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This one’s for you, Blithe

Bad jokes are back this week!

Where does Santa Clause go swimming?

The North Pool

What did the Christmas trees wear to the lake?

Swimming trunks

Hey you out there! – Do you have contacts at BJ’s Wholesale or Nesquik?

So, we’ve been joking about how Nesquik and my peanut butter should be my sponsors – this week, I took a shot 🙂

The two products I’ll be leaving behind that I can’t live without (hyperbole, but not by much!) are BJ’s Wellsley Farms Organic Peanut Butter and Nesquik Low Fat Chocolate Milk in bottles. I contacted them this week, and the response from BJ’s was to have family ship the PB to me. Of course I’ve thought of that already, and it’s a pain for people to have to do for me. Likewise, I suspect showing up at customs with 30 jars of peanut butter would raise some eyebrows. 

The thing is, the random customer care representative that happens to get my message is unlikely to care about my quest (and it’s need for nothing but the best of fuels 🙂 ), so if anyone has any ideas about getting my plea sent up the chain, let me know. I’m not even asking for sponsorship (although I wouldn’t turn it down), just a way to get their product shipped to England. And I’m more than happy to list them as sponsors in return!

Here’s the email I sent to Nesquik – feel free to give feedback on my technique as well:

“Hello,

I have a question I’m fairly sure you’ve never gotten before. My name is Laura Goodwin, and I’m training to swim the English Channel (a very tough athletic challenge – fewer people have done it than have climbed Mount Everest).

For marathon swimmers like myself, it is essential to find out what works well for us to eat/drink while swimming long distances in lakes and oceans. For me, it turns out to be bottles of Nesquik low fat chocolate milk. I just completed 6 hours of swimming in 60-degree water, and the only thing I consumed was Nesquik. 

As part of the adventure of swimming the Channel, I also plan to live in England from March-August 2022. Looking around on the web, it doesn’t look as if the pre-made bottles are available there, so I have two questions:

1. Is it possible to ship Nesquik bottles to England? Or to order them there?

2. Would you be interested in sponsoring my swim by providing me with Nesquik product?

I’m interested in either, and very much appreciate your time!

Laura”

I haven’t heard back yet.

On the bright side of sponsorship, I just bought a great parka. I let them know how much I liked it, and mentioned that I thought there might be a market for a warmer version… and now they are considering having me work on a prototype with them that I can use for training and the EC swim and that they might then offer as part of an expanded line of parkas! I’ll keep you in the loop!

And I’ll go ahead and say – if you are a woman looking for a well-fitting, good-looking, quality parka – I totally recommend them: https://wottergear.com

Like Clockwork

I know this won’t be haha funny to anyone else, but it is quite comical to me that it always takes me exactly 45 minutes to get warmed up. I go from slogging along to feeling amazing right on the dot. And when I check the time, it’s always 45 minutes. During Thursday’s practice we were doing some 100’s DPS – we were supposed to keep our stroke count under 14 per 25 and under 54 per 100. I had been hitting it right on, when suddenly I was holding 12 strokes per lap easily. I looked at the clock and, sure enough, 4:15 PM.

Amazing December Day at the Beach

With air in the 70s and water in the upper 50s, it was hard to find fault with Saturday’s swim. I drove down with Sam, and it is crazy how much the time flies when we go together. Plus, we’re working on solving all of the world’s problems – we’ll get back to y’all.

Sam, Henry, Mary Anne, Burak and Liz joined. Mike made it too… just a little late, so we did a warm-up lap while we waited.

I was really glad that Burak was up for going pier-to-pier and back. I turned my GPS off a little late, but I was also measuring considerably less yardage than other folks, so I’m gonna say it was about 2 hours and in the neighborhood of 5500 yards. It was definitely more than 3 miles, since we swam spiral staircase to green house and back, plus the warm-up lap.

We swam south from Johnny Mercer against the wind – but it was so much easier than two weeks ago that I didn’t mind a bit. I was just happy to be going making any progress after the treadmill of my 6-hour swim. My shoulders got a little tight a little after the halfway point, so I was glad to have the wind at my back after that. They felt better by the end.

I embraced the fact that my hands got cold as we stopped and chatted from time to time – then I practiced trying to maintain a good pace with claw hands (although the left was much more clawed than the right). I find that focusing on using my core to help pull my arm through the stroke seems to work well. And of course, getting my core tight and up, and kicking.

I warmed up before we even got to the car. Thanks to B for the use of a shower and to Dockside for their amazing shrimp and grits – best recovery meal ever, especially in combination with the artichoke goat cheese dip with warm pita points. And of course, thanks to S for the great company!

I feel pretty good the day after – tennis balling went better than it has all week. My neck was a little sore (a couple of washing machine sections really got it yesterday), but it seems to be loosening up. Good news, since I start Christmas training tomorrow (shakes in her boots).

England Business (Dec 13-19)

I’m getting very busy with England business, and going through all of my to-do’s this week made me realize that I may not have as much time to keep up with this blog in the next two months – we’ll see how it goes…

12/13 – Wrote an article for the NC Masters newsletter – part of getting (partially) reimbursed for the coaches clinic. And wrote and posted this week’s blog post. And picked a sick A up at school and stopped by covid testing (negative) on the way home.

With the 7 minutes I have left – looking at housing in Bournemouth

12/14 – Looked at more properties. The one I like is working on going under contract. It’s only December, so I’m letting it go, but I should email that company to let me know if they have more. Still waiting to hear back from J about the rules of renting. I may have to plan to go over to England earlier so I can look for places and do the rent check in person.

12/15 – Flats – checked out all of the rental sites and signed up for email alerts on all. Posted an ad on Gumtree. Emailed my agent contact again. Contacted the agent for a place that I will rent tomorrow if they let me. Sent an email to snooze each day with links to everywhere I want to keep an eye on.

I also was part of a 2.5-hour zoom call with Bill Boomer. His health is not good, but his mind is sharp and it was great to listen to an innovator in our sport. I didn’t always agree, but I like anything that makes me think.

12/16 – Worked a bit more on flat letting. Called the agency with the flat we want to rent – they sent the application and I filled it out and sent it back. Gumtree took my ad down for some reason that I cannot fathom and then the site was down so I couldn’t go in and try to fix it.

12/17 – More lettings – I finally just called a random agent and asked about getting on their list. She said it is too early, and the apartment that had her agency listed (although I called on a whim) currently had 5 good candidates at the viewing. This is San Francisco 2000 all over again. Oy.

In my searches (actually while I was trying to figure out why my ad was rejected from Gumtree… turns out, no reason and now they’ve posted it) I saw that a couple who posted a Property Wanted add was currently in a hotel for £1000 a month. So there’s always that.

Basically, I’m expanding my efforts in all directions simultaneously, trying to figure out what will work. I’m thinking about going ahead and booking a (cancelable) airbnb for the first couple of weeks in case we need to be there in person to actually secure a place.

I also emailed the contact M gave at Park School for “nearly new” uniforms. Considering the boys will be at school for only one semester, I’d be happy with “not even nearly new.” 

Now on to going through all of my lists to see where I’m at…

OK, I finally went through all of my EC lists and put together a coherent Master Timeline with all of the action items I’ve thought of so far. It’s intimidating but not undoable. I also did a bunch of little stuff as I went through the lists, emailing contacts about stuff, etc. 

It’s funny, for those reading this blog who are interested in doing a channel swim, we haven’t even gotten to the to-do stuff that you’ll be interested in (unless you also want to move your family to England for 6 months), but I’ve done so much already. But fear not, all of that England Business is coming soon!

But for now, on to the 18 other things I have to do 🙂

Final note – I was super productive today… and boy did I feel like it had been long week by the time I got to practice. The research on perceived effort after doing mentally draining tasks is really resonating with me.

12/18 – I don’t think I’ve mentioned – a good house to let was sent to my inbox by one of the direct-from-landlords sites on Friday. I contacted that landlord with my story and she asked for my WhatsApp details – I’m waiting to hear back. This seems like one of the most promising ways to find a place – directly through someone who connects with my (our) story.

The Week at the Pool

Summary

It was a build week, hard but good, and, at least so far, my shoulders are hanging in there. I realized after Wednesday’s practice that it has been quite awhile since I’ve felt good about a practice – but I felt good about that one.

I feel as if, at the age of 44, it is finally sinking in  that NOT going as fast as I possibly can all of the time might be a good strategy. But it’s not nearly as much fun as throwing myself at every swim that comes along.

Pool Yardage ~ 32,000

OW Yardage ~ 5500

Temp – 58-59 according to the Johnny Mercer NOAA buoy

Total Yardage ~ 37,500

The Gory Details

Monday 12/13 – Theme: Back to it (5000-5400)

I can’t remember for the life of me whether we did the 200 ez’s in question.

I felt yuck going into this practice, but better coming out of it.

• 1500 w-up (if I do the 600 swim at my preferred w-up pace, the boys lap me by 100. I find myself perfectly fine with that)
• 5×200 on 2:35 (fins)
• 200 ez
• 5×200 on 3:00 working on DPS, u/w, and breathing pattern. I managed to work my ass off on these – 12-13 strokes per 25, and the longer my strokes get, the less I get to breathe. Combine that with 3 kicks off each wall and I’m spent
• 200 ez?
• 5×100 on 1:15 (fins)
• 200 ez
• 5×200 kick on 3:45 (alternated fly/back by 25)
• 200 ez?
• 10×50 drill/build on 1:00 – started going ez on number 8 – last 10 minutes of practice
• 300 CD

Tuesday 12/14 – Theme: Tired now. Heck, tired then. (~6600)

• 1600 w-up
• 3x:
• 4×25 IM on :30
• 2×50 fly/bk;br/fr on :50
• 1×100 IM on 1:30
• 100 ez on 2:00
• 1x:
• 6×200 on 2:35
• 200 ez
• 4x: (all with fins – as written)
• 2×125 on 2:00
• 2×75 fly/bk/fr on 1:10
• 2×25 br w/flutter kick on :25
• 50 ez on 1:00
• 1x:
• 5×100 swim/L arm/R arm/swim

I skipped a 50 (goggles), but did it all as written and made the 200s. But I was nodding off by the end again 🙂

Wednesday 12/15 – Theme: Building, building, building… build-ING! (~7300)

• 200 ez (helped a lot)
• 1600 w-up
• 3x:
• 4×50 drill on :50
• 4×100 DPS (14 per 25; 54 per 100) 1:30
• 1x:
• 7×200 on 2:35 – was more than pleasantly surprised to accidentally be going 2:25-2:27 without trying too hard or hurting the shoulders
• 200 ez
• 1x:
• 8×100 on 1:25
• 6×100 on 1:20
• 4×100 on 1:15 (fins)
• 2×100 on 1:10 (fins)
• 400 CD

I felt really heavy going into this practice – heavy on land, heavy in the water. But during the 2nd round of 4×100 DPS everything suddenly came together and I felt pretty good. As mentioned above, the 200’s went better than expected – holding 1:12.5 is really good news to me at this point. I took it easy on the last set. I could have attacked it, but my mantra this week is “just swim” and “get ready for next week.” I felt a little dubious at the end, shoulder-wise, and fins were the right decision.

I’m feeling good now (mmmm shrimp pasta! Ahhhhh couch!) – we’ll see how I feel tomorrow.

Thursday 12/16 – Theme: We’re not in Kansas anymore (~6800)

• 200 ez (so necessary – very creaky today!)
• 1600 w-up
• 8×200 on 2:35 – see below
• 200 ez
• 3×250 Tiger IMs – kick, drill, swim (30 s rest)
• 1:00 rest
• 3×500 Tiger IMs – drill, swim, fins (45 s rest)
• 1:00 rest
• 10×50 back kick on 1:00
• 500 CD

I cannot emphasize enough how much harder today’s 200’s on 2:35 were than yesterday’s. I attribute it to 3 factors:

1. Coming off of yesterday’s practice
2. Them coming before my magical 45 minute warmed-up point
3. Not doing a set of drill and distance per stroke beforehand. I did not feel I was swimming as well, right from the get-go.

But I made them all (by a couple of seconds) even though it was a sufferfest, and I’m happy with the practice.

Friday 12/17 – Theme: Recovery? I made it recovery (~6000)

• 250 pre-w-up – felt even more… fragile(?) than yesterday. But did get warmed up
• 1600 w-up (on the side kick my R leg hurt from the groin to the knee. It loosened up as I went, but I couldn’t go fast.
• 9×200 on 2:35 – I had a decision to make here. I decided during warm-up that if this was the first set, I was going to wear fins. I figured I just wouldn’t be warmed up enough for my shoulder to handle this well, and I think I was right. (We didn’t even get a minute from the end of w-up to the start of the set either.) So I wore fins.
• 225 ez
• 4x:
• 12×25 (50s) off the blocks; IM order by 3s; climb out walk around on 1:00
• 100 ez on 2:00
• This was another decision point. I’ve learned the hard way that this set is no good when my shoulders are borderline. It’s just too much to sprint AND lift myself out of the pool over and over again and dive in over and over again. So I swam back in the secret lane.
• 425 cool down

I felt better able to lift my arms in the shower than I did after yesterday’s practice, so I’m calling it a win 🙂 OW swim tomorrow and Christmas training starts Monday!