It was just me and my buddy Jason in the pool today. Not sure where everybody else was, even though it was chilly this morning it was plenty nice at the pool by lunch. I was there first and started with our stock warm up, he got in with me about half way through.
Once it became apparent we were going to be the only dudes there we figured we had to come up with our own workout. After a little kick set we went with an old standby… 25/50/75/100 on a big interval. It’s a sneaky set, it starts easy and has potential to get pretty hard if you give it a chance to. I did parts of round 4 butterfly, but not as much of it as I should have.
200 swim
200 kick
200 IM
10 x 50 kick w/ fins @ 1:00
Repeat x 4 build through each round
25 @ :30
50 @ 1:00
75 @ 1:30
100 @ 2:00
2600 yards total
In other news… my Pentax Optio W90 came back from warranty repair land. It had glitched out on me in a pretty rapid fashion and I had to send it away for some love. Hopefully after our little false start it turns out to be as good of a camera as my W80 was. Despite having 2 working waterproof cameras in hand right now I’ve been drawing a little bit still…
Start from the Swim for Equality in Malibu back in September (click for a bigger version)
I also made one for Glenn over at GoSwim that you can see on his site here, I think it’s pretty rad and he seems to agree :)
the view of the coast from in the water is hard to beat!
Thanks to the Thanksgiving holiday my normal schedule has been a little off kilter and I was out of the water from Tuesday on until today. Although I had other exerciserly excursions during the weekend on the road and on top of the water, I was really wanting to get in an actual swim. My lower body is really sore from biking and paddleboarding and some cold water on my muscles sounded like a fantastic idea. As luck would have it cold water was in stock :)
I met Niel on the beach and we had a really beautiful day waiting for us. The sun was shining, the visibility was great, there was a bit of an offshore breeze going, and the water was clean and clear. The NOAA buoy says were solidly at 54 degrees, Niel’s thermometer on the pier got 55. I’ll split the difference and call it 54.5. I’m not sure the air temp was too much warmer. We got ourselves ready to swim and hung out a little bit just in case anyone else showed up. People have it in their heads that November is a bad time to swim… we actually have some of our nicest days this time of year! Sure the water is a little chilly, but it’s still within range of the temps we saw in the middle of summer! Oh well, I’m sure they’ll catch on eventually.
wearing my CIBBOWS cap as a reminder of how much colder it could be
As we made our way to the beach there was a group of people off to the left of us that was having a hard time believing 2 dudes were about to just go swimming. They watched us get in and work on acclimating in the waves before actually taking off to swim.
inbound wave
We didn’t have too much of a plan today. The base idea was to swim to the creek buoy and then negotiate from there. We decided to continue on to the Poly Pier and then decide the next step once we got there. On the way there I kept thinking about how much easier it was to swim the distance as opposed to paddling it on Friday! While we were figuring out our next move at the pier I saw my first seal on swim in quite a while. When I wondered aloud as to why there are so many on the other side of the pier but not where we swim Niel conjectured that it’s because of the sharks on this side… ahhh things I don’t want to hear whilst in the ocean!
at the Poly pier deciding the next leg of our swim
We ended up aiming for the top of the Avila Pier and then turning down the south side of it and swimming in. As we regrouped at the top of the pier we had a small crowd watching us and yelling out some questions, that’s always kind of fun :) Question number one is almost without fail “aren’t you cold?”
On the swim back to the beach I worked on finding a wave to ride part of the way in. They weren’t too big today but they were fairly clean. The offshore breeze was blowing sheets of mist off the top of them as they broke though.
I’m not sure when my next dip in Avila is going to be. This week is pretty busy and I won’t be able to come out during the day. This coming weekend I’ll be away at the SPMA SCM Championship meet in Long Beach where I’m going to get my ass handed to me across short distances. Hopefully once that’s set I can get back to twice a week in the ocean… especially seeing as I might have a 10k to prepare for in January :)
So although I totally had fun, yesterday didn’t exactly go according to plan… a one hour SUP adventure turned into an epic 2 1/2 hour struggle against wind and white caps going the opposite direction of where we wanted to go! I’m still smoked a day later… when the ocean decides it doesn’t want you to get somewhere there’s no negotiating with it!
getting ready to launch our boards
Myself, Dani, and her friend Monte met up in Port San Luis for a little Stand Up Paddleboarding excursion. We stopped at SLO Coast Kayaks, which has become my favorite place to go when I’m actually in town for the weekend, to get geared up and started to paddle for downtown Avila. The water was flat and beautiful and the sun was shining, a good start for sure. We angled towards the top of the Cal Poly Pier and moved through a lot of birds and sea lions. From there we cruised down towards the Avila Pier and then turned it around to paddle back to the Port. This probably took all of half an hour.
Monte coasting
Dani headed south towards the Avila Pier
me at the end of the Poly Pier
At this point I felt a little wind brewing… not good… while turning into the wind I over compensated, leaned too far and took a tumble into the water… whoops. This apparently was a sign of things to come. We made awful time towards the Poly Pier. The water was getting rougher and we were catching all kinds of wind with our bodies that wanted to push us back towards the Avila Pier. I got down and paddled from a kneeling position from here on out since I’m such a big target. My friends picked up the same plan not too long after I did.
pointing back towards the Port
Instead of going over the top of the pier this time we paddled under it in the middle. For some reason we thought the pier would mellow out the water…. it just got worse. It was a total grind to get under it to the other side. We probably had 1000m to paddle back to the rental place from here and you had to fight for every meter of it. It got pretty demoralizing every time you’d pull up to a docked boat because then you could really see just how little progress you were making. The white caps that we were now enjoying were going in the opposite direction, and I think the tide was going out too. Great. If you took a break at all you’d start floating backwards and the board would start turning around to face back towards the city. I wanted to cut in towards the beach to try and find some mellower water but you just couldn’t do it. On top of not being able to make any progress, the angle you’d have to take to do it resulted in getting flipped off your board by what I would say was 1+ foot chop. I took a couple tumbles…
the red line is our route, the blue arrows are which way the water was going on the way back and the red dashes are our boat ride
I got bored of not getting anywhere so I switched to laying on my stomach for a while and paddling with my arms. That actually worked a little better because there was way less wind resistance, but I was catching face-fulls of water doing it. I stopped this endeavor after I realized I had drawn the attention of some of the local marine mammals. I had a seal about 4 feet behind my board looking at me like I was the dumbest person in the ocean. I decided to get back on my knees and paddle from there so I would look so much like a flailing seal from below the water.
The 3 of us kept grinding along in solitude… we had spread out a bit, enough that you could see everyone but not hear them. Monte was out front of me quite a ways, Dani was off to the right, and I was in the back. The sun was making it’s way down and I was starting to wonder if we were going to make it before it dropped behind the mountains. I always joke that worst case paddling scenario in Avila I’ll just swim back and owe the kayak shop $1000… at this point I was starting to figure out which credit card to put it on…
Eventually a Zodiac boat came cruising out past us to see what was going on. The boat was from the Seaweed Express and they checked out the situation then went to pick up Dani. She hopped in the boat and they picked up her board. They came back around towards me and asked if I wanted a ride. I accepted without much hesitation :) We didn’t have any room for our third guy in there, but he was pretty close to making it back so he didn’t really need the ride. It was actually kind of handy that it was the Seaweed Express guy that stopped by to get us because I’ve been wanting to meet him to talk about piloting a local 10k swim for me. I told him what I want to do and it sounds like it may be a go, I need to shoot him an email later today about it…
our ride home, the Seaweed Express
The boat took us over to the pier/dock sort of area at the port since they couldn’t drop us off at the sport launch where we started because the tide was too far out and the water was too shallow there. I hopped on this platform below the pier and got the paddleboards off the boat. In the process I stepped square in a pile of sea lion poo… gross!
why yes that is sea lion poo with my footprint in it
Once we had that handled we got Dani off the boat and then worked on getting the boards back to the shop. The wind was kicking and it wasn’t going so well. I think Dani was about to take flight! As an added bonus a Korean Tour Bus had stopped by and we had a gang of elderly Korean people taking pictures of us like we were part of the show. I wanted to surprise them and say something impressively ridiculous and/or inappropriate in Korean on our way through (I speak a fair amount of Korean, just not very well these days) but I couldn’t pull anything together in my head because I was way more worried about the 12 foot board I was trying to carry. We ended up giving up and putting them down on the pier. We hit the kayak shop to let them know what was up and I got my shoes and a shirt (I’d been in just board shorts this whole time) to make the carrying process easier. The kayak guy ended up driving his SUV down there to cart them back instead which was really nice because moving those things was pretty hard!
All things considered this little outing was a good lesson about what the ocean is capable of… all it takes is some wind blowing down over the mountains to wreck your whole day! I still had fun although parts of it totally sucked, and if nothing else I got a hell of a workout. My thighs are still on fire from it! I’ll definitely go back out for more paddleboarding, but I might check out the forecasted wind conditions in advance next time!
It had to happen eventually… I got back on the bike today. It was only a 12 mile shot out through Oceano up to the Pismo Pier and home, but that’s the most cycling I’ve done in over a year. I used to ride a lot, but as I got deeper into swimming I always had a swim meet coming or something that I didn’t want to hurt myself in advance of and eventually I just fell out of the habit. I’ll never be a stud competitive cyclist, but I do like to have that in my exercise repertoire. Being outside with the wind in my beard is never a bad thing :)
prepared for 2 wheeled adventure!
After lunch I geared up with some non bike short looking bike shorts and my favorite Fat Cyclist jersey (Fatty is my favorite bike blogger). I’m also a nerd and have one of those rear view mirror thingies you can hang off your glasses. My bike (a Specialized TriCross, I’m not cool enough for a real road bike) was all nice and ready to go since I had it tuned up a week or two ago in anticipation of this actually happening.
trying to remember where my feet go...
I had a loose idea of where I wanted to go. I figured I’d cruise out through the farm fields a bit and then aim for the beach via Highway 1. I felt pretty ok on my way out to the farm-ier portions of Oceano. Pedaling was easy, it’s always my elbows and um… seat region that end up hurting when I ride. I spent those first few miles dodging mud clumps and other agricultural excitement. The air was pretty thick with the smell of broccoli or something like that, but the sun was shining and the traffic was light so I can’t complain too much.
agri-tastic excitement at every turn!
Highway 1 gets you back to civilization and the beach!
Things get a little hilly after you cruise through the flat farmland of O-town. Nothing too bad, but for my out of bike shape self it was harder than it really should have been. Once I got all the way up to Grand Avenue, which is where you can drive up onto the beach and my preplanned possible bailout point, I decided to keep going until I was actually in Pismo. I had some bonus miles in me.
Since it’s Monarch season in Pismo I made a stop at the grove where they congregate in big numbers. All kinds of other people were out there checking them out today too. This is one of those things that happens here every year that you kind of forget about when you’re just driving by. That’s another reason I like riding my bike, I can slow down and stop and check it out real quick!
hey look a butterfly!
...and 150 more!
From here I rode the rest of the way into town and down to the pier. The water was a little choppy and there weren’t too many surfers out. There were plenty of tourists and Christmas decorations out today though!
on the Pismo Pier
From here I cruised on home. My little cyclo-puter tells me it was around 12 miles which is a good enough start. Even when I was riding a lot the most my body would tolerate was 35-40 miles. Beyond that my back, butt, and various other body parts start to protest loudly even though my legs would keep going if I let them.
map of today's ride
Now I’m off to eat large amounts of mashed potatoes and anything else that I can get my hands on over at my mom’s house :) I hope all of you have a good Thanksgiving!
It was pretty yucky outside today… overcast and a little drizzly, occasionally breaking out into actual rain. Although that’s a drag on most outdoor activities it’s not really a big deal for a pool swim. If anything it’s a fun little distraction. Not too many of us showed up to swim today, I think we had as many as 5 at one point. No one was super motivated but Mike wanted to have some burnt calories in the bank in advance of thanksgiving so his plan was a big pile of 200′s. He prescribed 12 of them but I skipped one to go grab something out of my locker during the set.
600 reverse IM kick/drill/swim by 50
11 x 200 @ 3:20 (1-6 free IM, 7-11 free)
2800 yards total
My brief absence from the pool was for my friend and newly minted Ironman Danilu. She’s in recovery mode but dropped in to say hi and tell us about her race a little. I had a congratulatory bag of gummy bears for her in my locker… she actually bakes the rest of us things, but my culinary skills only extend as far as buying gummy bears.
Iron-Dani and I before braving the big waves and 52 degree waters of the Hueneme Splash'n'Dash earlier this summer
The rest of my week is pretty open as far as workouts go, I’m still trying to find a buddy for a turkey day and/or black Friday swim. Beyond that I’m thinking about getting back on my bike a bit for the first time in a long time, and maybe some kayaking or paddleboarding since the local rental shop is going to be open during the holiday.
My friend Beth has built a small business around kayaking for open water marathon swimmers. She paddled for 12 Catalina crossings this year as well as guiding me on my 12.6 mile swim from Manhattan Beach to Santa Monica back in October. She has a major interest in swimmer safety and educating other kayakers on how to best keep their swimmers in line and out of trouble. She sent me a document that she recently put together that outlines a lot of things that swimmers and kayakers need to think about before they get in the water and while they’re in the midst of their swims. I think there’s a lot of good stuff in there and figured I should share, it’s definitely worth a read.
Here’s a brief excerpt about having a plan:
Q: Will there be a ‘plan’ before we get into the open water?
A: A ‘plan’ is the first thing the swimmer and kayaker should always discuss. If it is the first time meeting there are questions to ask and guidelines to discuss. Some first questions to be answered by the swimmer before entering the water:
What is your normal stroke count and does it slow progressively or is it constant? Kayaker will be monitoring stroke count at regular intervals.
How do you breathe? One side or bi-lateral? The answer to this will determine position of the kayak but it might also take time to establish the perfect positioning once the swim is underway.
What is your desired feeding schedule and what do you eat/drink?
Do you want me to alert you to the presence of marine life in the water?
How do you want me to alert you when it’s time to eat?
Do you trust me to make decisions concerning your safety while you’re in the water?
even when I'm slow Mark Savage makes me look fast! (http://www.marksavage.com/)
So I had a busy weekend… two turkey-tastic meets and 500 miles of driving! I started on Saturday with the Gobbler Classic meet in San Luis Obispo which is only about 15 minutes from my house. This was mainly a USA-S meet but they had masters heats mixed in between the kids stuff. There were 3 days of action planned but I was only able to get in half a day of it… well I could have swam a distance event Friday night, but it was raining after work and I decided watching the National Geographic Channel while eating Thai food on my couch was a better deal than standing in the rain in the dark only to have to swim a 1650 :)
I got to the pool a little early on Saturday because I needed to deck enter my events. Since I had dinner plans in Orange County that night I was only going to be able to hang around until like noon so I picked the first 3 masters events thinking they’d all be done before I needed to split. After getting entered I set my chair up and shortly thereafter someone set a tent up over the top of it. This worked out pretty well for me because it started raining not too long after that, luckily the rain wasn’t a sustained phenomenon. Despite forecasts of rain all weekend I never really saw any besides that little bit in the morning.
While hanging out on deck I ran into a bunch of the SLO Masters Meet regulars. Not too many of us old folks come out for this meet with the kiddos so you start to recognize a lot of faces. I got in a little warm up and chatted up some people while waiting for my first event, the 100 breaststroke.
contemplating just how bad I am at sprinting right now :)
When it was time for the masters events there was a little confusion with the timers because they didn’t have cards for us. I guess we were being run separate and they didn’t know what was up yet since this was the first time through for all of them. I asked the people behind my lane if they had me up next just to make sure I was in the right spot. The guy said “unless you’re 6 years old you’re not on my list.” Heh, whoops. So they decided to improvise and write my name and event down on the card he had for the next event. My newest Splish suit came in handy since it had my last name written on the front which beats having to spell it out for somebody! After getting my name and everything down he said “so you’re what about 16?” I thought that was pretty funny, I let him know he only missed by a little bit.
The actual race was less amusing. I accidentally entered my SCM time for this SCY race and well it’s pretty good I did because I only missed my SCM time by 1 second… my real life SCY time from April however was about 9 seconds faster! Even when you do a little handicapping for a drag suit versus a b70 bodysuit it was still pretty ugly. I swam a 1:18 and was huffing and puffing at the end… still stuck in long distance ocean gear… it’s going to take some work to knock that loose!
even my backpack was mocking me!
Based on the time things were taking I was only going to get in one more race, the 50 fly. I figured this should go a little better since I’m relatively decent at it and a lot of the time I’ll win it overall at the SLO meets. This race was a little more of the same. I was about 2 seconds and change slower than my best time on this one… yikes. At least I was under 30 seconds, I might have had to retire from 50′s if it had been much slower! I came in around 28 high and second overall in the men’s heat.
Once I got out of the pool I dried off and packed up my stuff into the truck. I did a quick deck change in the parking lot into some regular person clothes and made a beeline for Long Beach. When I got there to check into the room I reserved during the week I found out my reservation didn’t actually go through… uh oh! Luckily I’m a super fancy gold elite member and this was sorted out in a rapid fashion… I’m just glad they had rooms! I dropped my stuff off and then ran off into the night with my friends Merritt and Bekah (who are both way better swimmers than me) to hang out. Although staying up until 3am drinking beers isn’t really the best way to prep for a second day of racing I still think it was the right answer, I had a lot of fun.
As one would imagine waking up the next morning didn’t go as planned. I slept through my alarm and woke up about an hour later than planned. Oh well. I got myself ready, packed my stuff and drove back up towards Woodland Hills for the Turkey Shoot SCM meet at Pierce College. I missed my first event but got there in time for the other 3 and a relay. Showing up at the meet was really nice for me because it was a little parade of hugs and handshakes from all kinds of people I haven’t seen in a really long time. I had friends and teammates all over the place. In the midst of all my travel this year I haven’t been to a Southern California pool meet since May! Luckily I’m only a couple weeks out from my next one which should be way more heavily attended with even more of my SoCal friends, along with a bunch of folks from out of town.
random action!
I started my racing off with the 100m fly today. I haven’t swam that race in pretty much forever. Last year I swam my worst time of the season at this meet, 1:11. Well I topped it today, I swam around 1:12. I didn’t feel too bad swimming this, I just didn’t feel that fast. My walls have deteriorated quite a bit. I need to get back to work on my dolphin kicking. The upside is my friend and celebrity photographer Mark Savage from SCAQ was out and took some pictures that make me look like I was tearing that place up! Check out the beard… it’s out of control!
beware the fierce beard of doom! (photo by Mark Savage)
My next 2 events were breaststroke, the 50 and the 100. In the 50 I swam about a second slower than I did up in Walnut Creek in October. My friend Kathleen caught some video of the 50m breast so you can see how things went.
I felt like I was shortening up my stroke way too much in the 50m and made sure to relax a lot more in my 100m breast. I may have relaxed a bit too much… I swam a 1:28 which can’t be good. I’d say I need to leave the breaststroking alone for a while… unfortunately I already signed up for it at the Belmont Meet in Long Beach in early December… whoops :)
standing around before my 100m breast while some technical issues were resolved by the meet staff
I finished up my day with the 400 medley relay and this was a ton of fun. My team had enough people in the right mix to do 2 relays today and I was the random young person on the A team. I think we were one year shy of making it into the 240+ age group, my 29 year old-ness totally screwed up the average :) I got to swim the 100m fly one more time, and everyone on our team did a good job and had fun. I’m stoked I made it out today to do this.
the end of my 100m fly in the 400m medley relay
After the meet I went to lunch with my Coach and caught up for a couple hours before I had to finish driving home. Now that I’ve got a handful of pool races taken care of I think I can start to convince my body that it’s ok to go fast for short periods of time again. Hopefully at Belmont I can knock out one or two fast swims!
stepping up my illustration game while I figure out my camera situation
This was round 2 for Thursday afternoon ocean swims at Avila. It looks like Thursday is going to be the day of choice assuming we can keep this momentum up. Since my girlfriend doesn’t go to work until 2 she decided that she wanted to go to the beach too and picked me up at my office. The weather on the drive up was looking pretty gross from the freeway, but as we wound down towards Avila the fog was breaking up and there were pockets of sunshine all over. Right on time!
There was all of about zero other people on the beach this afternoon, we had the whole thing to ourselves. Can’t complain about that. We met Niel in the regular spot, and while I got changed into my suit and Niel got into his wetsuit we debated the route a little bit. We decided that we’d start with half the big triangle and then decided how far we want to go once we hit the top of the pier. The water was pretty cold, 55ish, but flat.
The walk into the water was pretty brutal. I was having one of those days where I’m slow to process the cold. Eventually Niel took off for the buoy line while I waited for a wave to force me into getting all the way wet. My wave never came so I just had to toss myself headlong into the water and start swimming. We met even with the buoys and decided to turn left first and then arc up to the top of the pier. Although the water was fairly calm looking on top I think there was just a little bit of current running. I felt myself getting pushed just a little bit off the line I was trying to take. After a brief pause at the last buoy we put our heads back down and swam to the end of the pier.
By now the sky was opening up nicely. The sun was shining on us and the visibility was improving quite a bit. At this point our choices were finish the whole triangle or swim straight back in. I decided I wanted to do the whole thing and Niel was into that idea as well so that’s what we went with. On the swim down to the creek buoy there were a few patches where the water moved in a really weird way that kind of freaked me out. I had a wave push just my feet sideways like 2 or 3 times. It didn’t match anything else going on in the water and felt like the wake of something fast swimming too close to me. I looked back over my shoulder a few times while breathing to see if anything was back there but I never saw anything. This is probably at least half imagined, but I may have swam a little faster all of a sudden just in case!
At the creek buoy we paused for a moment and noticed something white floating straight in towards the beach maybe 30m away. Niel wanted to go check it out so we swam it down. Turns out it was a motor oil bottle… boo for garbage in the ocean… we were too far from shore to get it back in and it was too big to jam in a suit or something so Niel chucked it towards the surf line in hopes that it would get tossed on the beach and someone could pick it up and throw it away from there. Instead of swimming back up to the buoy line we just went parallel to it from where we were. We were in a spot where the swells were noticeably rising but still too far out to be breaking. It was kind of fun to swim the rise and fall of the inbound swells like that.
As we neared the pier we started veering towards the beach. Once we were in shallower water I put a foot down and looked for a decent wave to ride in. I missed one but was presented with a much better wave just a moment later. I rode the whitewater down towards the beach and finished my ride in about a foot of water. At this point I pretty much had to shower off real quick, get back into real clothes and drive back to the office. I really like this midday ocean swimming. I can squeeze in a reasonable swim, eat a quick lunch not at my desk like I have to with my pool swims, and get back to work on time. Hopefully a few other swimmers get hip to this whole lunchtime thing so there’s always someone on the beach to swim with if you want to go.
guess who has 2 thumbs and no working cameras... >this guy<
Although it was super foggy at my office by the beach I got a nice sunshine infusion down in Santa Maria at the pool. We were 5 swimmers deep today and the workout basically consisted of a really long warm up and then a little (attempted) sprinting. I figure the “sprinting” portion was good for me since I’m going to have at least one or two days of racing in the pool this weekend. I need to rediscover that short swim spark between here and Saturday. If today’s efforts were any indication though, I’m screwed. I think my fastest 50 was like 36 seconds… that’s not gonna do it :0
Repeat x 4
200 free
100 IM
50 Drill (one of each stroke by round)
100 kick
4 x 50 sprint @ 1:30
100 easy
4 x 25 sprint @ :45
100 easy
2300 yards total
During the workout I found out that Mike would be coaching his team up there for parts of the meet (it runs Friday to Sunday). Since he was going to be there Friday I asked if he could task a kid to count for me on the 1650 since I don’t have anyone local that would be around Friday night to do it. Generally I don’t like long distance in the pool, but I haven’t done a 1650 in a pretty long time so I figure now might be the time.
Tomorrow I’m planning on going to the Central Coast Tri Club’s monthly meeting so I can hear my friend Dave VM talk about his Santa Barbara Channel swim and what he does to get ready for big endurance events like that. And so far Thursday is looking like an ocean kind of day… we’re tentatively scheduled to get wet around noon at Avila Beach if anyone is in the neighborhood and wants to come play.
Team Affiliation: Shawangunk Masters Swimming Association (SMSA)
First off, congrats on an amazing season! Not only did you complete the triple crown of open water swimming in just one season, you swam a bunch of other marathon swims as well! Did you originally plan to do this much swimming or did it just kind of keep growing as you went on with your season?
Thank you. My ’10 season plan developed over the course of 2009 and 2010. I swam a relay with Patricia Sener at Tampa Bay in ’09 and noticed that a bunch of the solo swimmers had English Channel attempts scheduled for the same season. A couple of months later, I met Penny Palfrey and Antonio Arguelles at MIMS; Antonio was planning to complete his second round of the Triple Crown for his 50th birthday and Penny, well Penny is just amazing. She routinely bangs out a few crazy swims each year… so here was my inspiration for the Triple Crown + Tampa Bay. I decided to organize a Maui Channel swim as a way to celebrate the start of 2010 OW season with Terry Laughlin and Willie Miller. We swam an English Channel relay on Sept 19, 2009 together, and were all going to be working a Total Immersion open water camp in Kona, so it seemed like the logical thing to book a pilot and go for a little swim together. The Boston Light swim was something I have always wanted to do, but shorter events (perennial favorites) always seemed to get in the way. This seemed like a “last chance cold water swim” before heading to Dover, and since the water in NY was high 70′s – 80 degrees, I felt like it would be the best choice. Some swimmers thought it was too close to my English Channel window, but I would be doing training swim of that length anyway…. and I would keep it under control, not going all out anyway. It was a great day and such a joy to spend it with my CIBBOWS peeps! Just before the Boston Light Swim, I noticed that there was an opening for the Ederle Swim…. again, something I always wanted to do, and since I was carrying around an extra bit of insulation, thought… no time like the present.
at Coney Island before the CIBBOWS Veterans Day 5k
What kind of swim background do you have? How long have you been focusing your efforts on open water?
I swam competitively in high school grades 9 – 11. We had a rather unimpressive program and a 4 lane 20 yard pool. I worked as a NYC lifeguard for 5 years and learned to love swimming in the ocean, competed (not serious though) in about a dozen triathlons in the early 80′s… I was racing bicycles at the time as well. I began swimming with the Gunks masters in 1998 and began establishing my summer OW tour a year or two later, constantly building and looking for more swims to fit in. In 2008, I swam 24 OW events and broke 50 miles. Last year was more ambitious still:
April 18 Tampa Bay Marathon (2 person relay w/ Patricia Sener)
May 23-24 The Great Travis Trek 64 mile relay in austin (w/ Keith Bell,
Robert Alford, Lynne Smith, Chris Derks and Chuck Wiley)
June 14 The Chesapeake Bay Swim 4.4 mi
June 20 The Mashpee Super Swim 5k (cape cod)
June 26 Liberty Island 2k (manhattan)
June 27 The Aquarium 5k (coney island)
July 11 2mi USMS National Championship (canandaigua, ny)
July 25 The Kingdom Swim 10 mi (Lake Memphremagog vt)
August 1 Golden Gate 1.5 mile
August 2 Cruz Cruise 2 mile (santa cruz)
August 8 Island Beach 2 mi (greenwich ct)
August 9 Grimaldo’s Mile (coney island)
August 15 2mi USMS Cable Championship (lake placid, ny)
Sept 4 Governors Island 2mi (manhattan)
Sept 5 Lake Quassy, CT (3 races; 5 miles)
Sept 6 John Daly Mile (long beach)
Sept 19 English Channel Relay (w/ Terry Laughlin, Willie Miller)
Sept 26 Little Red Lighthouse 5.85 mi (manhattan)
Oct 17 Golden Gate to Bay Bridge 10k (SF)
Oct 21-25 Highland Lakes Challenge 5 lakes, 5 days about 15 miles. (Austin)
(can you see how me and Dave might get along? :) – Rob D)
Swimming around Manhattan
How do you prep your body for a season like this? What does a typical workout look like for you?
I swim with my masters club 5-6 days/week, and practices range from 60 – 120 minutes. My lane averages between 3500 – 5000 yds per practice which is usually a mix of swim/kick/pull stuff. I prefer long aerobic sets with tight intervals, and when I swim on my own, I tend to do mind-numbing sessions like 60 x 150 on 2:00; 180 x 25 fly on 30 sec; 8 x 1000 on 14 min …. stuff like that. I rarely have anyone join me for those sessions. (most people just shake their heads in disgust). I have been averaging between 30,000 and 50,000 yds per week for the past couple of years. Once the water warms above 50 degrees a few of us start the OW sessions. We have a couple of beautiful lakes nearby that permit swimming in small areas for a limited summer season…. other times, we poach. The Hudson River is not too far away and this year, I managed to do a couple of long sessions between Beacon and Poughkeepsie including my six hour English Channel qualifier the water was between 57 and 60 that day… windy too.
Besides the mandatory qualifying swims (4 hr for MIMS, 6 hr for the EC) I included at least one day per week of 12,000 – 15,000 yards except for the week before a marathon. I am fortunate to know a bunch of other swimmers that were training for the long ones this season as well, and we kept the communication lines open. Whenever any one of us was planning a extended practice, there was a pretty good chance that we would have company, and that makes the session much easier and keeps one honest.
Dave and I on the beach
To do this many swims that were this long so close together blows my mind, what is your post swim recovery process?
I was pleasantly surprised to find the recovery was pretty easy. After the long ones, it seemed like I was useless for three days, but after that, I could swim a normal workout again… though a bit slower. I actually think it would be possible to squeeze these swims even closer, like maybe a two week spread between swims. I found the process to recover/rest/build up/taper a bit confusing to both my mind and body. There are such conflicting theories about this amongst my friends and swim gurus… in the end, I just had to satisfy my work ethic and err on the side of more=better. It is likely that some of these swims could have been swum faster given more rest, but I need an outlet for my nervous energy.
having a zen moment in the Atlantic... in December
I know this is a hard question to answer, but which swim turned out to be your favorite this year?
It would be negligent not to share some joyous moments of each of these seven swims, so briefly:
1.MAUI: A cloudless day, humpback whales on the boat ride out to Lanai, bluest of blue water, nearly five hours of swimming in formation and often in perfect sync with my training partners Terry Laughlin and Willie Miller, spinner dolphins (200 of them) auditioning for sea-world on the ride back to the harbor.
2.TAMPA BAY: Casual, low pressure. Got to hang out with Jim Meier and Terry and meet Craig Lenning , and Darren Miller. I did a few training swims with Jim after that (including the 6 hour Hudson swim). I would see Craig again at MIMS and he and Darren would go on to swim the EC. It was great to hang out post swim at Whiskey Joe’s and compare notes for the rest of the season.
3.MIMS: It was wonderful to have so many swimmer friends gather in one place, and I had the added pleasure of introducing a few of them (Susie Dodds, Sakura Hingley, Amanda Hunt, Craig Lenning, Leticia Flores, Isabel Cantu) to Brighton Beach where a bunch of CIBBOWS friends came out to swim in the days leading up to the race.
4.CATALINA: OK, this was my favorite swim this season. The Outrider is quite a well equipped vessel… bunks to rest up on the way out, galley service for the crew, a hot shower after the swim; quite a contrast to all the other boats that guided me. I also had a large and supportive crew: John Humenik, Tobey Anne Saracino, Sharoz Makarechi, Harris Silver, Ian Hodgeson, kayakers Beth Barnes and Peter Phillips, and observers; Jim Fitzpatrick and Tom Hecker. Tobey, John and Harris swam with me a bunch. Jim and Tom were incredibly supportive and stayed really focused on the details throughout the nearly 16 hour ordeal. It really felt like a team effort.
5.BOSTON LIGHT: CIBBOWS had a huge presence at the Boston Light this year, and it was great to spend the weekend with them. Greg O’Connor and Elaine Howley put on a great event. I will certainly be back to swim this one again. The day was sunny and perfect, the water was cold at the start, but warmed up to 62 I think. Some friends were advising me to stay away from this one as it was so close to my departure to Dover, but I wanted to get a cold swim in before I left and this was a perfect opportunity.
6.ENGLISH CHANNEL: The “scene” in Dover is something every open water swimmer should experience. From training in the harbor to the guest houses that cater to swimmers, there really is no other place like it. Freda Streeter and the beach crew are so supportive, and there are always swimmers around to dine with, talk shop, and even swim. The shared pre-swim, waiting for the go day, did you talk to your pilot daily drama adds to the collective suspense. Last year, I swam a relay with Terry Laughlin and Willie Miller and met a bunch of solo swimmers many who happened to swim on the same day we did after a long wait for the weather to clear. After we finished up at Cap Gris Nez, we stopped at all the boats to cheer for our friends, among them were Michael Solberg, Lance Ogren, Paul McQueeny, Lisa Cummins (on her way to a double), Mick Newton….. all made it that day!
7.EDERLE: I always wanted to do this one, and since I was (as Mo Siegel would say) “channel ready”, this seemed like the perfect time. The swim was delayed a week due to severe weather, and the temperature dropped. My pilot was taking readings of 55 – 56 degrees. I think it was more like 57 – 58, and certainly never above 60. This was more like a victory lap than a race for me, though I’m thrilled that all 10 swimmers finished. I believe this is the first time. Morty Berger and the NYC Swim folks really put on a good event that is logistically quite challenging.
Your Catalina Channel swim turned out to be pretty epically hard towards the end. What were you thinking in your head to keep it going once the ocean decided to dramatically increase the difficulty of your adventure?
Well, I knew there was the potential for a bit of epic, as the swimmers before me both left from the mainland, and right up to an hour before we left the marina, my pilot was unsure of which way we should swim. I’m glad we started at Catalina. I had such a great crew. When Suzie Dodds completed her swim in eighteen and a half hours, I said to Tobey, “I could never do that”. Her answer was something I kept in my head: “Yes you can, and if you have to, you will.” Tobey was in the water with me for about 6 hours total… at all the right moments: the start in the dark, the nosey shark incident, and the final push where she came out with another little gem; “Hey, lets go for a swim.” John, Tobey and Harris all joined me for the landing. Everyone would come on the deck during my feeds to shout out encouraging words… that really helped. I wasn’t keeping track of the time, but knew I was way past the expected 9 – 10 hour swim. As much as the currents thwarted me, I was fortunate to have comfortable water temps the whole time. It was 64 degrees at the start, dropped to 62 in the middle of the channel and went up to 67 by the finish… quite odd for the Catalina Channel.
With all the traveling I did this summer I was asked all the time if I was independently wealthy (which I’m not but would like to be!), I’m guessing with your even more dramatic than mine season you got the same line of questions. So to answer the question everyone has… what do you do to support all this marathon swimming?
Well, I’ve always been self employed, so the time off wasn’t much of an issue. I have a marble and granite fabrication shop, and the building business isn’t booming at the moment. I have no pets, no kids, no sports cars, no gambling addiction….. I guess what I’m trying to say is that Clare and I have made choices about the lifestyle we want to lead and we support each other’s ambitions. The cost of these swims does add up (I haven’t put a total $ amount together) but my year still cost less than a year’s tuition at an ivy league college…. a little perspective.
Dave swimming alongside kayaker Beth Barnes
What advice would you pass on for aspiring marathon swimmers like myself who want to graduate to major channel swims like you’re doing?
Stay healthy. Develop an efficient stroke that doesn’t cause you pain. Learn as much as you can about a swim… crew, swim a relay, be a support swimmer, read blogs. Plan early; many of these events book up far in advance. It is not unreasonable to commit to a swim before you are “channel ready”. Network, network, network.
Dave and SF Marathon Swimmer Suzie Dods
Where do you go from here? Now that you’ve knocked out the majority of the world’s most popular marathon swim targets what swims do you have your sights set on now? New channels? Far away lands? Any plans to revisit past conquests for a rematch?
I won’t rule out any rematches. Each of these swims have much appeal and I can’t imagine not revisiting any of them in the future. Now, having said that, I have a list that is quite long of channels, lakes and rivers that I need to explore… some well established swims with governing bodies, and some possible first assents….. stay tuned, I hope it will be a big year!
