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!