A quick diversion into two different training plans. I have heard of two different approaches to training for the channel (I am sure there are many more I have not heard of). One that is commonly used by the Dover training crowd lead by Freda is to do back to back Sat/Sun swims of increasing distances to a peak of 7hr/6hr combination over a weekend. The second is to build up to a 10 hour continuous swim. We were bucking the current Dover trend by choosing the 10 hour swim versus the 7hr/6hr consecutive day swim. Part of the argument was that that we wanted to experience both the physical and mental challenges that were well publicized to occur at the 8-9 hour mark.
7 Hour Swim
As we approached 7 hours swim, it became evident that the water temperatures were going to be much warmer then we originally were hoping for. The lake we gained access to for such an extended swim (most lakes in the area would require us to be out of the water by 7am due to motor boat traffic) was a smaller lake that had warmed up to around 68-70F (20-21C). Not even close to Channel temperatures but it what was dealt to us. The swim went pretty much uneventful for 4-5 hours. At this point, both our shoulders started stiffening up. I started feeling the bicep muscles becoming pretty tight. At about the 6 hour mark, it had tightened so much that I could not fully extend my right arm above my head. I kept on stroking with a full stroke on my left arm but about 3/4 stroke on my right. Despite what seemed like I was "limping", our crew on the shore could not tell and we were still able to hold close to a 1.9mph pace. A little off of our full "all day" speed (2.1mph) but not a bad pace. We made it to 7 hours with mixed feelings. The good news is we finished with plenty of energy and also learned that we could keep swimming even when the muscles tightened up significantly. The bad news is the muscles did tighten up significantly starting at 5 hours. We did wonder why we had the tightening up of the muscles in this swim when we did not have them in the 6 hour qualifying swims. Could it be the warmer water or did we start out too fast? Not sure but it did make us a little nervous about the upcoming 10 hour swim and the much longer Channel swim.
10 Hour Swim
For the 10 hour swim, we accelerated it by one week so that it was 2 weeks after the 7 hour swim and 4 weeks before our tide opened. This was partly due to schedule issues and partly to give us more time to recover from the long swim. As we got to La Jolla, we found out that they also had a warm early summer and the water temperature was warmer then usual at 67F (19C). Once again, significantly warmer then the channel but our plans were set and we would deal with what was dealt to us. This swim was planned to be as close to 100% dry run of our Channel attempt as we could get it.
As part of this dry run goal, we had our primary crew (spouses) to handle the feeds with the feeds on the schedule for the channel and with the mixtures we were planning for the channel. My plan was to feed once an hour for two hours and then every half an hour after that. I planned to alternate between Perpeteum with Hot chocolate and Maxim with fruit juice for the feeds. I feel more comfortable with Perpeteum but the Channel chat group regular warns about having too many electrolytes from feeds like Perpeteum. Thus the electrolyte free Maxim. I was hoping to discover which one would go down better after 8-9 hours of swimming. Bottom line is it that neither one tasted good nor especially bad throughout the entire swim. I had my crew mix the feed at double strength which would result in about 500kcal per 20 oz bottle and I planned to drink 1/3-1/2 of the bottle every 1/2 hour. This should result in 400-500kcal per hour.
In addition to the normal feeds, I also experimented with some solid food, ibuprofen, and mouth wash. For solid food, I did try having small cubed peaches in juice served in a Gatorade bottle with a wide mouth every 2 hours. This worked amazingly well and found it refreshing relief from the salt water. For the ibuprofen, I tried 100mg every two hours. I have never taken ibuprofen in athletic events and generally planned not to for the Channel but wanted to test it out in case I needed to. I actually only took the ibuprofen at the 2 hour mark and just skipped it for rest of the swim. I did not see any direct issue with it but I also did not see the need for it. For the mouth wash, I tried a splash of Listerine every 2 hours. The bottom line on the Listerine is that it was amazing. It became the highlight of the swim, something to look forward too. The refreshing feeling that it gave to the mouth was unbelievable. It definitely reduced the salt water damage to the mouth as well as keep the tongue swelling to a minimum.
The morning of the swim, we greased up with sunscreen and added Vaseline to critical rub points and hit the water at 5:30am in the morning. Conditions were overcast with a minor breeze and about 2-3 ft swells and an outside temp in the mid-50s. We decided to cross over from the La Jolla cove to the pier and back to start. We went slightly under 3 miles round trip (did not make it all the way to the pier) in about 1.25 hr. This caused our feed to be slightly longer then the 1 hour. It also put our pace closer to 2.4mph which seemed fast given we felt we were doing a slow all day pace. Best guess is that the salt water was allowing us to go faster. After our feed, we headed to do another out to the pier and back. Again we did it in 1.25 hr which resulted in a 6 miles in 2.5 hours. On our way out on this loop we had some fun sea life experiences. We had several sting rays swim under us. At one point, I looked back and saw a sea lion face behind us. On my next breath, I saw the sea lion had a dolphin with it. I stopped Eliz and we watched for a little bit as they frolicked in the water. As we resumed swimming, I noticed that the sea lion started following us. I stopped Eliz again and she decided to see if the sea lion would let her approach it. This scared it and the two swam away. This definitely became the highlight of the swim.
As we were about 1/2 mile from the end of the second lap, Eliz's shoulder tightened up on her. She started doing breaststroke for about 1/4 mile to try to loosen it up. Of course this had us a little concerned this early in the swim. After a 1/4 mile, she was able to loosen it up and it never bothered her after that. First lesson learned from the day. If things tighten up, don't panic, we can loosen it up and recover from it. After this feed at the 2.5 hour mark, we decided we needed to go to 30 minute feeds which made going to the pier not feasible. We started just doing 15 minute out and back. This made measuring our distance/speed from here out impossible since we did not swim to a marker of any sort. Shortly after the 3.5 hour mark we started having to swim around a Pier to Cove 1.5 mile race that was going on. Since we were toward the end of the race, it was not that crowded so we were easily able to avoid the swimmers as they were coming in to the finish. It was nice to have some fellow swimmers out with us as a distraction.
As we were returning toward the shore swimming in the same direction as the race at around the 4 hour mark, my stomach started to really churn. I worked my way to the outskirts of the swimmers and proceeded to hurl a large quantity of Perpeteum and Maxim. Believe it or not, it felt great. Right afterwards, I quickly rejoined Eliz feeling better then I had in a while. I decided to continue to feed as planned assuming it was the salt water causing the problem. Second lesson learned, hurling does not mean the end of your swim. At the 4.5 hour mark, our crew joined us on rented kayaks to kayak beside us for about an hour. They had feeds on the kayak so we decided to swim toward the pier for as long as they could stay with us before they had to return the kayaks. It was again nice to have a distraction to break up the day. Sometime during the time they were kayaking beside us, the cloud cover broke and the sun came out. The hours started slipping by after they left. The crowds at the cove started getting thicker so coming into the cove started to become a challenging obstacle course as we had to avoid snorkelers as they would randomly change direction while trying to follow some fish swimming in the kelp. As we approached the 7 hour mark, my stomach started to churn again. Sure enough, had a second bout of hurling. Once again, I felt great afterwards. I almost made me look forward to hurling. Mental calculations put the first one at 4hrs and the second 3 hours later. Projecting forward, I was probably going to hurl again before I hit the 10 hr mark. I got a chuckle talking with Eliz afterwards. She dreaded when I stopped to hurl. It was not because of the actual hurling but the fact that I would pick up the pace afterwards since I felt so good. It became a mini sprint session for her.
Again, the hours started passing by. At the 9 hour mark, it started becoming mentally a little more challenging to head out for another loop but our speed did not seem to have dropped too much. Our crew commented that our strokes still looked strong and smooth. We did two more 30 minute loops without incident including no more hurling. Amazingly, we did not have the tightening of muscles like we did at the 7 hour swim but actually felt pretty loose at the end. As we got out, I realized that I still had plenty of energy to continue. This was a serious mental boost that we had done 10 hours in salt water with solid swells and still had energy. I was particularly amazed given that I had feed the fish with a lot of my nutrition with my hurling episodes. This should have left me in a calorie deficit that should have caught up with me by the end of the swim. Instead, it felt like I was close to calorie neutral (ingest roughly what I was burning). I know that was not quite the case since we did find the last hour slightly more mentally challenging which is an indication of starting to run low on nutrition. But it was not an energy crash like I usually would have at the 9 hour mark in an Ironman.
In a retrospective view of the hurling, there are a couple of theories of what caused it. It could be ingesting salt water (no way to avoid this). It could be motion sickness from the rolling ocean. It also could be trying to get too many calories in per hour or too high of a carb to water ratio. I have no way to discount the first two but I am suspicious that the third (calories/carb ratio) was the dominant issue. The fact that I could throw away as much nutrition as I did without a energy crash seems to indicate that I did not need as many calories as I was taking in. We debated decreasing the calories, increase the water in the mix (which lowers the carb to water ratio) or just holding to the original feeding plan. I seem to have a disadvantage of the number of calories I can absorb per hour relative to other athletes I know but I also seem to have an advantage that my body self-adjusts itself by hurling the excess calories with no obvious side effects (except of speeding up afterwards :-)
After the swim, we did not have the serious muscle soreness I have felt in other long swims. We did back down the speed and distance of our swims over the next week as a recovery week. The one longer term effect Eliz suffered was serious 2nd degree sun burns on her ankles. She had blisters that were over a 1" in diameter on her ankles that made it extremely painful to walk for several days. This has scared us to invest in some Zinc Oxide for the Channel instead of just plain sunscreen. She blistered with normal sunscreen on a day that had the sun out for only about 5 hours. What will happen if we have a full 12 hours of sun light while crossing the channel? It was not worth the risk and thus the move to Zinc Oxide.
Well done Joe and Eliz! Sounds like you both are on the path to a successful Channel swim.
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