to the summit of Mt. Whitney and back as just two examples – Bradley is operating at a slight disadvantage.</p><p>"Bill is thin," said Blakeslee, 6-feet, 250 pounds. "The most successful swimmers who cross the channel are ones that have some body fat."</p><p>Body fat provides insulation and energy. The Channel Swim Association, the governing body, has very strict rules on channel crossers. Swim cap, goggles and swim trunks are allowed. Nothing else, including a wetsuit. Blakeslee had 25 percent body fat when he jumped into the channel. He lost 15 pounds swimming. Blubber accomplishes the same thing for humans as it does for whales in 50-degree water.</p><p>That said, the English Channel doesn't tax the body as much as the mind. "Ninety percent of it is mental," Blakeslee said. Be 100-percent open, Blakeslee told Bradley, to where your mind will take you.</p><p>Blakeslee entered the water that September with what he thought was a well-thought mental plan. He trained in San Francisco and Tomales bays to the sound of music, particularly the mix of Italian composer Ennio Morricone working with cellist Yo-Yo Ma.</p><p>Blakeslee listened to that sound so often, it was lodged permanently in his gray space. It would get him through those 47,736 freestyle strokes.</p><p>"Lasted only two hours," Blakeslee said. "Then . . . nothing. Just lost in the rhythmic breathing and stroking. It became a meditative state. That lasted until the mid-point of the swim."</p><p>Then, for a reason he still can't explain, Blakeslee began to think about people who were suffering, be they in America or elsewhere. Nothing triggered it. Just came to him. He didn't resist. He went with it.</p><p>"I dedicated the rest of my swim to those who are suffering," Blakeslee said.</p><p>Blakeslee didn't think of any names, countries, wars or even your garden variety fender bender. It was the concept, and now that he reflects back upon it, it made sense. He was sharing pain.</p><p>"I was suffering and they were suffering," he said. "I was having empathy for mankind."</p><p>What will Bradley think of? He doesn't know. Maybe it will be jelly doughnuts. Maybe the sound of water going down a drain. Maybe he will be channeling his inner dolphin.</p><p>Who knows and, as Blakeslee pointed out, it would be foolish to predict. This is swimming the English Channel, and all bets are off.</p><p>"There's nothing like it in sports," Blakeslee said. "Nothing. You can rest in other sports, take a break. Even marathoners can slow their pace, even walk slowly. If you stop to tread water in the English Channel, you'll lose body heat and become hypothermic. Either you're doing it or you're not."</p><p>Either you're El Sharko or you're not. That's Blakeslee's nickname. Why? One of his training swims for the English Channel was swimming the length of Tomales Bay. Yes, THAT Tomales Bay, a breeding ground for sharks. And so once again I revisited the notion that Blakeslee wasn't human, and once again I got nowhere. Like I was swimming in place.</p><p>For more on North Bay sports go to Bob Padecky's blog at padecky.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5223 or bob.padecky@pressdemocrat.com</p>