The Humble Beginning – My First Blog Post
(Is it a blog if you are only blogging to yourself?)
So happy to find this page – Oh my gosh these people are so supportive. Yay community!
I found it because I got an email back today from the secretary of the CS&PF setting me up on the chat site (which is actually a google group?) and giving me details about channel swims. God bless human contact! Thanks Kevin!
**If you EVER need help getting connected with the community, drop me a line. It is, imo, the essential step to being able to prepare to swim the channel, and it is easier than ever with lots of sites and social media dedicated to the sport.
[2019 commentary – By November of 2018, I had been trying to get ready to make a Channel swim happen for quite a while. And I’d been thinking about blogging about it for a bit. It’s significant that successfully making contact with a human being who was in any small measure willing to help was such a catalyst.
Part of my thinking in creating this blog is to identify resources for those who come after me, so that their paths may be easier than mine, their activation energy dramatically lessened.
I don’t tend to mention the emails no one responded to, the people I never heard back from… but it was very discouraging at times. So much so that I wondered if people were doing it on purpose – a weird logistical gate intended to mirror the difficulty of swimming the Channel. Just a conspiracy theory, but in making this happen I will be at least as proud of punching my way out of planning bags as I am of the swimming I will do.
Now that I have started to enter the community, there are many people willing and able to help. Had I entered it in a more organic way – done some marathon swimming before deciding on the channel – that part would have been easier. But you have to reserve a boat 2-3 years in advance, and I was reluctant to start spending big money on these swims until I knew I could use them as training. There are some flaws in that logic, as there will be in much of my logic, but, again, no roadmap!
PS – Hilariously, that forum is not very active and I have been too intimidated to post any questions on it.]
** Update – I DID finally post to it and it opened so many doors. I asked about cold water swim camps and about where to live in England, but I got back so much more than that. This community is truly amazing.
… or was this my first post? Sorting through the files on my computer (Marie Kwondo-ing the crap out of it), I found that I actually started this blog a lot earlier than I thought. Started… and then quickly stopped:
June 1, 2013
Swam hard for an hour and thirteen minutes straight in Lake Echo, one of the Seven Lakes in NC. It was allegedly 5K, but unless I had a motor hidden in my suit, I don’t think so.
June 2, 2013
Tough recovery from the race yesterday with a headache from dehydration and hunger. Then A woke up with a fever of 103.5 at 2 am and was awake the rest of the night.
Asked Erica and Henry about gaining significant speed. They said to swim up a lane and add weights to my training. What I need is someone to look at my stroke.
Oct 23, 2013
Had a good summer of racing – 2nd overall in two longer swims – the Jordan Lake Championship 2.4 mile and the Wrightsville Beach Swim the Loop 3.5 miler. Now focusing on some IM training looking toward a meet in January. Clinic Nov 2 – hopefully I’ll be able to clean up some technique issues.”
