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.
