What did I do to further my channel goals yesterday? Well, I found this article: https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1113/jphysiol.1963.sp007282
It heartened me greatly considering that it showed (albeit with a small sample size) that humans can acclimatize to heat AND cold at the same time. Good news for someone attempting to train for a channel swim in North Carolina. Today I plan to survey the literature further, but I at least have hope that I will be able to continue to use running and cycling as cross-training. Loretta’s views (lots and lots of swimming) are pretty standard, but I’ve gotten to know my shoulders pretty well over the years, and there’s only so much they will take. Knowing that I can at least be working on aerobic fitness with crosstraining makes me worry less about exactly how much I’ll be able to swim.
A more recent study that supports the two-week acclimatization time: https://www.jci.org/articles/view/68993
A recent review (wordy): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4861193/