Malta Day 4

April 14, 2009

The winds died down a bit last night. They were able to get the boats out of the Mgarra harbor. We ate a hardy breakfast and headed for the docks at 9am. Due to the fact that it was still considerably windy out, our swim options were limited. The guides started us about a mile from the south east corner of the island with the plan to round that corner and head north to a cove up the coast where would finish. The morning swim was a 3 hour swim. One swimmer put a thermometer in the water and measured 15C. It seems as if the cove we had been swimming in was a little warmer then the main Mediterranean sea. We hit the water at 10am. It was cold but beautiful since we could see the bottom as we swam. The wind was to our backs so the waves were not a significant issue. As we approach the corner, the guides realized that the sea was going to be to rough on that side to swim. We shifted the plan to cross over to Comino island that was south of us and swim in coves over there. The crossing was a little rougher but not bad. As we got close to the island, we ran into a batch of Jellies. Everybody got some significant stings but nothing dangerous. Eliz got one right in the face. It freaked her out enough that she started swimming breaststroke and slow freestyle looking for them. Hint to future cold water swimmers, this is bad news. The decreased energy output allowed her body temperature to drop. Once your body temperature drops, it is nearly impossible to warm it back up unless you get out of the water. She start shivering in the water. At the two hour mark, she got out moderately hypothermic. Another swimmer (coincidentally named Joe) pulled a muscle in his arm as he try to suddenly jerk away from the Jellies. The guides searched for a jelly free cove and had us do laps in the cove. The rest of us made the 3 hours. I got out and had one of my more serious shiver fits I can remember.

After a hardy lunch, we headed back to where we started the day since it was jelly free and to drop off the injured Joe to see a physician It was a mere 90 minutes and we jumped back in for a 2 hour swim. The good news is the extra hour she had getting out early allowed Eliz to stabilize her core temperature and she jumped with renewed desire not to slow down and let her core temperature drop. The bad news is that the 90 minutes did not allow me to stabilize the core and I jumped in feeling immediately cold. We did an out and back course that took about 15 minutes. After one loop, I was colder then I finished my 3 hours. I hung in there for one hour but was getting very nervous about how cold I felt. At the one hour feeding mark, I requested to get out. One guide did a quick review of my condition and helped me out. I was still coherent so I was still not severely hypothermic but I had an even more intense shiver fit then from the morning. The rest of the swimmers finished the 2 hour swim fabulously. There was much celebrating on the boat with a little fear but a lot of optimism for tomorrows 6 hours swim.

Of course I am nervous about 6 hours tomorrow. I have a theory that I am using to pysc myself up. When I stopped after the 3 hours and got out, I allowed my core temperature to drop due to both stopping the energy expenditure and allowing my colder blood that had pooled in my extremities to release into my core. This dropped my core temperature down further then if I had keep swimming and I was not out of the water long enough to reverse this core temperature drop. Since I will not be stopping tomorrow, this will not happen. Second, I think I might have been able to finish the second hour but I would have come out much more severely hypothermic. This crossed my mind with the fear of tomorrows swim coming up and did not want to push my body that hard the day before the big swim. So the hope is that one additional day of acclimation, not stopping and pushing myself to the limit will gain me the 3 hours I need to finish the swim. Wish me luck.

Malta Day 3

April 13, 2009

The bad news is the wind howled all night. The good news is I was so tired that I slept through it like a baby. Sure enough, the cove was not swimable when we got up this morning. We grabbed breakfast and headed to a hotel in Victoria that had a large outdoor pool. It was almost circular (closer to square) with a diameter close to 25m with an island in the middle. The painful part is the temperature of the pool was also 16C (60F). We got in for some video taping and individual coaching by one of the guides. In between our turns at this, we swam around the island and did stroke drills. We are not sure what all the reasons were but just about everyone was colder doing an hour in the pool then the 2 hours in the sea. Some of the reasons might be that fresh water does "feel" colder then salt water at the same temp and we stopped quite a bit for instruction in the pool and it was seriously overcast with a wind. We made it to an hour (barely) before we got out. Amazingly enough, most of us had numb feet which we did not get when we swam in the sea for 2 hours.

Afterwards, we headed back to our hotel to grab lunch. The plan this afternoon is to review the video taping and then have more discussion on training techniques. The waves in the cove look slightly less at 2pm today, a good sign that the storm is blowing out and tomorrow we will be back in the sea.

Day 2 Malta

Sunday, April 12, 2009

The morning came way to early with the jet lag. I dragged myself out of bed at 6:45am to shave (important to keep chafing down) and a quick snack. We meet at the beach at 7:30 for a quick swim (5-10 minute) to determine speeds to break us (14 swimmers) into 3 groups for when we have 3 support crafts following us. Eliz and I got placed in a stylish pink swim cap group together which will be fun since we train together and know each others pace. After that, we went in for a real for real breakfast. At 9am, we meet at the beach for the first real swim. The wind picked up overnight and the boats were unable to get out of the south side of the island. Swimtrek had one Zodiac that could be used to patrol the cove so we did laps in the cove. It was cloudy and windy out, windy enough that we could see white caps out of the cove but it was reasonably calm in the cove. We swam for one hour. The water was chilly but I had no signs of the cold effecting my swim. After a little break, we gather to talk a bit about the logistics of the channel until lunch. After a hearty lunch, we meet at the beach for a 2 hour swim. The good news is the sun is out. The bad news is the wind had continued to pick up so we had some serious white caps in the cove now. The decision was to only go half way toward the exit of the cove. After one loop, the Kodiak had some technical problems so they called us in to do smaller circles that were basically back and forth along the shore line with enough circle action to avoid running into each other. The wind continued to pick up throughout the afternoon. After one hour, we stopped for a Maxim nutrition break (30 seconds only). At this point the waves were challenging but only about as bad as I had fought at the La Jolla rough water. It was a workout but definitely was still swimable. Over the next hour it progressed to some serious wave action. At about 1:40, the guides said that it started to deteriorate at a much more rapid rate. I will admit that on the right hand turn into the wind, I was starting to hesitate a little before taking off to gain the mental strength to fight the waves. It was challenging and starting to get marginally swimable. At about 1:55, the guides called us and had us exit in an alternate location due to the waves being to dangerous to exit in the primary location. The wind continued to pick up the rest of the day. We meet at about 4:30 to discuss stroke mechanics on the 5th floor of the hotel. The cove facing window of the 5th floor window was getting soaked by the ocean spray of the waves coming in. After the meeting, we walked outside and found about 6" of water in the street going perpendicular to the shore for about 150-200 meters from the surf. The weather forecast for tomorrow was actually for more wind then today. The guides are working up alternate plans for the probably case that even the cove is not swimable.

A quick feedback on my condition on the 2 hour swim. I actually was feeling pretty comfortable cold wise during the swim. The challenging water was definitely giving me a solid workout but it did not seem more then I could handle. After the swim, the guides did say they had started watching me closer. My back skin color had start changing, my stroke rate was dropping and they noticed my hesitation on the turn. All these are signs that my core temperature was dropping. I have felt more hypothermic in the past so I was somewhat surprised. It will make the next rest of the week interesting if 2 hours is starting to cause problems. It might have been the conditions since I heard later that some of the other swimmers skin color was changing. I did get back to the room for a solid 30 minutes of uncontrollable shivering. I still find it interesting that this tends to start almost 10 minutes after I exit the water. Is it when the cold pooled blood in the extremities flow back into the core? Is there a way to slow this process up so that the cool blood can warm up before it gets dumped back into the core? All wonderful questions to be investigated.

Water in the streets

Look like fun to swim in?

Day 1 Malta

Saturday April 11, 2009

After a long 24 hours of travel (Fort Collins to Denver to Washington DC to Frankfort to Malta to Gozo with long layovers in Washington and Franfort), I am finally at the hotel for the swim camp. The swim camp is actually based out of Hotel San Andrea in the quaint town of Xlendi on the Island of Gozo in the nation of Malta (that is a mouthful). The drive (Eliz did it) from the airport to Xlendi was "interesting". With the British background, they drive on the left side of the roads. There were a lot of traffic circles to make this more challenging as well as very narrow roads since they were built in the 15th century, a few years before cars, especially large tour buses existed. The town of Xlendi is basically a set of buildings around a cove. At the base of the buildings are about a half dozen little restaurants. After doing a quick unpacking, Eliz, Jim and I walk down to the water front to grab a quick pizza. We notice a couple of Swimtrek swimmers (no one else was brave/stupid enough to get in the water) doing laps in the cove. I was not very hungry and had not had a chance to hit the water yet so I head back to the room to change quickly. The swimmers were out drying off when I got back but we talked for a while. They gave me heads up on an area that were full of Jellys to avoid. I jump in and the water feels cool but not painful. I hang in there for about 5-10 minutes to loosen up while wearing a watch to get the actual temperature. In the cove it was about 61-62F (16C). I was warned that the water was colder out of the cove. As I did my quick swim, I stopped to chat with Eliz who was sitting at a table by the water. She warned me not to get pysched out by the scuba divers that were wearing dry suits due to the cold water. I had quite a few tourists pointed and commenting on the crazy swimmer.

We gathered for dinner that evening with the Swimtrek guides and the rest of the swimmers. It was basically an intro dinner with the presentation for the logistics for the week.

Cove

Jim and Eliz by restaurants by the waterfront

Malta Bound

Tomorrow morning, I will be on a plane bound for Malta to participate in the SwimTrek long distance swim camp.  The pinnacle of the trip will be attempting the 6 hour qualifying swim in 59F water on Wednesday.   I am confident in my endurance for the swim with the training Eliz and I have done but the surviving 6 hours in that cold of water has me more then a little nervous.

A quick update on my back injury from the previous blog, it ended up being a relative non-issue.  It did end up being purely a muscular issue that was easily treated via physical therapy and massage.   The root cause was determined to be imbalance in muscle development from all the front crawl swimming I was doing and no offsetting muscle development via stroke work, weights, etc.  I am doing light muscle activation exercises for recovery to get me through the swim camp but afterwards I will need to add offsetting muscle development exercises to my weekly schedule.   Suggestions that have been offered to me include using a rowing machine, more backstroke in my swimming workouts and weights.  A word of warning to future Channel wannabes, have a balance exercise program in place.  

While in Malta, I will try to post some updates as I have energy and time.

Three weeks to Malta and fear

It is now 3 weeks to Malta SwimTrek Long Distance Swim camp where I will be attempting a 6 hour qualifying swim in hopefully 60F water. A fellow blogger, Julie Galloway, is heading to Malta this weekend for her camp and 6 hour swim. I am looking forward to her reports and hints.

The distance training has gone well. Eliz and I did just short of 6 hours (5:50) three weeks ago and a 6 hour swim this past Sunday, both in a way to warm pool at 83F (34C). I am estimating that we covered about 23,000 yards (~13 miles) in the 6 hours with approximately 15 minutes of non-swimming time due to feeding breaks and bio breaks. Even though we held a pretty slow pace, we were able to pick it up the last 1/2 hour. Eliz thoroughly smoked me during this pick up, a hint of what our relative times will be in the longer swims. For an endurance viewpoint, I feel we are ready for a 6 hour open water swim given we have done a 6 hour training swim in a pool. Beyond that enters the fear issue.

There are two main fears eating at my psyche now. The first is expected. How will we do when we hit the colder water in Malta? Our training so far has been in pool temperatures from 81F to 84F. The local lakes in the foothills of Colorado have been bouncing from frozen to 37F (3C) and I am typing this while looking at 6" of snow on the ground. I have been trying cold showers to prepare but there seems to be differences in opinion on the effectiveness of this. The bottom line is that we will just have to do our best once we get to Malta.

The second fear was one that I was not expecting to fight. I have been amazed with how little overuse injuries have occurred as we have ramped up the swims. I would like to believe it was due to intelligent ramp up but it probably has more to do with luck. After the really long swims, there is longer term fatigue (three days to a week) with some stiffness but nothing that hasn't gone away. On Wednesday this week, I hit the water for a short one hour recovery (meaning slow) swim. I had a tightness in my mid-back, nothing unusual after a long weekend swim. After about 15 minutes of warm up, the tightness was still there so I stopped to stretch it. During the stretch, there was a sharp spasm in that location. The pain was reasonably intense and did not go away. I decided to stop the stretch and see if could swim it out. I quickly determined it was not and I could not complete a full stroke. Here I was, three weeks from Malta and could not swim across the pool. Minor panic set in but I squelched it. I decided I had done enough damage and got out of the pool. The next 24 hours was pretty painful but it seems to be calming down now, about 36 hours later. The injury feels more like a muscle related instead of a tendon so I am hoping for quicker recovery. The next week or so will determine if I make the trip to Malta. Sigh...that is the risk on the longer events, be it running, biking, swimming or any sports where you take the body past what they are normally made to do. Why we do what we do is to see how far we can push ourselves and sometimes we find out the hard way. I just hope my lesson does not keep me from completing the swim camp.

Fighting the Demons

We are just 6 weeks away from the Malta SwimTrek swim camp. We have only a couple more of the ludicrously long pool swims left. Today was planned to be somewhere between 5:30 and 5:45. We get to sleep in and start swimming at 6am since there are no aqua aerobics today. As I am putting my suit on, my mind wonders into dark areas. I start questioning why am I doing this. It would so much easier to stick to doing shorter stuff like 10K runs and Olympic distance distance triathlons. I am doing this precisely because it is not easy. I shake myself wondering where these thoughts are coming from. It might be from exhaustion. I chaperoned my son's scout troop's ski trip yesterday. It was an unbelievable day. It was sunny, not too cold with no wind. When we got to the top of the mountain at about 12,000 ft, it was an unbelievably beautiful view. I was so caught up in the day, I pounded down through the trees and moguls until my legs are totally trashed. I then had the long drive home with cramping legs to totally exhaust me. Not the best day before prep for a nearly 6 hours swim.

As I stand by the pool and pull my cap on, it breaks. Not the best omen. After the first hour of swimming, I still had dark thoughts. My mind definitely was not in the right place. I am constantly wrestling demons that are whispering in my ear that "2 hours is good enough" and then as we get past 2 hours it whispers "3 hours is good enough". At 3 hours, I reach for a crutch, the SwimMP3 player. I know it is a crutch but I was hoping it would distract my mind. Alas, something is wrong with the SwimMP3 player and it does not work. It must be a message that I need to fight these demons myself. Eliz has been struggling with her back muscles from a hard workouts in the previous days and takes a quick break for Ibuprofen. At the next food break, I mention that my fighting mental demons is ok to keep fighting but if she is fighting physical problems, we should stop. She wants to continue. It seems as if verbalizing this helps me mentally. At the 4 hour mark, I finally seem to slide into the long distance zone. The demons have been vanquished. At the 5 hour mark, I check with if she wants to go for 5:30 or 5:45. She says she wants to go until noon which would make it a 5:50 swim (we started at 6:10am). Fifteen minutes later, another person arrives and there is no lane available in our little 2 lane pool (Eliz and I are sharing a lane). I ask if he wants to circle swim with us (typically not done in small health club pools non-team hours). He is ok with it so I slide back behind Eliz. Ahhh, the draft is great but I know that we can't do that for the Channel. With 30 minutes to go, we switch positions so that we don't get to comfortable drafting. I start trying to pick up the pace and was surprised I was able to move it from double dog slow to reasonable (still not fast) to finish the workout.

The training to battle the inner demons is just as important as training physically for an event like the Channel. From the reports of previous swimmers, there will be more then once during the swim that the demons will tempt me to get out and grab a warm cup of hot chocolate and huddle under a blanket in the boat. I need to practice doing mental battles with these demons. Experiences like today are precisely the type of training I need. Ones where there is a low but where I am triumphant and actually finish the swim mentally stronger then I start. The knowledge that if you wait it out, things will get better is one of the most powerful weapons in this battle.