The goal in the spring was to transition from base building high volume training to cold water training. We still held our volume high (50K/week) for most of the weeks but we would allow it to drop below 50K in interest of spending time in cold water. When we got in water at 50F (10C) or lower, we found that we had to allocate more recovery time (shivering and rewarming our core) from our allocated training time. We also had trouble pushing our bodies to do multi hour swims at those temperatures on the weekends. Each time we went out at the lower temperatures, we would try to push ourselves a little further to the edge of serious hypothermia without going over. It was a tense time period as we keep a close eye on each other to insure we were safe.
We did our first lake swim of the season on April 7th at a temperature of 46.9F (8.3C). We decided the day before that we were going to do it but when we got to the shore, it was blowing snow with about a 1" of snow on the ground. The desire to bail and work on building fat by getting a double stack of pancakes at the local diner was very large. We finally convinced ourselves that if we got up that early and drove to the lake that we should get in. We negotiated that we would do at least 6 strokes out and back. It was minor and we could have gone further but it was the first step in getting back in. Two days later (no longer snowing), we jumped back in for a solid 15 minutes to start our slow, conservative re-introduction into the cold water.
I am not sure how others people's bodies react to the cold water but here is a brief description of how mine did in that 48-50F (9-10C) temperatures. As we walked into the water, the leg bones actually hurt at what seems to be the bone level. Not sure what the physiological explanation of this. We would frequently stand in the cold water with only our legs in until the legs numbed. Our excuse was to reduce the mental shock so that only half the body would be "hurting" at a time. Once the legs numbed, we would submerge the rest of the body. At first, we were conservative and would not dive in head first so that if we had the gasp reflex from the cold, we would not ingest water. We found that our previous cold water training had trained out the gasp reflex at these temperatures so we quickly went for a dive in and stroke away rapidly. Once we dove in, we would instinctively stroke like we were sprinting. Not sure if it was due to desire to get out or generate more heat. The skin would tingle like a thousand small needles were being pushing in. It seemed to be about minute or two into the swim, the arms would start slowing down. It actually felt like I was starting to swim through mud. I could not keep the high cadence up and went to my normal cadence. For the next 5-10 minutes, the tingling of the skin continued. Slowly, the tingling would go away. I would notice the cold on the skin but it was almost a detached feeling, almost as if it was someone else body that was experiencing it. As the swim progressed to the 20ish minute mark, the core would start to feel warm and I would feel like I was a little heater. It actually would feel like the heat would extend to my limbs and the skin was hot. This felt great but would last for only about another 20 minutes or so. Somewhere around the 40-45 minute mark, the warmth feeling would go away and I would start feeling cold again. At this point, my body reaction seemed to diverge from Eliz's. My speed would drop considerably about 5 minutes after the cold would set in and Eliz would pull away from me. The first time this occurred, I panicked a bit thinking it was a sign that I was getting very close to dangerously hypothermic. Over several swims, we would push the time I would go after this slow down. I was able to go at least 30 minutes past this point in our experimentation with no further digression. We had to stop the experimentation when the lake water warmed up enough that I no longer experienced the slowdown (mid to upper 50F or 14-16C). We also tried to figure out why. My cadence did not significantly slow down nor did my stroke mechanics changed noticeably from what Eliz could tell in the murky, dark water. We are guessing it was related to stroke mechanics and my ability to "grab" the water but could not narrow it further then that. Mentally, I just learned to accept it would happen, not worry but focus on other more obvious signs of hypothermia such as significant cadence change and mental sharpness decreasing.
Back to the progression of the spring training. Quickly (within a week), the lake temp rose to 50F (12C). This is where the unpredictable Colorado weather started the first of its curve balls. We had an unusual cold and wet spring where the temperature in the lake stayed relatively close to 50F (12C) with an occasional day where it would warm up to 52F (13C) just to have a snow storm come through to cool it back down. It stayed in this temperature range for nearly 5 weeks. We were hoping to start getting multi-hour swims up to 3 to 4 hours in the lake but were hampered by the cold water and my slow experimentation on how long I could continue swimming after the slow down occurred. It was great cold water training but we were looking forward to a least a minor warming to the mid-50s (14-15C) to get some long swims in. Finally, mid-May the water started warming up. This is when the Colorado weather threw the second curve ball. A major switch was thrown by the weather gods and almost overnight the temperature outside jumped to the mid-80F (29C) range. Within 2 weeks, it moved from 50F (12C) to above 60F (15C) and then up to the mid-60F (18C) a week later. We were hoping for several weeks of training with the temperature between 56-60F (14-15C) range. Instead, it was only a matter of days. We entered June with the temperature in the upper 60F (18-19C). We now had 7-8 weeks of training ahead of us in considerably warmer water then the Channel.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Catching up on the winter of 2010
Here the promised update on how the winter training for the English Channel went. Again, apologizes for the delay. I have been basically exhausted ever since about February and could not find the extra energy to update the blog. One of the biggest challenges I seem to be fighting during this period is being perpetually tired from burning the candle at both ends and training hard. Usually when training increases, the best practice is for an athlete to increase sleep time instead of decrease sleep time. When I signed up for this crazy adventure, I did not anticipate sleep deprivation as one of the components.
As mentioned in the December posting, I slowly started ramping up the weekly yardage to reach 50,000 yards a week by April. My training regiment during this period was to swim with a Master's team twice a week, swim on my own 3-4 times a week and swim in Eliz's Endless Pool that she kept at 59-60F once a week. The Master's workouts were to keep some speed and stroke work in my regiment. I would usually get in the pool early (as soon as the pool opened) as well as stay an extra 1/2 hour afterwards to add distance. On my own, I would work on LSD (Long Slow Distance) sets that would usually consist of sets with a minimum distance of 30 minutes. I head to Eliz's Endless Pool with the hope that the once a week would slow my loss of cold adaptation. Not sure if it worked or not. I did notice that as the winter went on it was getting tougher and tougher getting into her pool. As a side note on the temperature of her pool. It is frequently reported that fresh water will feel colder then salt water at the same temperature. Not sure how much is real versus perceived. Eliz and I noticed that her Endless Pool at her house which is at an elevation of approximately 8000 ft (2400m) felt even colder. We were not sure if it was the forced current over the body (like how a wind cools you down in air) or if it was the altitude. The bottom line is it made jumping in her pool in the dark early morning in the middle of winter with multiple feet of snow outside a mental battle each time I got in.
As the winter went on, my weekend swims would get longer and longer as the weekly yardage crept toward 50,000 yards. By the end of February, I was doing 3 hours, mid March it was 4 hours. The second week of March, I did my first greater then 50,000 yard week, 3 weeks before my goal. Part of the reason was a had a week long vacation in the Caribbean to celebrate my 25 wedding anniversary and I knew I would not get a lot of swimming in that week. Except for that week off, I was able to maintain the greater then 50,000 yards a week until first week of May when I finally took a recovery week (only a mere 36,000 yard week). This was a solid 6 weeks in a row of greater then 50,000 yards to set a solid base of training before the serious cold water training was to begin in the spring. One amazing thing that I would guess could be attributed to a rigorous adherence to a steady ramp up was that I did not have any overuse injuries show up during this spell. I will also admit to adding a reasonable amount of backstroke into the training to help balance my front/back muscles since I had a misbalance problem that resulted in an overuse injury showing up just before Malta the previous year. Whatever the recipe was, it felt great to hit a solid training period with that high a mileage given my age with no twinges in my muscles. I exited this training period feeling a confident and ready to start hitting the cold water!
As mentioned in the December posting, I slowly started ramping up the weekly yardage to reach 50,000 yards a week by April. My training regiment during this period was to swim with a Master's team twice a week, swim on my own 3-4 times a week and swim in Eliz's Endless Pool that she kept at 59-60F once a week. The Master's workouts were to keep some speed and stroke work in my regiment. I would usually get in the pool early (as soon as the pool opened) as well as stay an extra 1/2 hour afterwards to add distance. On my own, I would work on LSD (Long Slow Distance) sets that would usually consist of sets with a minimum distance of 30 minutes. I head to Eliz's Endless Pool with the hope that the once a week would slow my loss of cold adaptation. Not sure if it worked or not. I did notice that as the winter went on it was getting tougher and tougher getting into her pool. As a side note on the temperature of her pool. It is frequently reported that fresh water will feel colder then salt water at the same temperature. Not sure how much is real versus perceived. Eliz and I noticed that her Endless Pool at her house which is at an elevation of approximately 8000 ft (2400m) felt even colder. We were not sure if it was the forced current over the body (like how a wind cools you down in air) or if it was the altitude. The bottom line is it made jumping in her pool in the dark early morning in the middle of winter with multiple feet of snow outside a mental battle each time I got in.
As the winter went on, my weekend swims would get longer and longer as the weekly yardage crept toward 50,000 yards. By the end of February, I was doing 3 hours, mid March it was 4 hours. The second week of March, I did my first greater then 50,000 yard week, 3 weeks before my goal. Part of the reason was a had a week long vacation in the Caribbean to celebrate my 25 wedding anniversary and I knew I would not get a lot of swimming in that week. Except for that week off, I was able to maintain the greater then 50,000 yards a week until first week of May when I finally took a recovery week (only a mere 36,000 yard week). This was a solid 6 weeks in a row of greater then 50,000 yards to set a solid base of training before the serious cold water training was to begin in the spring. One amazing thing that I would guess could be attributed to a rigorous adherence to a steady ramp up was that I did not have any overuse injuries show up during this spell. I will also admit to adding a reasonable amount of backstroke into the training to help balance my front/back muscles since I had a misbalance problem that resulted in an overuse injury showing up just before Malta the previous year. Whatever the recipe was, it felt great to hit a solid training period with that high a mileage given my age with no twinges in my muscles. I exited this training period feeling a confident and ready to start hitting the cold water!
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
10 hr training swim complete
I know, it has been a very long time since I have posted an update. One big learning I have had over the last 6 months is how exhausting it is to train for an event of this magnitude with family responsibilities and a full time job. I have been burning the candle at both ends for months trying to get the training swims in and family/work responsibilities. I am sooo looking forward to the taper phase where I can sleep close to a full night. As I get more time on my hands in the upcoming weeks, I will update the blog with events over the last 6 months.
The quick update for now. Eliz and I went to La Jolla Cove this past weekend and did a 10 hr training swim in rougher, salt water then we get in fresh water lakes in Colorado. We hoped for closer to channel water temperatures but had warm 66-67F (19C). It felt nice but cooler water would have been better training. The swim went extremely well and we both got out of the water feeling good and able to go further. That will be the last major swim before the channel. We leave for England in just 3 more weeks.
The quick update for now. Eliz and I went to La Jolla Cove this past weekend and did a 10 hr training swim in rougher, salt water then we get in fresh water lakes in Colorado. We hoped for closer to channel water temperatures but had warm 66-67F (19C). It felt nice but cooler water would have been better training. The swim went extremely well and we both got out of the water feeling good and able to go further. That will be the last major swim before the channel. We leave for England in just 3 more weeks.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Fall update
I apologize for such a long break between posts. The weak excuse is that there has not been much happening since my 6 hour qualifier. It was such a relief to have made it over that milestone that I have somewhat kicked back to mentally recover before beginning the next phase of the training.
The week after the 6 hour qualifier the lake temperatures quickly dropped to around 13C (56F). I continued to do 1 hour swims in this temperature. The first one or two were painful but the I started acclimating to that temperature reasonably well. Two weeks after the 6 hour qualifier, the lake temperature dropped to about 11C (52F). Again, I struggled a little at the beginning but was able to feel reasonable for the 1 hour swim. It is worth documenting how the swims would progress at these temperatures. The initial dive into the water was intense. I was shocked that even though I could feel the cold, some of the cold water reactions from the previous season were not happening. The reactions I refer to include the feeling of a constriction belt around your chest, hyperventilation and the struggle to keep the head in the water. None of these things happened. I could feel the cold but seemed to have trained out some of the responses. I still had the feeling of thousands of needles pushing on my exposed skin for about 5-10 minutes. I just had to focus my mind somewhere else with the knowledge that the feeling would go away. After this 5-10 minutes of this uncomfortable feeling, I would slip into a very comfortable mode. I could feel the cold on my arms and back (probably more so due to the -5C(22F) air temperature) but it almost felt like it was not actually my body feeling the cold. There were once or twice that the skin actually would feel hot for a while. This comfortable mode would continue all the way across the lake (approximately 1 mile). About half way back, I would notice that some of the swimmers that I was keeping pace with would start pulling away. Basically, even though I was feeling ok, my stroke was starting to deteriorate. It was a regular occurrence and I could count on my return trip taking an extra couple of minutes. This was an indication that I was started to hit my limit on temperature. I would finish the swim feeling alright even though my hands had some mobility problems. After drying off and getting dressed, I would shiver for a solid 20-30 minutes. Another improvement over last season was my recovery was much quicker. I would find myself feeling pretty normal within an hour. Last season, some of the cold water swims would leave me chilled the rest of the day. It was mentally a lot easier to get in the next swim knowing that I would feel normal within an hour after swimming.
The third week after the 6 hour swim, the lake dropped down to 10C (50F). My goal was to swim down to that temperature so I was highly motivated to complete this swim. All the other swimmers had switched to wetsuits except Eliz and myself. The swim progressed the same way as the previous week. On the return trip, the stroke slowdown occurred shortly after the turn around. When I was about 5-10 minutes from the end, I started having some very strong mental issues where I desperately wanted to stop. I had enough mental awareness to realize what was happening and that stopping was not going to help, I had to get to shore as quickly as I could. I fought the mental battles for that remaining 5-10 minutes to get shore, my stroke had totally fallen apart and I was barely moving. I realized that I had crossed over the line to a dangerous situation but I had no choice but to make it to shore. Afterwards, the shivers were pretty intense and I had the chills the rest of the day. It was a sure sign that I was done for the season.
The following week, I did the commit the open water swimmer's sin of wearing a wetsuit. The water temperature had dropped to 9C (48F). I figured that it would still be funner then swimming in a hot indoor pool doing laps. Inside the wetsuit, I broiled during the swim. It was not as much fun as I thought it would be. Meanwhile, my hands and feet got extremely cold. I lost feeling in my finger tips for most of the day from where I had minor frostbite years ago while skiing. All this convinced me that it was not a smart move for me to extend the open water swimming with a wetsuit. Sigh....
Since then, I have been taking a mental and physical break from the long distance swimming. I have done some cross training (running, rowing, etc) and have been more regular with the local masters team doing stroke work and sprints. In November, I averaged about 20,000 yards a week and will move it up to 25-30,000 yards in December/January. Sometime in January, I plan to start ramping back up with some longer swims to begin the final 6 months of training before the attempt.
The week after the 6 hour qualifier the lake temperatures quickly dropped to around 13C (56F). I continued to do 1 hour swims in this temperature. The first one or two were painful but the I started acclimating to that temperature reasonably well. Two weeks after the 6 hour qualifier, the lake temperature dropped to about 11C (52F). Again, I struggled a little at the beginning but was able to feel reasonable for the 1 hour swim. It is worth documenting how the swims would progress at these temperatures. The initial dive into the water was intense. I was shocked that even though I could feel the cold, some of the cold water reactions from the previous season were not happening. The reactions I refer to include the feeling of a constriction belt around your chest, hyperventilation and the struggle to keep the head in the water. None of these things happened. I could feel the cold but seemed to have trained out some of the responses. I still had the feeling of thousands of needles pushing on my exposed skin for about 5-10 minutes. I just had to focus my mind somewhere else with the knowledge that the feeling would go away. After this 5-10 minutes of this uncomfortable feeling, I would slip into a very comfortable mode. I could feel the cold on my arms and back (probably more so due to the -5C(22F) air temperature) but it almost felt like it was not actually my body feeling the cold. There were once or twice that the skin actually would feel hot for a while. This comfortable mode would continue all the way across the lake (approximately 1 mile). About half way back, I would notice that some of the swimmers that I was keeping pace with would start pulling away. Basically, even though I was feeling ok, my stroke was starting to deteriorate. It was a regular occurrence and I could count on my return trip taking an extra couple of minutes. This was an indication that I was started to hit my limit on temperature. I would finish the swim feeling alright even though my hands had some mobility problems. After drying off and getting dressed, I would shiver for a solid 20-30 minutes. Another improvement over last season was my recovery was much quicker. I would find myself feeling pretty normal within an hour. Last season, some of the cold water swims would leave me chilled the rest of the day. It was mentally a lot easier to get in the next swim knowing that I would feel normal within an hour after swimming.
The third week after the 6 hour swim, the lake dropped down to 10C (50F). My goal was to swim down to that temperature so I was highly motivated to complete this swim. All the other swimmers had switched to wetsuits except Eliz and myself. The swim progressed the same way as the previous week. On the return trip, the stroke slowdown occurred shortly after the turn around. When I was about 5-10 minutes from the end, I started having some very strong mental issues where I desperately wanted to stop. I had enough mental awareness to realize what was happening and that stopping was not going to help, I had to get to shore as quickly as I could. I fought the mental battles for that remaining 5-10 minutes to get shore, my stroke had totally fallen apart and I was barely moving. I realized that I had crossed over the line to a dangerous situation but I had no choice but to make it to shore. Afterwards, the shivers were pretty intense and I had the chills the rest of the day. It was a sure sign that I was done for the season.
The following week, I did the commit the open water swimmer's sin of wearing a wetsuit. The water temperature had dropped to 9C (48F). I figured that it would still be funner then swimming in a hot indoor pool doing laps. Inside the wetsuit, I broiled during the swim. It was not as much fun as I thought it would be. Meanwhile, my hands and feet got extremely cold. I lost feeling in my finger tips for most of the day from where I had minor frostbite years ago while skiing. All this convinced me that it was not a smart move for me to extend the open water swimming with a wetsuit. Sigh....
Since then, I have been taking a mental and physical break from the long distance swimming. I have done some cross training (running, rowing, etc) and have been more regular with the local masters team doing stroke work and sprints. In November, I averaged about 20,000 yards a week and will move it up to 25-30,000 yards in December/January. Sometime in January, I plan to start ramping back up with some longer swims to begin the final 6 months of training before the attempt.
Friday, October 2, 2009
6 hour qualifier completed!
I did it, 6 hours in 16C or less water! This has been sitting on the back of my mind since my failed attempt last April. I was definitely fighting some serious doubt demons as to if I was capable in reaching this benchmark. It seems as if the additional physical adaptation to the cold and more importantly, more experience to arm my brain with mental weapons were enough. I am far from done in my training but I am now ready to enter the next phase of training with more confidence. I would very much want to thank my training partners Eliz and Katie for their support in both the training and the actual qualifying swim in which they also achieved their goals.
Now the more detailed description of the swim. After the determination that the water temperature had dropped low enough to qualify, we scrambled to check our schedules to see when we all could make the swim. We quickly narrowed it down to Thursday, Oct 1, very early in the morning. We started ludicrously early in the morning for two reasons. One was to complete before our normal work schedules started and another was to get off the lake before any boats. Eliz had the more restricted time schedule so she started at 12:20 am to complete her 6 hours by 6:30am. I started at 3am to complete by 9am. Katie started at 5am to complete by 9am (the qualifying requirement for her swim was 4 hours). After we set the date and time, we checked the weather and found we picked the worse day of the week. A cold front was coming in bringing cold weather, high winds and clouds. We briefly chatted about postponing the swim but concluded that if this scared us away, we were not ready for the Channel. Remember, train for the worse, hope for the best.
A little before 3am, I am standing at the water's edge in 8C (46F) air temperature, 15.2C(59.4F) water temperature with the wind whipping at about 20-25mph wondering what I was doing here. The lake we were swimming in was about 1 mile long. Our plan was to swim across into the wind then back with the wind to our back. I jump in and start stroking away. I struggled into the waves trying to find a rhythm in the waves that would allow me to take a breath without a mouth full of water. It was work but the return trip with the wind to the back was refreshing. After about 20 minutes, I started feeling cold and the mental battle began. This time, I had more weapons in my arsenal to do battle so I fought on. Previous training swims and some feedback from Eliz showed that at about 2 hours, I would break through the mental barrier and the swim would become easier. Sure enough, at 2 hours, I was not comfortable but it no longer was a mental battle. It just "was" and I swam on, focusing on letting my mind wonder onto random thoughts. During the 2nd crossing into the wind, I was fighting the waves pretty hard. In the back of my mind, I noticed the waves were large and it felt like a washing machine but mentally it did not bother me. It just felt like it was what was dealt to me and to just deal with it, no problem. At 5am, Eliz and I meet up with Katie. Eliz made some comment about how the waves were "interesting" or something understated like that as a warning to Katie. As we heading back into the wind, I noticed it seem to die down for about 30 minutes and then pick back up. This had me curious so afterwards, I found a nearby weatherstation that tracked wind speed and found the following chart.
The winds had been in the 40-46mph range in the 3:30-4am range but dropped down to 10mph shortly after Katie joined us. I think if I had known I was swimming in 46mph winds, I would have gotten out. Instead, ignorance was bliss and I kept swimming. It is now a great confidence boost to realize I swam in winds at that speed with no mental issues with the wind. This will come in handy assuming that there is a good chance I will have some sort of winds while crossing the channel.
After our half hour of light winds, the winds pickup up to the 20mph range. The water did not feel like a washing machine with winds at this speed, just some chop to fight through. Eliz completed her 6 hours successful and heading to work. At about the 5 hour mark, I started feeling the physical fatigue of the swimming. I was somewhat surprised that it showed up that early but given that I had not done a swim greater the 3 hours since April, it should not have. Battling the mental games that come with fatigue is far from new to me so it was no problem keeping the swimming up, I just slowed down quite a bit. The last hour seemed to go on for a long time due to the fatigue but I made it and felt I could have continued for longer, even in my slow, fatigued state. As I got out in the now 10C (50F) air, I was definitely cold and shivery for the next 30-60 minutes. I was again amazed on how much quicker I was recovering compared to last spring from the colder swims.
Overall, this swim was much tougher then the attempt last spring in Malta. The water temperature was about the same but we found out in Malta that fresh water will feel colder then salt water at the same temp (not sure why). The swim was done in much colder air temperature with over 4 hours of the swim at night where you get no solar heat from the sun. Of course, it had the added issue of the winds that were not present the day we attempted the 6 hour in Malta (it was previous days). I don't know if I would have planned it this way normally but I felt the conditions were close to what some of the challenging conditions we could see during the channel with the exception of salt water, tides and jellies. Given we live thousands of miles from the sea, this was about as good a simulation as we could get at this location. It was a fantastic confidence booster knowing I was still able to complete it.
I plan to keep the cold water swimming up until the temperatures drop below 10C (50F). It very much depends on the weather but I am hoping to make it until November. Then I will be restricted to pool swimming and an occasional trip to Eliz's Endless pool that she plans to keep at 12C (55F).
Now the more detailed description of the swim. After the determination that the water temperature had dropped low enough to qualify, we scrambled to check our schedules to see when we all could make the swim. We quickly narrowed it down to Thursday, Oct 1, very early in the morning. We started ludicrously early in the morning for two reasons. One was to complete before our normal work schedules started and another was to get off the lake before any boats. Eliz had the more restricted time schedule so she started at 12:20 am to complete her 6 hours by 6:30am. I started at 3am to complete by 9am. Katie started at 5am to complete by 9am (the qualifying requirement for her swim was 4 hours). After we set the date and time, we checked the weather and found we picked the worse day of the week. A cold front was coming in bringing cold weather, high winds and clouds. We briefly chatted about postponing the swim but concluded that if this scared us away, we were not ready for the Channel. Remember, train for the worse, hope for the best.
A little before 3am, I am standing at the water's edge in 8C (46F) air temperature, 15.2C(59.4F) water temperature with the wind whipping at about 20-25mph wondering what I was doing here. The lake we were swimming in was about 1 mile long. Our plan was to swim across into the wind then back with the wind to our back. I jump in and start stroking away. I struggled into the waves trying to find a rhythm in the waves that would allow me to take a breath without a mouth full of water. It was work but the return trip with the wind to the back was refreshing. After about 20 minutes, I started feeling cold and the mental battle began. This time, I had more weapons in my arsenal to do battle so I fought on. Previous training swims and some feedback from Eliz showed that at about 2 hours, I would break through the mental barrier and the swim would become easier. Sure enough, at 2 hours, I was not comfortable but it no longer was a mental battle. It just "was" and I swam on, focusing on letting my mind wonder onto random thoughts. During the 2nd crossing into the wind, I was fighting the waves pretty hard. In the back of my mind, I noticed the waves were large and it felt like a washing machine but mentally it did not bother me. It just felt like it was what was dealt to me and to just deal with it, no problem. At 5am, Eliz and I meet up with Katie. Eliz made some comment about how the waves were "interesting" or something understated like that as a warning to Katie. As we heading back into the wind, I noticed it seem to die down for about 30 minutes and then pick back up. This had me curious so afterwards, I found a nearby weatherstation that tracked wind speed and found the following chart.
After our half hour of light winds, the winds pickup up to the 20mph range. The water did not feel like a washing machine with winds at this speed, just some chop to fight through. Eliz completed her 6 hours successful and heading to work. At about the 5 hour mark, I started feeling the physical fatigue of the swimming. I was somewhat surprised that it showed up that early but given that I had not done a swim greater the 3 hours since April, it should not have. Battling the mental games that come with fatigue is far from new to me so it was no problem keeping the swimming up, I just slowed down quite a bit. The last hour seemed to go on for a long time due to the fatigue but I made it and felt I could have continued for longer, even in my slow, fatigued state. As I got out in the now 10C (50F) air, I was definitely cold and shivery for the next 30-60 minutes. I was again amazed on how much quicker I was recovering compared to last spring from the colder swims.
Overall, this swim was much tougher then the attempt last spring in Malta. The water temperature was about the same but we found out in Malta that fresh water will feel colder then salt water at the same temp (not sure why). The swim was done in much colder air temperature with over 4 hours of the swim at night where you get no solar heat from the sun. Of course, it had the added issue of the winds that were not present the day we attempted the 6 hour in Malta (it was previous days). I don't know if I would have planned it this way normally but I felt the conditions were close to what some of the challenging conditions we could see during the channel with the exception of salt water, tides and jellies. Given we live thousands of miles from the sea, this was about as good a simulation as we could get at this location. It was a fantastic confidence booster knowing I was still able to complete it.
I plan to keep the cold water swimming up until the temperatures drop below 10C (50F). It very much depends on the weather but I am hoping to make it until November. Then I will be restricted to pool swimming and an occasional trip to Eliz's Endless pool that she plans to keep at 12C (55F).
Monday, September 28, 2009
Time for another attempt at the qualifying swim
Looks like this is the week to give another shot at a 6 hour qualifying swim at 16C or less water. I have been ramping up some longer swims since Horsetooth in preparation for the swim. I have not ramped up as much as Malta with the knowledge that the real need for training is in the cold water acclimatisation, not the endurance. I was hoping for a nice gentle cooling of the lakes here in Colorado so that I can slowly acclimatise myself to the cold water. I have not been that lucky. The temperature held close to 21C (70F) until mid September. A cold front moved in the weekend of Sept 19th. This combined with a decision by the water board to fill the lakes from colder, higher elevation lakes started dropping the temperature up to 1C (1.8F) a day. Within a week, it dropped 5C (9F). The good news is that it has slowed down due to warmer weather and the lakes are nearly full. It looks like the temperature is dropping about 0.25C(0.5F) a day, at least until the next cold front comes in a couple of days. If I want to get the qualifier in before the water gets too cold, I need to react in a couple days. In a way, it is good mental training for the Channel by having to wait most of September for the proper conditions and then having to react rapidly to get ready.
To react this quickly, I don't have the luxury to schedule a weekend at a lake, get support crew and go. I will match up with some other swimmers planning on doing various qualifiers (for Manhattan Island and English Channel) to swim together to watch each other for safety and witnesses. We will go very early in the morning (somewhere between 1am-4am) to be complete before the work day begins and boat traffic is allowed on the lakes. This will cause most of the swim to be done at night. Again, this is good training for the Channel since there will probably be night swims involved in the Channel crossing. The down side is the air temperature this time of year in Colorado drops to 2C (36F) to 7C(45F) and we will be swimming at the coldest time of the night (sunrise). Combine with the fact that fresh water feels colder then salt water (at the same temperature) makes this a much colder swim then if we could do the swim in salt water, sunny and warmer air temperature. Advice from channel gurus is to train for the worse and hope for the best. It looks like I am heading in this direction. Looking at the bright side, I don't have to worry about sunscreen.
A quick status update on my cold acclimatisation in preparedness for this swim. I was shocked as the water temperature dropped last week that I had lost some of the cold water acclimatisation I had developed last spring. I was shivering at 19C(67F) where I would not have shivered until 17C(63F) by the end of the spring cold water swimming. This made me nervous with the short acclimatisation period I have this fall but the good news is the body is reacting reasonably quickly. I was able to swim at 17C(62F) for 2.5 hours with minor shivers within a week of the temperature starting to drop. This morning, I was feeling very comfortable for at least 15-20 minutes at 16C(61F) before starting to feel cold. I would love about 1-2 more weeks of cold water acclimatisation at the 16-17C range. Unfortunately, I am guessing that we will start another 1C (1.8F)/day temperature drop with the next front due in 3 days. If I want to attempt the 6 hours at a temperature close to 16C, I need to do it now. I also had a great swim last week from a mental perspective when I did the 2.5 hour at 17C(62F). I almost immediately felt cold and wondered how long I would be able to handle the cold. I keep just thinking "hang in there for one more loop" until at 2 hours, I hit some equilibrium where the cold was not weighing on me mentally. This is a huge milestone that I can use mid swim if I start getting cold and start doubting my ability to handle it. If I just hang in there, it will get better.
After this week, the plan is to keep swimming until the water temp drops down to about 10C(50F). After that point, I will be stuck in warm indoor pools and Eliz's Endless pool until the spring time. My guess is that I have about 4 more weeks at the most of open water swimming left in this season. Need to make the most of it!
Friday, August 21, 2009
Horsetooth 10K race
As one of the race directors for the Horsetooth 10K, it has been years since I have thought of actually racing instead of just participating in the event. Usually, I approach the race highly stressed, low on sleep and having to do a lot of physical labor the 24 hours before the race. None of these things make for a good performance. This year was different. I had a more solid base then I have had since 2001 from my ramp up for the Malta Long Distance camp in April. I wondered if I might actually be competitive this year. As the race day approached, the stress level was much lower then normal due mainly to an awesome event committee that were on top of all the issues. Due to some reassignment of tasks, I had considerably less heavy lifting in the 24 hours before the race. The morning of the race, I get up at 3am to inflate buoys and set up the event. Things went remarkably smoothly so that by 5:45am, I am done and wondering what to do next. I wished the organizers of the finish line good luck and headed to the other end of the lake for the start. I was actually able to get to the starting line well in advance and was able to prepare myself in a relaxed fashion instead of the usual high speed skid into the parking lot, unload the canoe, strip and start.
The conditions for the day were nearly optimal. The earlier forecast was for cool and overcast. As we gathered for the start, it was cool but there was not a cloud in the sky. The water was flat and smooth. The temperature of the water had dropped in the last week a few degrees but it was still a pleasant 70F (21C). Shortly after we started, a wind picked up pretty significantly from South/SouthEast. For most of the swimmers, this was a great tail wind. Talking with some of the novice open water swimmers (read pool swimmers), they had trouble with the waves
interfering with the recovery part of the stroke. For the more experienced open water swimmers, we were in heaven as the waves pushed us to the finish. The real issue was with the support canoes and kayaks. They were having trouble keeping close to their swimmers in the wind and waves.
My race strategy was pretty much the same as I have used for years at this race (it was 10th year). Start off slow and then accelerate the last part as the less experienced swimmers started fatiguing. In the past several years, I have been under trained for the event so I would start out the first 4-5 miles at double dog slow pace to conserve my energy. This year I felt stronger so I decided to hold the first 4-5 miles at a strong moderate instead of slow pace. From a feeding perspective, I used the race to practice shortening my feeding speed as training for feeding in the channel. I made a concentrate mixture of Hammer's Perpetuum with hot chocolate mix.
For the start of the Horsetooth 10K, we have the paddlers move about 1000 meters down the course to allow the swimmers to separate a bit before trying to match up. This allows the start to be uncrowded and our usual relaxed start (unlike a traditional triathlon start). As the horn went
off and we headed toward the line of canoes/kayakers, I stayed a little closer to the front of the crowd then I usually did. The eventual winners pulled away quickly but I found myself in roughly the first chase pack. After the first mile or two, I was in somewhere around 8-10th place.
My feeding plan was every 30 minutes. My first feeding was a bit of a bumble but the next couple were pretty good. I had my wife and son (who were paddling for me) time the feeding. I was pretty consistent at about 8 seconds. If I can feed at this speed in the rougher channel waters, I will be ecstatic.
As we passed the halfway mark, I started slowly passing some people. My stroke felt strong and consistent. As I approached the 2.4M race buoy (about 1.2M from the finish), I was starting to mentally get ready to pick up the pace. I had been slowly gaining on the swimmer that eventually placed 5th overall. My arms were beginning to feel fatigued and tight but I still felt I could do a reasonable pick up of pace. I looked over at my canoe as it was close to my next feed. To my surprise, I found my support canoe was upside down. My wife and son were in the water trying to pull the canoe to shore to empty it. A wind generate wave hit the canoe broad side as they had their wieght shifted reaching for my feed and rolled the canoe. I swam over to them to help drag the canoe to shore. In theory, I would be disqualified from winning place for both touching the boat and touching ground but it was a moot point given I was not going to place
anyway. We emptied the water from the canoe and as I pushed them away from shore, I slipped and rolled the canoe again. We dragged it back and repeated the emptying. When all was said and done, I lost about 3-5 minutes and about 7-8 people passed me. The good news is the boat hauling and flipping gave my tired swim muscles a chance to rest. When I hit the water, I was flying. I quickly started passing people back. I had passed about 3-4 people before I ran out of water. I had enough energy to finish the last 20-30 meters butterfly.
My time was a reasonable at 2:31, my second fastest time in the 10 years of doing the event. I know that the wind helped considerably. Some swimmers reported going 5 minutes faster then expected while a slower swimmer reported nearly 30 minutes. My guess is it helped me by 5 minutes which pretty much offset my 3-5 minutes of lost time playing with a capsized boat. What I really liked was that the swim did not fatigue me like past swims had. I definitely could have jumped in and headed back. The endurance training seems to be working. Now I just need to get the cold training started again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)