Malta Day 5

April 15, 2009

We meet for breakfast at 7:15 with the bus departing at 8am. The hope is that we start swimming before 9am. The boat takes us just out of the Harbor to start the swim. The plan is to swim to the next cove west of the harbor then start circling in the cove if the cove is Jelly free. We over achieve and hit the water at 8:50am in the best weather we have had all week (very light winds, sunny and warm) The water feels cold but not as cold as when I jumped in yesterday afternoon. I hope this is a good sign. Eliz warned me that she was going to back the pace down to make it to 6 hours. I had more concerns about warmth so I took off at a solid pace. We needed to stay close to each of other since we were sharing a boat so I would periodically do a flip turn and swim back to her. By the end of the first hour, I lost feeling in my feet (which I had not had up till now) and I started shivering. I had my feed and the warmth felt great. For the next 5 minutes, I felt human again and then the shivering started again. I hung in there for another hour fighting the demons and unfortunately focusing on the fact I had 5 more hours to go. At the 2 hour mark, I got out, defeated and depressed. I had a solid shiver fit but not as bad as the previous days. Obviously, I got psyched out. The damage had been done, no qualify swim for me today. I helped with the feeds for a while. At the 4 hour 30 minute feed, I got back in to pace Eliz. Her pace was much slower then earlier in the swim. I realized if I keep that pace up, I would get very cold pretty quickly. I thought about it and realized that being able to swim the rest of the hour in a half was not as important as keeping Eliz company. I hung in there with her for an hour fighting the cold off before I got out knowing she could make it the last half hour. All the rest of the swimmers including Eliz made it to the 6 hour mark and there was much celebrating.

Quick analysis of what happened. Obviously I got psyched out and did not have the mental strength to hold in there for longer (until I was more medically hypothermic). I find this interesting since I tend to have reasonably strong mental strength. Talking with Eliz, she also had the shivers at about the 1.5 hour mark and yet she held in there to the end (tough woman). Could my mental strength have an "Achilles Heel" with the cold or is there another reason? Second, the last two days my cold tolerance was not building but quite opposite, it was weakening. One of the guides hinted he had a theory on this but I have not had a chance to talk with him about it. I am fighting demons wondering if my DNA will allow me to gain the cold tolerance. There seems to be a lot of examples around of people that seem to be the wrong genetics for cold but are able to develop it. One of our guides is an ex 1:20 half marathoner, 2:50 marathoner then took up Channel swimming. It took him 5-6 years of attempts to be successful but he was. Am I the classic American (in the Brits viewpoint) that is not patient enough? Do I want to put aside a large portion of my life (athletics and family) for that long a period for this goal? Obviously, a lot of demons are in my head and I have some serious belly button staring time in front of me.

On a side depressing note (for Eliz), in a discussion after the swim today, it came up that the qualifying swim might need to be within 12 months of your channel attempt. If this is the case, her heroics will be for naught and she also will have to make another attempt at 6 hours. We did discuss this and she pointed out that that if our training and cold water adaptation does not make the 6 hours easier, her motivation to do it again (and consequently the Channel) is pretty low. She also has some belly button staring to do.