Thursday 18 April 2013

The Juice FM Inspiration Sports Award 2013

The Juice FM 2013 Inspiration Award for Sporting achievement
goes to Big Ricks Outdoor Swim Team very own superstar
Darran "Supa" Redman Dyke 
Juice FM paid tribute to Merseyside’s most inspirational people.
The 2013 Inspiration Awards held at the Isla Gladstone Conservatory on Thursday 18th April hosted by Juice FM Breakfast presenters Adam Weighell and Leanne Campbell
Awards awaiting the Merseyside’s most inspirational people
Looks a Bit Posh for Supa..
lucky he had the new Mrs Supa to look after him
 
Dinner is over so
Lets Get this Party Started 

 Juice FM Breakfast presenters Adam Weighell and Leanne Campbell
its the Sports Award time..
Drum Drum Roll.........
congratulations Darran.
well deserved ..  
The winner of the Achievement in Sport Award was Darran Dyke
The Achievement in Sport Award in association with 
Volkswagen Van Centre Liverpool.
Leanne : In August 2005, Tim Denyer was just a few hundred yards from completing a swim across the channel when exhaustion hit. He was struggling to swim against the strong currents when he felt someone swimming alongside him.
Mark Rickhuss had been training Tim and when he realised he was struggling, had jumped in to give him the motivation to carry on. And it worked! They swam into France together.
However, once French soil had been reached, Mark boarded the support boat and sadly passed away. He was just 41
This inspired Marks friend Darran to attempt the crossing in Marks memory. Swimming as part of a team he completed his first crossing in 2011 and just missed out on a double crossing last year due to bad weather.
They will be attempting this again in July, raising money for cancer research.


Friday 12 April 2013

Never gonna give you up.!

who gave up...? Ricks..?
Never..;-)
Don,t worry Big Ricks haven`t given up..!!!
we are alive and well and training hard..;-)
we will be back  blogging in weeks if not days...
The New open water session is almost upon on us all...
yippeeeeee i can all hear you cry;-)
Big Ricks Swim Team
all the guys got together for the first time this year
 to celebrate the wedding of Ricks
channel swimmer Dougie Dugmore ...
As always we have to have a Blog read along as you listen Tune...and this one kills 2 birds with one stone tune, first its perfect as in "We are never gonna give you up on Open water swimming not matter how cold we get..!( well supa daz might ) and 2nd its perfect as its Doug,s new wife Mrs Copeland`s Favorite tune from when she was in her 20,s ;-)) its the 80,s classic never gonna give you up by Mr Rick Astley..( Click on arrow in the picture above to hear Rick at his best while u read..!! )
The New Mr and Mrs Dugmore,.x
March has been a funny old month for the team..!!On the one hand we’ve had lots of thing to celebrate on a personal level to us, Ricks swimmer Stuart Dugmore finally tied the knot to his long time partner Mrs Copeland this month, after what seemed an internal time together 18yrs we think..!! Most of the team were young, slim and had hair when they 1st got together... ;-) so this month has been more one of Partying than swimming..!! With 2 team stag trips, one to a 90,s weekend at Butlins! , and then another to the Famous Cheltenham Gold cup and then wedding. .  You can see it’s been a busy one...Everyone in the ricks team wishes Doug and Lisa and life time of happiness together x
Stag Trip No 1
Ricks @ a Butlins 90,S weekend in Skegness.!!
we had a great and messy time celebrating Young Doug,s stag weekend
best say no more ;-))
However it’s not all been partying..!!! we are still sticking to our swim plan of training 3 times week, and sometimes  4...some of the Guys are doing even more, the ones doing the swim 4 life  24 miles in 24 hours  event in April are up to 5 times , even with the partying...!!..But March has been funny old month the UK ...why..?? Because of the weather... It’s been freezing..!! And we do mean freezing.... often its  minus 10 and worse  ,  heavy snow  week after week...plus there has been a biting cold wind which seems to have been with us for months... ..I know us English love to talk about the weather all the time, but March and now the beginning of April have been a shocker...
Stag Trip No.2
Ricks @ the
  World Famous Cheltenham Gold cupPrince William and Kate, plus 80,000 race goers , were joined by 22 chubby open water swimmers..!
and did we party....!
As always the Stag is the only winner/
Doug enjoying his last day of freedom before the
open water wedding of the year ..
We Don`t know who these guys were, but we could tell they wanted to crash
big ricks stag Day as they walked past us on the way to the posh enclosure  , it must have been the Hot Brandy's we were having at the time which made them smile....:-)) to be fair it would have been a pleasure for  William join us, after all  he is a ex water polo player ..
which is almost a swimmer...!!!
"Duke and Duchess Of Cambridge
 
top couple ."
Our hopes to return to open water sometime in April look very slim, the water temp at our open water training venue Swam Pool is currently 3.4 degrees...(Last year it was nearer 9) ..
No Swimming Today..!
this was taken 30th March. Crazy..
6ft snow drifts in England at Easter..
one of team did brave the cold sea over in Bournemouth over the Easter weekend .. Ricks Basher Bates  joined up with our Twin open water team mates from The Seabrook Seals swim team for there annual Easter Monday  bunny dip..!  now the seals are a hard core OW team...no winters off in warm swimming pools for the them, the team have been swimming every week in the sea in Dorset regardless of the bad weather, which is amazing effort any time, but particularly this winter ..
Some of the seals team pre swim on Easter Monday ,
Ricks Basher is the one looking very cold and nervous
with the red and yellow hat with the pink bunny ears.!
as we said the seals are hard core OW swimmers, good job as the air temp on Easter Monday as we walked from our cars to Fisherman,s beach was a chilly 1 degree, add to that it was blowing a gale...it was must have been well minus temps...and as for the sea..!! lets not even guess ..it was bloody freezing..
Off we go..!!
there was no hold back the Seals swimmers, they were in a flash , on the other hand
Ricks Basher is last at the back no looking very keen to get in...and u would be right..
we can think of better things to do on
Cold Easter Monday Morning...! 
its was cold but great fun, The Seabrook seals team are great bunch of people, always make new swimmers welcome, always have a smile on there faces always have the odd cake or 2 for you to enjoy once the swim is over..if you are ever in the Bournemouth area , then i would look them up, you will be so glad u did..;-) 

as we said training still goes on at full steam in the pool until the Open water starts again which at the moment looks like Wednesday 1st of May , but no worries really we are fitter than we have ever been at this time of yr ...the our winter training has gone 100% better than previous year , as for once we had a plan to work to thanks to our coach at perry Beeches sc masters..we,ve been working on our strokes ( not just front crawl ) , our breathing , our speed our endurance , even been working on our Racing..!! anything really that breaks up the routine , the winter swimming as been a breath of fresh air this yr...fingers crossed we will see a massive improve when we hit the cold water..!! okay we can always dream and hope of an improvement at our age..;-)) Ricks..
most open water swimmers seem to find pool training boring why..??? Ricks train with Perry Beeches Masters in the winter...every session is productive and so much fun.!! All u need is a bit of imagination and a few swim toys...and even channel and open water swimmers will enjoy it ..;-) 
list of Ricks swim Toys..
Fins,Kick Board ,T-shirt,Snorkel,Pull Buoy , Agility Paddles, Drag + Fly Kite, 
balance Board,stretch cords ,Drag shorts, etc...our kits bags for training is huge,....lol  
  Here are just a few of Ricks & Beeches sc sessions over the past few weeks or so that might be useful to some before everyone's return to open water next month...;-)) ( for 100,s more of Ricks session just click this link tom our facebook page Big Ricks Training sessions










Enjoy...all of them are Easy....,!!! well they are according to the coach..;-) Ricks until next time...keep swimming...;-)