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.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
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.
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.
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