Mushin

I got my butt to the doctor after really avoiding a proper checkup for several years.

Blood pressure at the lower end of normal.

Resting heart rate, same.

Standard middle-aged stuff all dandy... except...

Fasting blood sugar a bit elevated. Not meeting the diagnostic criteria for diabetes, thank goodness, but I can't be having with that. Ketogenic diet and weight loss it is (dammit).

I feel like in a way I have a doctor's note to blow off other things in my life in favor of swimming, so I can't say this is all bad.  Nope, sorry.  Can't clean the house, gotta go swim!  It's for my health,  and the doctor said I had to, buh-bye!

For the most part, a ketogenic diet ain't no thang for me, other than making it a pain in the ass to socialize. However, I like my bourbon from time to time. And after one blood sugar test after a drink, that's a big ole nope.

So, another thing about me.  I have like... zero chill. I am so not a mellow person. Do I ever take a stiff drink to calm down? Yeah.

I started looking for another way to try to stop spazzing (no just swimming isn't enough, even if I am mellow as hell after a nice workout) and figured, what the heck, meditating with mala beads is worth a try.  Yes, this has something to do with swimming. Just wait a sec.

I'm one of the least woo-woo people you'll ever meet, but 20 minutes focusing on just your breath does give your mind a break from whatever you're stressing or spazzing about. I've had some instruction in mindfulness meditation and can sometimes get to the point where I'm just in a zone where I'm not thinking anything and can totally concentrate on my breath. 

Sometimes.

I also have some training as a martial artist.  One of the concepts that is a biggie as you progress is Mushin.  It means "No Mind."  It's when you're in this state where you are simply acting.  Your total focus is in the present (mindfulness again) and you're not thinking about anything.  You're just doing. Any athlete, of course, tries to get to this point -- not as a spiritual exercise, but more that you've trained your mind to focus completely on your activity. 

As I've mentioned in my previous blogs, my biggest obstacle to reaching many of my swimming goals is my brain.  I'll think about a shark video I've seen, or ruminate on an interpersonal problem, or fantasize about the snarky comeback I wish I could bring myself to say to nitwits in the locker room who think that weight loss is the best topic of conversation for the fat lady getting out of her bathing suit... you know, anything negative.  It's a superpower, what can I say?  The snark has its good points, but it sometimes isn't so nice.

So, I'd made this goal for myself this year only to think "Good thoughts" in the water.

It's fine, as far as it goes.

But I experienced something better in my swim today.  Because I'd been meditating, apparently not only had I been working on training my mind to clear itself at certain intervals, I'd been training my mind to clear itself when engaging in controlled and rhythmic breath.  I had a really good, productive workout and felt great afterward.

If you'd told me that meditation would help me get over my negative thinking in the water, I would have... Well, I wouldn't have laughed in your face, but I'd've gone home and grumbled about crunchy-granola peabrains who need to get a grip.

However, it can, and it does.

Mushin for the win.

Hiatus and 2018 Swimming Goal

I notice I haven't posted anything about swimming in about a year and a half.

This is mostly because I haven't done any serious swimming for about that period of time.

First was the San Francisco Sharkfest Failure of 2016.  I went all the way across the country....

... and totally bailed on a swim.  I may analyze that here, later.   It does drive this year's goal, though.  I need only to think positive thoughts in the water.  Screw speed. Forget anything else, but showing up consistently, and only thinking good thoughts when in the water.

See, I'm prone to thinking black thoughts when there is nothing to distract me.  Bad enough, so why did I take a year to try to work on it?  I could have worked on it in 2017, couldn't I?

I lost my infant granddaughter (she just stopped breathing during a nap) in February.  I could not face that blue line with nothing but my own brain.  I couldn't force my thoughts away from... well, anyway, I'm not going into horrific details.  I even bought a treadmill because I had a hard time leaving the house and the only exercise I could force myself to do was walking (running is evil) on that damn thing while listening to audiobooks.

At least I didn't sit for a year, I guess. 10,000 steps is good for something, anyway.

So this year, my real goal is that if I'm in the water, I'm only allowed positive thoughts.  It might seem like a weird goal, but it does seem that the thing that holds me back worst as a swimmer is my own damn brain.

Today's workout was a good baseline for where I am as a swimmer now. Clumsy, certainly, as I've been out of practice.  Slow, absolutely, for the same reason.  It took me forever to warm up properly, but when I did...

...It was awesome and it felt great.  You know how when you're working out and the adrenaline kicks in and it's all WOAH POWER! That was nice.

Thinking about this video was a nice way to have a good tempo, too. (Yes, I know.  Emotionally I'm still about twelve)

On a lighter note....

Yesterday I was talking about how scared I was to get in the water and do a swim.

There was a flip side to it that was really funny -- the reaction I got when I got out of the water.

There was some sort of family gathering at Prouty Beach, not sure what, but they'd rented the shelter for the day.  It was still windy and chilly.  Most of them wore slacks and jackets.

I was the first person back, what with me only swimming a couple of miles and all.  The family was passing the time watching boats on the lake, knuckleheads swimming in water and weather no truly sane person is going to get in... you know, what you do when you're enjoying a weekend summer outing in what passes for summer in Vermont within spitting distance of the Canadian border.

I spotted the people as I was rounding the last buoy and was gathering my strength for the last push to finish my swim.  I was unsurprised to see them and that they were watching.  Seeing anyone swim in that chill and gray weather must be a bit of a novelty.  They applauded when I got out.  It was very kind of them and honestly, it felt nice.

I'm used to the reaction from training swims I've done closer to home.  I start from a little community beach on Lake Mascoma.   The "I could never do thats" are familiar.  They're also not really true.  You can't now because you haven't trained.  You could train for it if you felt like that was the way you wanted to spend your time.

I'm never entirely sure how to react, even so, and tend to fall back into being a Virginian, thanking them for being so kind and flattering.  I feel awkward, but being kind about something kindly-meant is never a wrong reaction, right?

One woman who was quite bundled up seemed deeply concerned about the cold and the wind.  She had something of the air of the experienced camper about her, and I suspect she knew that hypothermia was no joke.  She offered to let me come up to the shelter behind a wind barrier, which was very sweet.    But honestly?

My skin was chilled and I didn't fully warm up until five in the afternoon when I finally got into a hot bath.  However, inside I was plenty warm.  When I took off my cap, my head felt hot.  While being a hothead isn't always desirable, it's my marker for whether or not I'm trying hard enough in a swim.  I was swimming in 67F water, and yes my head was hot.  I told the woman she could put her hand on my head to see if I was okay, and she did, exclaiming with surprise to realize this.

"See, I'm perfectly safe," I said.  I even felt a little surprised I was able to say it.

When I do things, I'm always looking at the masters of whatever art or activity I'm doing.  I certainly haven't been doing open water swimming long enough to master anything, and that's cool.  I have a lifetime to work on it.  But I do often forget what it looks like to someone who doesn't do it at all.  Remember, I was freaking out before this swim and had to be talked down to get in the water at all.  I wasn't feeling like I'd done anything at all impressive.  I felt like I'd just barely squeaked by.  That's not what that little two mile swim looked like to the people on the beach.

I'm sure there's some Dunning-Kruger Effect going on there.  And that's cool, too.

Fear

I was standing on Prouty Beach this morning, the occasional tear running down my face.

Dark clouds were moving like lumbering elephants across the sky, and the wind was shoving the water into small waves.  Air temp was somewhere around 60.  I wasn't sure quite what the water temperature was, but I had dipped my hand in and it was warmer than the air.

I did not want to be there.

I was cold, and the idea of getting colder was freaking me out.  I wasn't sure how well my kayaker was going to deal with the wind, and if it got much stronger, it might be strong enough to push him over.  While I knew that the water wasn't cold enough to do me more than discomfort if I were swimming hard, my kayaker was not a serious swimmer, and didn't exactly have my built-in wetsuit. Yes, he had a life-jacket.  Everyone, even the serious marathon swimmers who were being nice and kayaking for someone else that day, was wearing life jackets.  It's a good habit.

Anyway, I was standing on the beach thinking of bailing on the swim when one of those marathon swimmers who was giving up water time to kayak came up to me and asked me how I was doing.

"Not so great," I said.  "I don't think this is my day to swim."

"What's scaring you?" she asked.  She didn't bother to ask if I were scared or not. She's a real swimmer.  She knew better.  "You know, we all go through this sometimes."

Here's the thing. I knew she was right, and I was kind of grateful for the "we." I don't really know her entire swim resume or anything, but I know quite well that as a swimmer, I'm totally not in her league.

"Is it the cold or the waves?" she asked.

I shrugged and started babbling. "No it's not the waves and I know the water's like 67, but it's freezing in the air and I... I don't know if today's my day."

I was also undertrained, which I didn't mention.  While I've been working hard all winter, about three weeks ago, I had a freakout trying to get into a cold lake to start doing some training and hadn't done any real swims since.

"How far are you supposed to swim?"

"Four miles," I said.

"Well, you have some choices.  You can get in and try to swim the four miles.  You can decide to get in and do less.  Two miles, maybe or even just to the first buoy and back.  You can just decide today isn't your day and stay out of the water."

She didn't try to blow sunshine up my butt, but she did bring me around to realizing that I did need to make a conscious choice no matter what I did.  I was still scared enough of the water that I was babbling and not making a lot of sense when I was talking.

"Oh, I can totally swim two miles," I said waving my hand.  And I can.  Two miles is not a challenge.  It's just a weekend training session.  "And I know I shouldn't let the cold keep me out.  I'm doing Alcatraz in August and --"

"Then you do need to get in the water," she said.  "Go ahead and try for two miles.  When you get to the second buoy, you might feel so good, you do the whole four, or you might decide today's the day to swim two.  Just try to think of something positive to focus on.  Sometimes it can be something like, 'My ears feel really good.'  Just anything.  Smile underwater.  If you keep your head down, you won't have to worry so much about the cold air temperature."

So, I did get in.

This was a rougher swim than usual.  The weather really was challenging.  Swimming in waves isn't too bad a problem for me.  I spent my childhood on the Potomac, in the Chesapeake Bay and at Virginia Beach.  Waves might be a pain in butt to plow through, but I have bilateral breathing down pat and can breathe on any side I need to.  Swimming into the wind ain't the world's most fun and having one's kayak support constantly blown off course isn't ideal.

And yet...

Part of me was enjoying it.   I was worried and emotionally fragile, but I was out there, dammit, and that was good.  

But I confess that happy thoughts weren't going through my mind, but this:

I know it's dorky for a simple two mile swim to require a lot of bravery. I felt that way, knowing everyone else was swimming six or ten miles. Still... Getting in that water was very hard this morning. And thanks, Charlotte, for taking the time to help me out. I am deeply grateful.

That's going to play hell with their data

My work was giving out Microsoft Bands for a fitness tracking thing.   I love gadgets, so yeah, I'll take one.  It's really kind of a cross between a fitness tracker and a smart watch.

Yes, it's utterly useless in terms of swimming or even manually entering swimming activity. However, I did get a little use out my fitness tracker.

Confirmed, yes, I sleep light. Also got my resting heart rate.

 55.

 Which at my age and weight isn't supposed to happen. That's for athletes.

 Oh wait...

 :P

Step on THIS!

Like many an American company, my employer is interested in population health.  In fact, more so than most.  I work for a hospital. 

They’re pushing another “be more active” initiative that involves, yet again, step counts.  This gets me a slight eyeroll.  Show me a health professional attending to patients that isn’t getting in that 10,000 steps a day gold standard.  I mean, really!

However, they don’t only employ health professionals.  Take me.  I’m a total desk jockey unless I’m teaching a class.  (You can’t teach an effective class being sedentary. Good teaching is fairly active performance art)

To log your activity, they want you to use some sort of activity tracker (Fibit, Garmin… a few others).  You can’t manually add activity.  I guess it must be for some study or something, so they’re only accepting synced activity from a tracker.

I was all like, okay, I track my swims with a Garmin.  We’re all good, right?

Nope.  They only track steps. 

I was offended at first, but I think I’ve finally figured this one out. It’s not that steps are really is a good activity standard.  But it is easy enumerate and to track.  Give out a step counter, let it sync with your database and boom! You’ve got all kinds of data for your study to push certain types of activity.

Aaaannnd, here’s the swimmer.

Electronic tracking activity for a swimmer is hard.  It takes pretty sophisticated programming to figure out what in the hell a swimmer is doing, and tracking heart rate in the water uses devices that are mostly an expensive pain in the ass.

Still, I’m going to come out as “BAD EMPLOYEE DRAIN ON COMPANY RESOURCES SEDENTARY” after having signed up for this, even though I’ve already swum for about an hour before I go in to work.

Dramatic Improvement

I've been whining about my slow swimming speed on the blog enough to be a bore, I know.

So today, I do not whine but talk about a technique that has helped me.  Well, two techniques.

The first is a technique I learned about reading some Total Immersion discussions.  Yes, I know there's a controversy about whether or not these techniques are really all that effective or not, and goodness knows you can't plot a data curve from one point.

It's called Patient Lead Hand.  The idea  is that you don't start the pull until your reccovery hand enters the water.  Essentially, you've always got a hand leading and spearing the water.

The second technique was really more of a mental image than anything.  I saw that on the SwimSmooth site.  You visualize pushing the water with your stroke to the back wall.   If you keep that in mind, it helps with the early vertical forearm and several other aspects of stroke mechanics.

The last week or so, I've been cruising along at 2:42/100 yards for my freestyle sets.  While an improvement over last year, it's still really slow.

This morning I decided I was going to try this patient lead hand thing and the push the water to the back wall visualization for a week and see if there was any improvement.  I was expecting to take a speed hit.

Nope.   Today, my cruising speed was more like 2:32/100 yards.  Ten seconds per hundred is pretty big.  While 2:32/100 is still damned slow, it's an amazing breakthrough for me!

Just a Lap Swimmer

Overheard a discussion about swimming today and was kind of taken aback. So much so, that I kept my mouth shut rather than jumping in on a couple of strangers. The individuals in question were discussing triathlon training and referred to someone else they knew who swam for exercise as "Just a lap swimmer" with a kind of dismissive wave of the hand. First, there's nothing wrong with being "just a lap swimmer."  Swimming is great exercise, after all.

But what else brought me up short was, "How in hell would you know?"

If you looked at my training of a weekday morning, you'd see a middle-aged lady seriously given to enbonpoint with no gear but a watch going back and forth in the pool -- sometimes faster, sometimes a little slower, but pretty steadily swimming for between 45 minutes and an hour and a half.  No gear but cap and goggles.  Sometimes a water bottle.  Certainly no kickboards, pull buoys, paddles or fins.*

Friends, 90% of my training is *gasp* swimming laps!

While not yet a marathon swimmer, I'm certainly a real and for true open water swimmer.  I sign up for and swim real events and everything.  (Though is it bad I like my training swims with my husband kayaking beside me better?)

So, am I a *dismissive wave* lap swimmer?

And so what if I were?




* Nuttin' wrong with any of that stuff.  I just... don't.  That's all.

Disappointing Spring Scream

I got in the open water today.

Air temp: 57F
Wind speed: 6mph
Quacker's Water Temperature Report: 50F (~10C)

You know how Han Solo says, "Never tell me the odds?"

It may have been wiser not to get a water temp before I got in.  I think I may have been psyching myself out.

Nonetheless, I'm going to say right here that people who call 50F "still okay" (I'm looking at you, Loneswimmer) have a serious problem, and should be restrained for their own protection!*

So, did I get in?

I did.  And I'm pretty disappointed.  I couldn't do any real swim. Not really.   I probably spent a total of five minutes in the water at all, did a few strokes of breast stroke, and a few of crawl before I just had to get out.  My husband tells me I actually whimpered when I started the breast stroke, and he's never heard me whimper before.

So yeah, I am disappointed.  The first swim of the year last year was considerably more successful.

'Course, that was in June, the air temperature was ten degrees warmer, and the estimated water temperature was about seven degrees warmer.  Those seven degrees sure seem to make a big difference.

The solution to this?  Well, Monday, I'm getting in again and seeing if I can stay in a little longer and force myself to swim a little further.

Alacatraz and Lake Memphremagog ain't gonna swim themselves, right?

* Note to the humor-impaired.  The author of that blog is simply a better and more experienced cold water swimmer than I am.

Two Tales of Two Miles

I've been panicking about this summer's swims.  (Stop laughing at me.  I know I was panicking about last summer's.  Calm is just not an adjective people associate with me, what can I say?)

Anyway, my response to panic is to review my workouts and make sure I'm working out enough/long enough/hard enough/whatever.

I can think of worse ways to deal.

In reviewing workouts, I realized that while I'm putting in frequency, I'm totally not putting in distance.  So, Saturdays are now dedicated to this noble purpose.

What a Real Swimmer calls distance and what I am calling distance aren't quite the same thing, so Real Swimmers can control their snickers, thanks so very much.

I did 3600 yards this morning. I kinda mentally tag it as two miles.  I know for some people that's a lunchtime workout.  See the title of my blog?  Yeah.

On the other hand, I'm not so slow as once I was.

This was the first time I swam two miles in a pool a bit over a year ago.  I was wondering if I could and I was happy with the swim.  Yes, I could.  I enjoyed it and it helped me relax about a swim I was going to do that summer.  But I won't say this wasn't a challenge.   I was pretty worn out after it, I got cramps in my calf and I took a pretty epic nap that afternoon.

Fast forward to today.  Was I pushing?   Well, yeah, it was a workout, and if you're training for something specific, you do need to push yourself some.  But was I pushing like I would if I were racing?  Hell, no.  There was no question I could, and for all that I was joking this morning about doing an EPIC SWIM then taking an EPIC NAP, I'm not really wanting anything other than lunch and to spend the afternoon knitting while watching historical documentaries and brainless superhero films.

Part of the speed increase is simply that I don't fall back to slower strokes as often.  I'm almost to the point where I can do front crawl just about forever.  I don't because it's not really a great idea not to mix things up. 5/6 of the workout was free.

I'm somewhat less panicked, now, about next summer.   For the Son of a Swim in June, the real prep work other than my regular workouts, is to take the heavier freestyle volume into the open water and trust my kayaker to navigate.

For the Alcatraz swim in August?  I dunno.  Open water swims, cold showers and try not to think about sharks.  We've got a lot of lakes near where I live, so open water isn't a problem.  I'll be in Virginia Beach a couple of weeks before that swim, so lots of ocean training is not a problem, either.  Thing is, the water is a lot warmer in the Southeast than it is in SF Bay.  

Cold showers and as much lake training up in New England as I can get in, I guess...

Very Important Training Partner

Meet my new training partner, Quackers McShadez.  He showed up in the mail today.

Yes, friends, I'm chomping at the bit to get out in the open water.  Yes, I know it's only February.

But I figure that in the interests of not getting my fool self killed come spring, having an idea of the temperatures I'll be swimming in might be a good idea. I'll know how far I should be swimming out into the lake at any given time.

No, that it's a rubber ducky with nifty shades has nothing to do with it.  I stoutly deny it. I need cold, calculating measurements to plan my training. You can believe me because I have my serious face on.

I'm a lot more concerned about cold for this year's swims.  In other chilly water swims I've done. I've been able to wade into the water and get acclimated or (in the case of the one where I just had to jump in) the water was above 65F, so that's not too intimidating.

This August, I'll be jumping off a ferry into the San Francisco bay -- water that is colder than the Official Swims I did last year (though warmer than my early training swims).  I'm too intimately acquainted with the negative effects of the shock of cold water not to take it seriously.*

Sorry, this post was supposed to be all light-hearted and goofy about the rubber ducky thermometer.  But in all honesty, Quackers McShadez might be cute, but he's still kind of a serious training partner.




* Lost a dear family friend several years ago to a kayak accident in early spring.

Is Your Hair Hot?

I'm rather gently and gradually ramping up my distance and pace in preparation for the summer's events.  I figure if I'm a turtle, I might as well go with it and do the slow and steady thing for my training as well.

Right now, I'm improving on a pretty steady curve, so I'm happy about it.

Most of what I do and how I track my improvements are objective.  How many yards did I swim?  How fast did I swim that last 100, or that last 1000?  Am I in the pool at least five days a week?  Either I made it or I didn't.  I have specific measurements I aim for and a specific rate at which I am planning to improve.

For the most part this is as it should be.  But I have a subjective measurement that's my real touchstone for how well my workouts went.

Is my hair hot?

I have long, thick hair that just about reaches my butt.  This gets wetted down and piled on top of my head into a cap pre-swim.  After my swim, I take off the cap, and the hair falls SPLAT! onto my back.

If it's not hot, my times don't matter. It wasn't a good workout because I wasn't working hard enough,  It is an excellent way to tell me I need to set a new pace target.  If I'm meeting a speed target and my hair isn't hot, that pace target is too easy.  This also applies to temperature preference in the shower.  If anything more than a lukewarm shower is uncomfortably hot (and I generally like a hot shower), I'm probably not pushing hard enough, either.

It's subjective, it's fuzzy and my times seem to reflect that it works.

No Matter Where You Go, There You Are

It's 5 am and the chimes on my phone are gently waking me up.

I roll over, turn it off and start grumbling about what I want to accomplish today, when my mantra, "You'll feel better in the water" drifts through my brain.  I get up, take care of this and that, get on my swim suit and throw on several layers.  It was 7F when we got up this morning.  (That's ~-14C for the rest of the world)

Get to the gym, stuff my crap in the locker, shower off in HOT water to brace myself for the shock of...

Woah, warm pool.  Oh yeah, I'm a total rock star, getting in this comfortable pool to do what's essentially a warm-up to the real swimmers.  Lynne Cox, look out.

I do my workout, pushing hard to be under time for the particular distance I'm doing.  Didn't quite make it, but I was all red in the face and breathing hard and feeling mellow, so while disappointed, it was only a little. Mostly what I was feeling was glad of the swim.  No surprises there.

In the shower, as often happens, one of the other people who was in the pool strikes up a conversation.  Now this woman doesn't swim laps but does other exercises in the water.  I'm in favor, myself.  I mean, water is where any sensible person is going to work out, right?

"I wish I could keep up with you real swimmers," she comments after a bit of talk about water temperature (she thought it was cold) and this and that.

I shrug and say, "Hey, you're here, and there ain't nuttin' like a water workout to start the day no matter what."

Inside, I'm trying my best not to crack up since I'd spent the last half hour or so eye-rolling myself for not being a real swimmer.

I know comparing oneself is a thing you just don't get away from.  I see it from people who don't swim as well as I do, and I see it from people who are so far ahead of me swimming-wise that there's no way I'll ever catch up.

I don't even think it's necessarily a horrible thing.  A lot of personal rhetoric is all about feeling good about yourself, and that's fine, but we'd never accomplish anything if there was nothing to which we aspired.

It's really only a problem if it discourages you enough to quit.

You'll Feel Better in the Water

I am a morning person. I love getting up early and getting going on the day.

However, I'd like to define "morning."   That term is reserved, in my opinion, for when there is enough brightness from the sun to see outside.  So, pre-dawn twilight on.

5:30 in the so-called morning at my latitude in the dead of winter is still night.  Dawn, in fact, is about 7:30 right now.

So no, getting up in the dark to get to swim practice isn't easy for me. This fall, I'd grumble, groan and do the "I don't wannas" all the way to the gym.  

Any coach will tell you that's a mistake and attitude really does count.

I'm changing the self-talk.  I'm going to be in the pool, miserable getting there or not, so I might as well see if I can change the mindset to "not miserable."

I just tell myself, "You'll feel better when you're in the water."

This is actually an easy one, as it's the simple truth.  I do feel better in the water.  It's not blowing sunshine up my own butt or sprinkling glitter everywhere.  I'm just reminding myself of something that's simply so.

See, the "I don't wannas" aren't really about not wanting to swim.   I love swimming.  I don't love getting up in the dark, or facing the cold, or rushing through my morning routine to get to work on time, or braving the cold to get to the pool.  (I mentioned the cold twice, didn't I?  I don't mind swimming in cold water, but the bleakness of a New England winter pre-dawn can get to me)

Being in the water and swimming?  That period of time feels awesome.  Well, it's why I chose swimming as a way to be active, for pity's sake. I've never bailed on a planned workout in the middle of it and I'm always a little sorry to get out of the pool.

So, I remind myself of the truth to make sure I get myself in the water and train.

I'm doing a couple of big swims next summer - gonna try for six miles in Lake Memphremagog in June and I'm doing the Alcatraz Sharkfest in August.

Of the two, I am much much more scared of the Alcatraz swim,  Memphremagog doesn't have particularly rough water, troublesome currents, or any record of Great Whites attacking things that are seal-sized.  (I'm seal-sized!)

Not that I'm not intimidated by the Memphremagog distance.  Totally am.  Just pales in comparison to other things, and I've already swum in that water.  Never swam in the SF Bay before.

The only real solution is to be dedicated to practice.  If something terrible happens, it will not be due to lack of preparation.

Anyway, I feel like I've used that one up, anyway.  I was not properly prepared for the Boston Sharkfest last September.  I got incredibly lucky with calm water and a warm day.  That could have ended badly, and I did kind of scare myself when I thought about that.  (And watching people around me get panicky reinforced that little lesson.)  I was pretty scared beforehand, mind. To be frank, I'm always kinda scared before a Big Swim.

But when I get in the water, I always feel better.

Swimming Resolutions

The older I get, the happier I am with things that are simple.

This year's swimming goals are about as simple as you can get them.  Show up for practice.

Am I bored and tired and not feeling it at five in the morning?

Show up for practice.

Am I wishing I could go to bed later instead of the same time as your average third-grader?

Show up for practice.

Am I thinking I could probably still do okay in my upcoming events even if I blow off this one?

Show up for practice.

There are no real problems I have or issues I will encounter that will not be improved by this one, simple resolution.

Nightmares and Morning Miles

If you're an open water swimmer, have you ever had a swimming nightmare?

I had my first Sunday night.  It was about sharks. I was swimming in deep blue water.  It was so blue it was almost as if I were swimming through deep blue ink.  The water was cold, and my skin looked even paler than usual when I looked through it.  It was also nighttime,   My mom was my spotter for the swim.

So I'm swimming along and I see this enormous shape gliding under me.  It's more like the size of an orca, but it's white and is sleeker, not moving with the bouncing glide more common to the orcinus orca, but with the straight lines you associate with Carcharodon carcharias, the Great White Shark.*

Then I look around.

The water is teeming  with these bad boys, gleaming blue-white in the inky water and moonlight, and sliding by with silent menace.

"I can't finish this swim," I say to Mom.

"Of course you can't," she said, utterly calm.  (Which I am pretty sure she wouldn't be if she saw me swimming with a school of Great Whites).

So, I get out onto a floating dock to wait for a boat to pick up us.  But the sharks keep gliding by, bumping the dock.

It took me a minute when I woke up to realize that the swim I was going to do tomorrow was in the pool and not in that shark-infested midnight-blue bay.

I was most distinctly swimming in a bay, interestingly enough.  I'm sure my mind pulled that from my thoughts on the Alcatraz swim I'm going to do next August in San Francisco bay.  Of course the increased shark activity has been a concern for me, even if I do know that it's unlikely to be a concern for that swim.

It freaked me out enough I had to talk myself into swimming in a pool the next morning, reminding myself that no matter how freaked out I was, there was no down side to training in a warm pool that morning.  I'm already swimming with the most dangerous animal on the planet every damn morning, so stop being a whiner!

I've been upping my swimming distance.  I'm up to a swimmer's mile every morning, which is a nice sweet spot.  I'm a slow swimmer, so unless I'm pushing, this takes about forty-five minutes.  It's a nice, emotionally satisfying distance, too,

This is still quite a short distance, but that's about as far as I can go in the time I have available most mornings.  I could swim a whole hour some mornings and starting in the New Year, totally gonna have to.  But that's the limit of the time I have before I have to go to work or get on with my day.

Weekends, I can dedicate to longer swims, which is my general habit, anyway.

The goal is to get in about 10,000 yards a week for the next three months or so, then bump it up to 15,000 yards a week in the spring.  

Junk yardage?

Maybe...  But I think at my weight and fitness level, there ain't no such thing!


* Yes, in the wild, both are dangerous, I know!

More Gummi Bears

I need to start stretching again.

Like many things physical over the past few years, I'd let that one slide.   After an especially rough session lifting yesterday coming dangerously close to breaking Rule One* in terms of how much I increased the weight, I am noticing a reduction in fluid range of motion.  Yes, I'm sore, but this is more than just delayed-oneset muscle soreness (DOMS).  This is a tightness in my joints that means something else.

It wasn't too bad in the pool, but when I tried to hook my bra on after my shower, reaching behind myself was difficult.  I also had a problem with my calf cramping a little during my workout.  This is unusual for me for anything but a very long (for me) swim.  I also find that the more I swim, the more heel pain I experience on the mornings after.  Yes, you'd think that swimming doesn't exacerbate plantar fascitis. I can only guess tight calves and pushing off a wall and going into a full toe-pointed extension isn't helping.  Ballet again.  When I point my toe, I do it hard.  The pointed toe, floppy feet thing is actually kind of hard for me to do.  Amazing what happens when you train to a movement young and do it for several years.

That's a clear indicator stretching is called for. Besides, I know perfectly well that stretching helps reduce repetitive motion injuries on complex joints.  You know, like... shoulders?

I don't stretch nearly as much as I used to.  I come from a ballet and martial arts background -- both activities where you stretch a LOT.  The only activity I can think of offhand where you do more is yoga.

I'm actually used to being reasonably if not astoundingly flexible.  I'm totally not right now.   That's not something difficult to deal with, though.  Put on a little Marvin Gaye in the evenings and stretch out... this is the opposite of a bad time. I used to have a dance instructor who was inordinately fond of Marvin Gaye for the warmups.   It's a nice way to chill out of an evening, and I'll be able to put my forehead on my shin in no time.

I know this is a swim blog, so talking about the other physical things I do might seem a little off-topic.  But swimming is well known as a whole-body activity, and integration of strength, endurance and flexibility are all important to swimming well.

The swimming itself is going well.  I've limited my breast stroke sets to less than a fifth of the workout.  Since it used to be more like a third, I'm totally okay with this.  I'll probably wind up dropping breast stroke sets alltogether at some point, though I freely admit that I'm not too thrilled at the idea of my entire swimming working being the crawl.  It's not really my favorite stroke.

I also really need to be more strict with myself about flip turns.  I really don't like them much, but I know that for distance, it's better to do them than an open turn.  So, yeah... I need to suck that up, too.  It seems that a lot of this process is sucking up the parts I don't like. :)

I'm pushing to increase distance pretty hard, but trying not to be crazy about it.  An injury that keeps me out of the water is really worse than not training at all, so I'm keeping an eye on Rule One and also keeping an eye on that gummi bear jar.

Ah yes, the jar.  It's filling up nicely, isn't it?   It's an interesting motivator to show up regularly.   And it takes away from the all or nothing approach to which I am often prone.  For me, I want things to be perfect or I don't want to do them.  For this workout tracking method, even if I don't get in my yardage or my time is off or whatever, it doesn't really matter all that much.  The most brilliant training session where I'm on, slicing through the water like an orca, getting personal bests on speed and feeling like Neptune Himself still count the same as the ones where I feel tired, slow, and clumsy, inhale water and have to stop halfway through to cough that out of my lungs, have my goggles and cap fall off and keep getting distracted by the guys I'm sharing a lane with who REALLY needs to cut his toenails.

Both of 'em are still one gummi bear in that jar.

Conquering the Mighty Mascoma Lake

This morning as I was doing my swim, I got to thinking...

I always get to thinking when I am doing a swim. Ever notice how many swimmers are also writers? 

Yeah.

Anyway, I was thinking about what I would need to do, and what kind of training I'd need to put in.

Right now, I'm doing a full body freeweights workout twice a week and am swimming four times a week. I'm sleeping really well, boy howdy, let me tell you what!

Saturdays are my longer swims, as that's when I have the time to do them. I'd like to work up to swimming three or four miles at least one Saturday a month to get myself used to the volume for the six miler.

As I was swimming this morning, I was thinking about the advice a website was giving about attempting a six mile swim, what one's training volume should look like when and what sort of open water experience one should get in before the swim.

One of the suggestions was doing a four or five mile swim early in the season before the Big Swim. As I was thinking about it, I realized that Lake Mascoma is four miles long. As I was thinking more about it, I got to wondering if anyone has ever actually swum its length. I mean, probably someone has. Four miles isn't exactly an epic swim by the standards of people from whom I take advice about stuff like this. So I am sure someone has tried it.

But it isn't Official. Nor is there anything I can find online with people talking about it. So, that's going to be one of my swims for next summer.

I love this lake. It's where I first spread my open water wings, so to speak. It's where I conquered my fear of cold water. Shoot, it's just plain a beautiful place to swim. It's a small lake (about four miles by about a half a mile) and doesn't frighten the new open water swimmer with unrelenting vastness, but kind of cradles you between green hills.

I still need to work out the logistics of swimming the length, as I'll want a kayaker with me, and we'll want to figure out how to handle the car and other things. I have no idea if there is a place at both ends of the lake where one can put in, so it's possible we'll need a larger boat than a kayak to get to the right place.

In the interests of not having any controversy around my not-at-all-epic swim, though, I'll post a GPS report of it. :) Unless there's some sort of Mascoma Lake Swim Association that has an independent observer to verify it or something. (There totally isn't. It makes me want to start one in fun)
*grin* That almost makes me want to turn this into some sort of swim challenge with some locals. There are open water swimmers in my area, and the pool where I train has someone on the Master's team who won the SF Sharkfest one year.

But then it would turn into a race. They're a competitive bunch, which is more or less what keeps me off the Master's team. I swim to complete, and the only person I'm competing against is me yesterday. (Winning so far!)

So, maybe not, as a race would suck the fun out of it.

But barring bad weather, or bad water (Mascoma has been known to have problems with e. coli and algae blooms), probably the second weekend in June is going to be my target day. It'll be a good way to make sure I've been training enough.

I'm feeling a little sad about the close of open water swimming right now. Last summer was such fun and I really had a blast doing these swims. I'll get in the pool to train and the water is too warm, and I feel too confined and it's just not the same.

But that being said, I also love the pool. It's where I can concentrate on getting stronger and faster, it's still swimming (Swimming>NotSwimming. Very important equation), and I can let my mind free to think about things, and no, it's not always thinking about my next swim!

Still, I think it would be cool for swimming the length of Lake Mascoma to be a local Thing. It'd be fun, it's a nice, attainable challenge, and it's a beautiful lake to swim in.

Lunchtime Swim

I don't often do a lunchtime swim these days.  I usually do my swim in the mornings first thing.  Yes, I try to have my butt in the pool by 5:35am.  Increasingly difficult as the dark of the Northern Hemisphere winter approaches.

I didn't have to go in to an office today. Ordinarily on such a day, my husband and I will still hit the gym before we do our thing.   Today, however, he had to go in extra early. This wouldn't have left us enough time to for our workouts, showers and getting to work.  We only own one car and damn'f I'm going to walk to the gym at 0 Dark Thirty.

I could have driven him to work, but I wanted to sleep in (since I could and all).  Lazy, that's me.

So, I decided to do my morning's work, and take a break to do a swim at lunch time.  It's been years since I did that, and it brought back memories of my Adult Onset Swimming.

At the time, I worked for a college and my building was about a block from the gym.  Employees could get a ridiculously discounted membership at the pool, I needed exercise, my joints were hurting, I was prehabbing ACL surgery (middle-aged women who wear plus sizes should not do jumping side kicks in Tang Soo Do, just saying!) and I was feeling insanely homesick in the mountains and yearning for water.

That pool was a match made in Heaven.

I had an hour for lunch.  I had to rush to the gym, rush into my bathing suit, do about a 25 minute swim, rush to shower, dry my (waist-length) hair, get dressed and rush back to my office.

Even though the workout was really SHORT, I enjoyed it and did get much better at swimming.

My boss used to urge me to swim, as apparently I was mellow as a little lamb after I'd gotten out of the water.  I always found that funny.

I went on swimming and lifting dumbbells for a few months before my surgery.  There was a hiatus while I couldn't get in the water while the incisions healed, and a little longer so that my physical therapist could clear me for swimming. (I was forbidden breast stroke for a bit)

After my ACL surgery, I was so excited to be allowed in the water again.  Didn't even mind having to use crutches to get to the pool, but if want to feel vulnerable, have knee surgery, use crutches on a wet pool deck, take off the brace and try to get in and out of a pool with no ramp!

I didn't have to rush my swim today, and wasn't feeling in any way vulnerable.  (Goodness, the surgery was nearly nine years ago!)  It was just nice to talk a walk at lunchtime, do a swim and enjoy the spectacularly beautiful sunny New Hampshire fall weather.

I will always, however, have a soft spot for that college pool.

Training Jar

I do so love my Saturday morning swims.  I can take longer, I don't have to share a lane as often and I can zone out and let my mind float where it wants to in a way that I can't seem to get into as much when I am rushing to get the workout in before work and still leave myself enough time to dry my hair and put my face on before going out to meet the world.

Yes, a sensible person might say I could cut my hair.

I will point out that the very fact I have the sport I do means I am not entirely a sensible person.  And no.  Not the hair.  Just not.

Part of my pondering this morning was trying to decide what my swims next year are going to be.   What's reasonable?  What's possible?

To be honest, I've thrown out reasonable for at least one of my swims.  It's going to be a serious stretch to train for it in a way that my training last winter to swim two miles was not.

I'm okay with that, as I have a year of training under my belt.  Last year, I had gone pretty much from a couple years of being a couch potato to a two mile open water swim.  The leap is steeper in some ways for next years swims, but the base is considerably stronger.

Next year I'm going to do:

• Kingdom Swim - 6 mile course.  Unfortunately, six miles is just under 10K, so it won't quite be my first marathon.
• Alcatraz Sharkfest - 1.5 mile course.  Prepping for the Kingdom Swim will do for that just fine.
• Boston Sharkfest - 1500 meter course.  Good end to the summer open water season

This is going to mean more rigorous training, as well as more dryland.  For now, I'm not swimming on days I am lifting, but starting in January, that's really going to have to change.  The recommendation is that I'm up to swimming 10,000 yards a week by March and 15,000 by May, and really should be doing a bit more than that.

It's doable, certainly.  Though it is possible the smell of chlorine is going to sink permanently into my skin by then.  I'm hoping the early summer training in lakes will help wash that out.

As part of training for the six mile swim, I may swim the length of Lake Mascoma, just for funsies.  It will be a good opportunity to work out feeds and things, and it's about four miles.  That'd be a good distance to practice a longer swim, check on times, coordinating sighting with my kayaker (me darlin' hoosband), and get in some chilly water training.  Besides, it's a really pretty swim!

I'm less stressed about how I will handle chilly water than I was last year.  That was actually really scaring me until I actually got in the water and realized that once you're over the shock, it's not so bad.  I'm no Lynne Cox and I am hardly a lover of cold water, but summertime New England chilly isn't a horrible stretch.  I'm considering not using my electric blanket this winter, though I wonder if it's even necessary.  I did okay in Lake Memphremagog last year.

On the other hand, there's a tiny part of  my brain yelling, "Fine, do your swim, but don't get cocky!"

This is a wise part of my brain, as I do have a tendency to overconfidence!

I have also decided just as a cute tracking device, I'm putting a gummy bear in a jar each time I do a swimming workout.  There's an expression to keep people too tied up with how good a single workout happened to be versus whether or not a workout happened at all.

Each workout in preparation for an event is another jelly bean for the jar.  If your jar is full, you're prepared.

Being of a somewhat literal turn of mind, and also pondering what I wanted for feeds during the marathon swim, I thought it would be cute to get a jar and put gummy bears in it with the idea that if the jar is full, chances are good I swam enough to be prepared for the event.  I have no real idea if I'm really going to want solid feeds or not, and I figure that even if I don't, a metaphor with a strong visual is always a good way to keep me motivated.

I've got a long way to go.