Saturday 27 March 2021

Over 5 hours sub-60!!!!!!!!!

And it felt great. My arms are pretty sore, but considering that January and February consisted of 1500-yard practices 3x’s a week trying to rehabilitate my shoulder, I’ll take it! I only stopped wearing fins for everything two weeks ago. The cold was totally manageable – I could have gone on for days. And my chocolate milk fuel source worked great. I did double peanut butter banana toast for breakfast – that was great too.

Great day – huge confidence booster for the Channel. More details below. Great great great 🙂

But first…

Friday 26 March 2021

1. Packing for the beach is way harder than swimming

2. Really glad I don’t have to drive again for more than a week

3. Awesome loosen swim – thanks to Coach Bescher and the Wave swimmers for letting me tag along!

Great swim to loosen up after driving – about 45 minutes and 2700 yards. The water felt toasty.

It was really about 45 minutes – it took me forever to get the watch stopped 🙂

Only watch this if you like to hear the silence of someone trying to get their wet watch to end swim.

Saturday 27 March 2021 – A 5 hour tour

I was pretty intimidated by this swim. Definitely had trouble sleeping the night before. But as always (so far), I loved it once I was out there. Conditions were beautiful to start off and the Channel was like glass. Once I rounded the bend into the ocean at Coast Guard, things got much more interesting.

Alas, the swim seems to have (at least temporarily) killed my watch, so I can’t include the official stats, but it was 5 hours, 10 minutes and somewhere between 10 and 12 miles. Water temp between 55 and 58 I would say (edit: people’s watches ranged from 57-62. The warm patches were early in the swim – the ocean was colder than the Channel). Air temp between 65 and 75 as the day went on.

Details: Five of us swam the loop (Blockade Runner – Mott’s Channel – Lee’s Cut – Bank’s Channel). Then Henry and I swam down to Coast Guard, walked briefly across the Jetty. Henry walked the beach, keeping an eye on me while I swam Oceanside to Blockade Runner. My Mom took over at that point, walking while I swam back to our hotel. There I met Coach Bescher in a kayak and Burak and Michel in the water. We swam back down to the water tower and then all the way back to Burak’s place. At that point, they all took the kayak out and then Coach Bescher walked while I swam back down to my hotel. Phew.

Glad that this one is in the books! Thanks to everyone who came out and swam, and special thanks to Henry Singletary, Jonathan Bescher and my Mom for walking along the beach to help me make connections (and Coach Besch for braving getting a kayak into the ocean!)