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First Week of Taper – How Am I Feeling?

Don’t worry, I wrote it and I’ve got it and I will share it. But not right now. Suffice to say that things that require mental toughness require mental toughness BUT ALSO, I’m not doing anything truly difficult involving life, death, war, strife, love, loss, etc. Mostly I am eating, sleeping, swimming, and resting. Very unthreatening activities 🙂

Observations amongst the obsessing

Pink

So, I’m not a fan of the color pink. Purple is awesome, but pink, and its girly association, just doesn’t float my boat. However, I am going to end up swimming the Channel in goggles with pink straps. How did this happen to me? Well, habitual readers will remember that my favorite goggles sank to the bottom of Ramsgate Harbor when I jumped off a boat without holding on to them. So I ordered two more pairs and straps. The straps are multicolor – you don’t get a choice. But since I was ordering two, and my only desire was “not pink,” I felt like I’d at least get something I liked. When they came, they were purple and pink. So I put the purple on the goggles that I thought would be my main pair, forgetting that I am likely to start in the night, and will keep wearing my clear pair unless I need to change. But no matter, the purple strap on my mirrored pair faded to pink as well in the sun. So now my two best pairs of goggles both have pink straps. Girl power it is.

Not Normal

I have to remind myself that I don’t seem to be “normal” when it comes to human physical proximity. Strangers routinely choose to be in closer proximity unnecessarily than I would do. And every time, I think, “why are you so close to me?” The same on the interstate – I prefer to drive as far from other cars as possible, on the theory that it is much more difficult for us to crash into one another if we are spread out. But years of driving have shown a distinct tendency to clump on the part of other human beings. I used to think it was just happenstance and harmonic oscillation, but I don’t put a lot of effort into separating myself (always trying to make sure that I’m not causing danger in order to spread out), and others seem as if they must be trying to be closer to other cars, at least subconsciously.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot during swims, because people in canoes or on paddleboards (and one windsurfer last week) have come so very close to me… when there is a whole ocean out there. As a swimmer, you can’t see much, especially if it’s choppy. It’s genuinely scary to me look up and suddenly find someone next to me. But also comical – Why are you here?!?! (insert strangled screaming noise that makes me sound like a drowning whelk here)

That was a lot of rambling about something that most people probably don’t think (or care) about very much, but I spent a lot of the last two years driving to bodies of water on my own with a lot of time to think 🙂

And a late addition after yesterday’s walk to pick up A from school

I’m waiting for Bill Bryson to comment on the English tendency (or Bournemouth tendency?) to narrowly avoid running pedestrians over with their cars and then to stare at them as if it’s unreasonable that they aren’t crossing in front of their car. If you want to let me cross in front of you, great, but I’m pretty sure that the Pauli exclusion principle says that we can’t both occupy that space at the same time. pbttt.

OW Videos

Thursday 6/30 – No video. It was better, but still demoralizing 🙂

Saturday, 7/2 – No video. Conditions were tough enough that I turned my planned 4-hour into a 3-hour

Sunday, 7/3 – No video. Better, finally. A tough current that it felt like I was fighting against, but I’m glad to be pretty much done!

Channel Prep

Mostly eating and sleeping. Got my feed spreadsheet printed and laminated. And a bunch of other small stuff – making sure all of the equipment on my list is ready to go.

Still looking for crew. Getting a bit panicky. Trying to coordinate with Francois. Also panicky. Later in the week – Crew mostly worked out – yay!

Great news – Kids school stuff is all done. Complete. Finito! I feel like we should have a party 🙂

The [Time Period] in the Water (Tuesday 6/28 – Sunday 7/3)

Summary

Pool Yardage ~ 8,900 M 

OW Yardage ~ 29,400 M

Total Yardage ~ 38,300 M

OTHER:

 miles of running – 7+

 miles of walking (plus, you know, a lot more) – usual + 6.6 (No Beryl bikes)

 miles riding – 2.2

First week of taper. Felt just OK in the water. Most of the open water swims were quite choppy, Tuesday’s being the worst. Really quite difficult to taper in.

The Gory Details

Tue Jun 28 (~3600 M OW – 1 h 40 m)

OW Swim

• 12:05-1:45 PM
• ~3600 M
• 62 degree air
• 17 degree water
• Crazy conditions (again)
• Temp before: 36.9
• Temp after: 34.3 (walked back with no parka)

Yet another tough swim to do a taper in. I did a warm up lap, then 4 laps with interval work on the way down and easy coming back (2x 40 strokes mod fr; 40 strokes fast fr; a bit of breaststroke, then 2x 20 strokes fast free; 20 strokes fast bk). I finished up with an easy freestyle lap.

I don’t know how useful any of that was in the ridiculous waves and wind, but at least I was out there staying acclimated to the salt and cold and sun.

Wed Jun 29 (~4800 M) 1 h 55 m; 2.3 mi run/walk

Masters (~2700 M) 55 m

• 50 ez (got in late)
• 4×50 kick/swim choice (IM)
• 200 breathe every 5
• 4×50 sprint/ez (hahahahaha)
• 6×100 messing around with IM and kick. The pattern didn’t make any sense to me.
• 3×100 IM
• 100 fr
• 2×100 IM
• 2×100 fr
• 1×100 IM
• 3×100 fr
• All on 2:00
• 100 IM fast (“fast”)
• 100 free fast (“fast”)
• 50 ez

Lap Swim (~2100 M) 1 h

• 100 ez
• 4x(50 strong/50 ez) :44, :40, :42, :40
• 4x(100 strong/100 ez) 1:25, 1:29, ?, 1:25
• 2x(4x(25 kick, 50 kick drill))) – boy did I need this! I varied the drill a bit, but it was a lot of 5 kicks per individual arm stroke and 3/4 catchup and combining them.
• 200 CD

I might not be remembering everything I did, but either way it was a lot of ez swimming with just a bit of quality thrown in. I might try to do a harder set on Friday if I feel good – it’s a bit early in taper to just float around, but the ocean has been so choppy that the pool is the only place I can really recover. As usual, I’ll take it as it comes.

I moved down a lane. It felt really, really good for the first 30 minutes, especially as some IM work let me really get a bunch of muscle groups stretched out and feeling good. After that, it felt a bit like my soul was yawning. Taper just isn’t as interesting or exciting as going balls to the wall. But it is very necessary – moving is starting to seem less gargantuanly effortful, and that is as it should be. At the very least!

Thurs Jun 30 (~4200 M) OW 1 h 51 m

OW Swim

• 12:05-1:56 PM
• ~4200 M
• 63 degree air
• 18 degree water
• W-I-N-D-Y (but not as bad as Tuesday)
• Temp before: 36.4
• Temp after 34.3

This got bouncier as it went, which I was not enthusiastic about. I’m so tired of these 600 meter loops. But only 2-4 more days of workouts there to go. Woot.

I did a lap ez, 2 laps ez down, fast back (to the stairs, to the groin, to the end), 1 lap of 40 strokes back, 20 strokes breast, 40 strokes free, 2 laps of fast swims (as before, but both directions), and 1 ez lap at the end.

The ez lap was worthless – it was too bouncy for anything to be “easy.” In fact it made it harder, I was just getting pulled in every direction and slapped by the waters.

Friday July 1 (~4100 M) 1 h 30 m; 4.6+ mile run/walk (went home by way of the printers to pick up my laminated feed schedule

Masters (~2500 M) 50 min

• 200 something

• 2x
• 2×100 25 bk/75 fr
• 4×25 skull/sprint

• 2x
• 100 all out
• 100 – 30 fast/70 ez
• 100 – 55 fast/45 ez
• 100 – 30 fast/70 ez
• 100 – 55 fast/45 ez
• 100 – 80 fast/20 ez

• 150 ez

Lap Swim (~1600 M) 40 min

• ez swimming

• 3x
• 8×25 on :25 fast
• 200 ez
• (Rnd 1 – flirted with holding :40s; Rnd 2 – held :40s (and with a better, more efficient stroke – it turns out kicking is important), Rnd 3 – mostly held :40s)

• 400 ez swim

I was a bit wigged out today after finding out I’d been exposed (ish) to Covid, so the fact that one of the guys in my lane was coughing every time he came up made me hang out by the flags. So ready for it not to matter if I get sick or injured.

Running felt better and stronger. Swimming felt like I hope I don’t catch Covid. I’m still remarkably tired each day – waiting for that to get better.

The weather for tomorrow kinda sucks. Not sure what I’ll do about my planned 4-hour swim. Most important right now is not to hurt myself and to continue to get rest. Guess I’ll see how it looks tomorrow. (An added problem – Beryl bikes seem to have disappeared, so I may need to run/walk over to the swim. Harder than riding. And I’ll have to walk back. This not only takes more energy, but more time taken away from recovery.

Sat July 2 (~9000 M) 3 h OW; 2.2 mi ride, 2.2 mi walk (no bikes allowed after 10 AM now)

OW Swim

• 8-11 AM
• 9 K
• 60 degree air
• 18 degree water
• Choppy, windy, cloudy conditions
• Temp before: 35.8

Temp after: 35.3

Let’s just say, I felt way better after this swim than I did before this swim. I was in quite the funk about it. But it went fine. It was planned for 4 hours, but 3 hours in those conditions felt like enough for a taper. I’m making this up as I go along.

A few hours later – OK, I really did forget how much easier it is to swim for 3, or even 4, hours instead of 7. I have so much of my day left!

Sun July 3 (~12.6K) 4 h; 4.4 mi walk (no bikes)

OW Swim

• 8-Noon
• 12.6 K
• High 50’s to low 60’s air
• 18 degree water
• Conditions – much flatter, but pretty slappy a lot of the time. Strong current the long direction.
• Temp Before: 35.0
• Temp After: 35.2

This was quite tiring. I did one hour fast/one hour easy twice through and the third lap was pretty discouraging. Whether that was due to me or conditions is up for grabs.

On the other hand, when I think about how nervous I was about completing my first 10K a scant few years ago, and the fact that I am now doing 12K+ swims as taper, it’s pretty amazing.