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Thank You Everyday

There are so many people I am thankful for this week. And I will likely post about them again and in detail, but I feel like I need to mention as many of the amazing acts of kindness and support as I can remember. If you have not been here yet and you should be, be assured that it is not that I don’t appreciate you – it’s just that my ability to brainstorm after any given week of hard training (50,000 yards!!) is not at its best.

Marcus et. al. – Last week I mentioned two people who were willing to have extended phone conversations with me out of the goodness of their hearts. To those I must certainly add Marcus, who has had not one but two conversations about training in Bournemouth and continues to answer my questions about moving there as the pop up. Kathleen, Jenny, Tracy and Melanie all generously talked to me about their EC swimming experiences – a lot on my to-do lists comes from those conversations 🙂 And JP lent me his connections and advice about shoulder stability over coffee.

Wave Coaches – There is simply no way that I would be feeling as prepared as I am at this point without the amazing generosity of the Wave coaches. Their coaching, technique advice, open water knowledge, all-round support and belief in me is beyond value. This will not be the last time I thank them, and they should know that I thank them in my head every single day.

My Masters Swimmers – Always interested, always supportive, always saving my shoulders by taking off covers and putting away clocks. Always inspiring me with their swims day after day.  I love you guys!

Lisa Hoff – This week, I saw on FB that Lisa Hoff has moved away from the area. Lisa was one of the first strangers that I told about my English Channel plans, and she was on board right away, helping me meet people and find places to train. When I started this insanity planity, I started taking notes about people, places, and things, just so I could keep everything straight in my head as I was drinking information from a fire hose. Here is what I wrote about Lisa in those notes: “Awesome, awesome person helping me to train OW for the channel. Gave me her free P2P fall 2019 entry, set me up with swim Wrightsville, drove with me, created my first Beaverdam experience.” So many thanks, Lisa, couldn’t be doing it without you!

Training Partners – You guys make me better every swim. Special shout out to Sam this week – that was an amazing swim and an incredibly fun trip!

The Little Things – A huge thank you to Burak, for parking, and especially for an outdoor shower at the end of a long, salty swim. A two-hour drive is infinitely more comfortable after a fresh-water rinse. And a thank you to my husband who, when I am too tired to move but so hungry I could die, brings amazing plates of food to the couch. And goes back for as many glasses of water as I need. Even when he is tired too. 

I don’t think either of them mind doing it, but it makes all the difference in the world. I’ve always heard that great achievement relies on the support of others, but I’ve always kind of wondered if that’s just great achievers trying to look magnanimous. No. Doing even this relatively minor achievement without the support of others would be impossible. (To be clear, dear husband, I am not saying that I can never put together my own fajitas 😉 Just after my first 50,000 yard week in 20 years.)

50,000 yards BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did I mention I did 50,000 yards this week? It’s possible I’m a wee mite proud about that. 

I am in the zone of successful Channel swimmers and I’m still holding together. I’m really happy. 

Random Thoughts

Algae beards, and those who remind us to rid ourselves of them 

I found this fun picture of me coming out of STL – the algae was fierce that day and we were quite a green group as we all climbed out: https://www.facebook.com/pierceproductionsILM/photos/a.1295299420914644/1295290964248823

Poem composed during an 800 at the end of practice

Ode to my hatred of flip turns

Oh, flip turns, how I loathe you,

Let me count the ways:

Just as I get into a rhythm, you come along to throw me off

The 14-year-old I was beating is now beating me

Tall people don’t have to swim as far as I

My neck hurts

I tell my swimmers that flips are real swimming… but you are not real swimming

I want to BREEEEEEEEEEEATHE!!!!!!!!!!!

My New Favorite Sets!

I had two really good days in the pool this week – Monday (above), and Thursday (below). Both of them gave me just enough rest that I could really nail the distance pace work. I was really jazzed after each.

3x:

• 5×100 1:20/1:15/1:10 
• 50 ez 1:00
• 10×50 :45/:40/:35
• 50 ez 1:00
• 20×25 :30/:25/:20
• 100 ez 3:00

(3rd round was with fins)

Wrightsville Beach 7-miler with Sam – What a Great Day

Another really amazing open water day. Sam drove over to my place and we headed to Wrightsville together. I’ve gotta say, as much as I’ve appreciated my Spanish podcast listening time, it was so nice to have company on the drive again. And such great company!

The plan was to swim with Burak and Michel, but when we arrived at Burak’s house, he had texted me to tell me he’d gone fishing. Where are your priorities, Burak? 🙂 But we were welcome to park in his driveway, as previously mentioned. Yay!

We decided to get right to it and headed off at 10:00 to swim the loop clockwise. Two notes for my future self – 1) Driving in turned out to be no problem – there was one lane closed off for the Wilmington Triathlon, but everything was flowing well. It took us about 2 hours 5 minutes to get there, so we hardly lost any time. 2) I tried the Wave Fastskin cap out in the OW for the first time. After using it in the pool a couple of times, I had hope that it was just flip turns that were making it ride up on my head. Alas, very, very not true. So I swam the loop with hair coming looser and looser. It was a great relief to change caps when we came back to Burak’s. So if I’m going to go that road, I need to try a bigger size. Unless I want to shave my head.

We got back to Burak’s just at noon – a pretty solid swimming of the loop for a relaxed pace with stops. We talked to a woman on what I think of as the “rest beach” right after the drawbridge. She had hear that the STL race was “really tough” two weeks ago – every time I hear that it makes me feel better. I really did wonder if it was just me. I also took some time through Lee’s cut to figure out sighting for the fastest route (recommended by the STL race director) – you know, just in case 🙂

We came back up to the house to look for Burak, but only found his lovely wife. Burak was still fishing. We had a nice chat with her, and then went to the car for me to get my other cap and Sam to get some food. And to discuss what to do next. Sam was interested in swimming around the peninsula, and I told her it was a really good time to try for it. We would still have a nice push behind us coming down Bank’s Channel, and once we crossed over if we got tired, we could just walk back along the beach. With air and water in the 70’s and a nice sunny day, this was the time to go for something that was a stretch. (i.e., NOT when we’d have to run along a 60-degree, windy beach, just trying to keep warm.)

Aside from some sea lice (damn you, sea lice!), it went great. The swim down the channel was a bit boat-y, but we just stayed out of their way by the docks. We hopped out at the Coast Guard station and walked through the dunes (I love doing that!), and found a clear, calm ocean – something I don’t have much experience with at Wrightsville. I really do take to the chop enthusiastically, knowing it is what I should be prepared for in the EC… but I don’t turn down a beautiful day and swim when it is handed to me.

After some discussion, we hopped back in and swam around Crystal Pier and up past the water tower – 7 miles of just awesome swimming.

(Another note for myself – I did have some unusual chafing – put a tube of vaseline in my open water bag. Also – I got a bit burnt. I can’t remember that ever happening at the end of October. I’ll have to up my sunscreen game.)

A former version of myself might have thought it was strange to describe a swim where my cap kept falling off, I was itchy from jellyfish larvae, and had significant and painful (in the salt) chafing as “awesome.” I think that watching other marathon swimmers take a wide variety of ridiculousness in stride really has helped me to rise above the small things and not let them get in the way of my enjoyment.

Plus, it never hurts to be writing this in a comfy chair in the company of a warm, soft cat 🙂

Bad Joke

Q:           Why did the vegetarians stop swimming?

A:            They didn’t like meets.

In honor of the Coastal Master’s FUNvitational that my swimmers will be competing in on Saturday, October 30th. Good luck everyone – let’s have fun!

England Business (Oct 18-22)

I didn’t do a lot of England stuff on Monday, but what I did seemed hard 🙂  I checked out NCVPS online school – doesn’t look like an option. I also emailed the 8th grade counselor at RCMMS for any information about online programs. It looks like Time 4 Learning is the way to go. The mentally tough part was emailing Bournemouth Collegiate to see what they have to say about the possibility of the kids enrolling there.

On Tuesday, I was more worried about Annihilation Tuesday than getting England things done. I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out a long ocean swim for the weekend. I love triathlons, but the Wilmington one led to a lot of false starts, back-and-forth, and second guessing. But it turned out OK 🙂

On Wednesday, one of the kids jumped into the pool and said, “I’m tired, I’m hungry, and everything hurts.” And on the inside I was like, ”Yes. That.” No England today. tired. So lesson learned – I cannot expect to be terribly productive the day after 12,000 yards… yet.

Thursday was more work on the kids’ school stuff – talked to E; heard back from Bournemouth Collegiate – they have space for J but not A – emailed for details. I also mined the docs that BCP Council sent for contact emails for every public (state) school in Bournemouth. It’s a long shot, but I sent them all emails asking about any “exchange” options. It only takes one yes…

And I left myself a note: Tomorrow – do the lists. Seriously. You’ll feel much better.

On Friday I made my way through everything in “The Channel” folder on my computer. I ran out of steam when I started going through my lists in Notes. A task for another day.

These notes make it all sounds so simple. And not time-consuming. It is time-consuming. And I should probably have blogged more about going through my notes – it was good to remind myself of all of the things I need to think about for the swim. (Seasickness. Crew seasickness. Packing. Feeds. Medications. Forms. Training plans. One million et ceteras.) I was very happy to find an awesome powerpoint that had been forwarded to me from a previous channel swimmer. He made it to read in his crew, but it is an awesome and fairly comprehensive summary of all of the logistics that go into this crazy swim.

I’m starting to feel pretty comfortable about managing the swimming part… the logistics still terrify me 🙂

The Week at the Pool

Summary – 50,000 yards, baby!

Pool yardage  ~38,900

OW swim 7.04 miles (~12,300 yards)

Temp – 74?

Total yardage ~51,000

OK, OK, I’m done with the celebrating now. This can be a grueling business – I think it’s good to revel in the occasional clear victories.

I’ve already talked about Monday’s and Thursday’s workouts above. Tuesday was just all about getting in the yards. It wasn’t particularly pretty, but it wasn’t terrible either. Wednesday was tough, and Friday was an abject disaster. But I’ll take one abject disaster in an otherwise great week.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my first good practice (the first one that felt really good, anyway) was on one of the first cool days of the season. I’m amazed that I was able to hold it together when the temps went back up on Thursday, and not at all surprised that I hit a brick wall in Friday’s heat. (Heat to me, you understand. “Heat” to everyone else.)

[Important note to myself: I’m struggled with foot cramps again during Tuesday’s 12,000 yard practice – I’m going to need to address that if it continues.]

I’ve left some summary stuff below – it was directly related to the practices. I am particularly happy about how well Thursday’s practice went, when I remember that I had to bribe myself off of the couch with pizza to get myself there.

The Gory Details

Monday 10/18 – Theme: 6400 yards of nailed it! (~6400)

OK, I’m gonna say it – I just spent an embarrassingly long time trying to figure out what font combination evoked the “nailed it” that I hear in my head.

150 loosen on my own (this continues to be really useful)

500 ez

6×100 IM (2 kick, 2 drill, 2 swim)

6×50 descend by twos (:37, :36, :36… sigh)

• 100 on 2:00
• 100 on 1:20 (1:16)
• 100 on 2:00
• 200 on 2:40 (2:32)
• 100 on 2:00
• 300 on 4:00 (3:48)
• 100 on 2:00
• 400 on 5:20 (5:04)
• 100 on 2:00
• 500 on 6:40 (6:20)
• 100 on 2:00
• 500 on 6:40 (6:14)
• 100 on 2:00
• 400 on 5:20 (5:00)
• 100 on 2:00
• 300 on 4:00 (3:45)
• 100 on 2:00
• 200 on 2:40 (2:25)
• 100 on 2:00
• 100 on 1:20 (1:08)

So 1:16’s on the way up, 1:15’s on the way down, and it felt great. I was so solid, not under pressure, and felt like I held new new stroke together well. Even when I picked it up at the end on the 200 and 100.

I was very, very tempted to go in the 1:15 lane for this set, but this was absolutely the right decision. I just finished the collected blogs of Sarah Thomas, and she talks about getting sort of accidentally faster after coming back from cancer. I think sometimes when you relax and just go, you build the base that you need to then swim to the next level. That’s my plan. Even if I stay here, I’ll be happy, but no reason not to keep my eyes on lane 3.

25 ez

8×25’s sprint IM order – blocks and running dives. Wheeeee!

525 CD

Last night at the pool and this morning were the first times I’ve been cold in, what, 5 months? It was glorious.

Tuesday 10/19 – Theme: Annihilation Tuesday (~12,000)

Practice 1 – Theme: What? (~1500)

I kept coming in after John had already given the set, so I made it up a bit

• 500 w-up
• 400 IM Drill
• 8×75 kick/perfect/build – odd free; even back – 1:15

Practice 2 – Theme: IM Recovery (~6600)

• 1800 w-up
• 4x(25 st :25 / 100 fr 1:25 / 50 st :50 / 100 fr 1:25 / 75 st 1:15 / 100 fr 1:25 / 100 st 1:40 / 100 fr 1:25)
• IM order (extra :5/25 for BR)
• 200 ez
• 8×225 rotating IM on “3:15”
• 200 CD

Practice 3 – Theme: Back and Breast are the Best (~3000)

• 100 ez
• 200 w-up
• 18×25 u/w to half way (socks, fins, nothing) (:45 : 40 :35?) fins – foot cramps
• 6×25 off the blocks (counted as 50’s – climbing out and walking around is harder than swimming 🙂
• 8×25 drill BK (rotation, L, 3 switch, dPS)
• 3×100 Bk on 1:45 (held 1:20s. foot cramps)
• 100 ez
• 5×100 BR – 50 2-kick/50 swim on 2:15. Held 1:35s
• 8×75 – odd 50 bk/25 br; even 25 bk/50 br
• 4 on 1:20; 4 on 2:00 – held 1:00 / 1:03
• 300 cool down

Practice 4 – Theme: Finishing up (~900)

• 200 w-up
• 8×25 Free drill
• 4×50 DPS
• 2×100 DPS (still going under 1:20’s)
• 100 CD

I struggled with foot cramps in gold group again. May have to do something about this if it continues.

**Remember to bring light goggles to switch into next week

Wednesday 10/20 – Theme: I am annihilated (~6600)

It wasn’t hard… but it felt it after yesterday.

• 1600 W-up
• 175 ez
• 10×25 sprint on 1:00 from a dive (counting the climb out, walk arounds as 25’s. Frankly, I think they should count more 🙂 
• 100 ez 2:00
• 8×50 IM order :50
• 100 ez 2:00
• 6×100 free 1:20 (surprised to hold 1:15s)
• 100 ez 2:00
• 4×200 IM 3:00
• 100 ez 2:00
• 2×400 free 6:20 (so generous) (held 1:17 on #1, 1:15 (barely) on #2)
• 100 ez 2:00
• 1×800 12:40 (thought this was on 10:40 so held 1:19s (comfortably))
• 400 ez
• 2×50 one arm (it might have looked like breaststroke on my back)

Thursday 10/21 – Theme: Laura Likes Distance Day (~7200)

I fell asleep before practice and had to bribe myself off of the couch with pizza. But I actually had a great practice. Maybe I’ll stop being scared of them at some point 🙂

• 150 ez (really helps)
• 1600 w-up
• 3x:
• 5×100 1:20/1:15/1:10 (1:15 round went 1:12 1:12 1:13 1:13 1:14) went 1:07’s 1:08’s w/fins, trying not to cramp (first was 1:05
• 50 ez 1:00
• 10×50 :45/:40/:35
• 50 ez 1:00
• 20×25 :30/:25/:20
• 100 ez 3:00
• (3rd round was with fins)
• 400 cd

I made the whole damn thing.

Friday 10/22 – Theme: And… it’s gone (~6700)

• 150 ez
• 1600 w-up
• 4×400 on 5:20 – didn’t make them
• 100 ez on 2:00 – did a 50
• 4×300 no free IM on 5:20
• 100 ez on 2:00
• 4×200 on 2:35 – made the first one, missed the rest
• 100 ez on 2:00
• 4×100 IM on 1:35
• 100 ez
• 500 kick
• 200 cd

Funnily enough, now that I’m home and out of the shower, I actually feel pretty good. But, boy, did I have no get up and go. And my stroke was a mess, despite my best efforts. My stroke count was up to 16 and 17 – terrible.

I swam the 600 in w-up with Hayden – that was the last thing that felt OK 🙂