When we finished the course it turns out that wifey was colder than I was. Up in the kayak she got plenty wet from the waves and the rain. Not to mention being exposed to the wind all that time.
Every swim so far this summer I've brought a small duffel bag full of warm clothes. I call it the bag of warmingness. And every time I've thought "today is such a nice warm day I'm never going to need all this stuff" and every time I've brought it along anyway. Well I was finally glad to have all those warm-up clothes. Wifey got all wrapped up in polar fleece. I was happy with a pair of shorts and a technical shirt.
I thought my nutrition worked pretty well. Big dinner followed by big breakfast meant I was feeling comfortably full for three hours or so. I had some squeezable things of apple sauce so I was able to get a little bit of substance into me during the swim. The rest of my feeds were just watered down apple juice, the same thing I'd been drinking on my long pool swims. If I'm planning to attempt more distance or time in the water I'm going to have to find more foods that work for me.
Showing posts with label Kingdom Swim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kingdom Swim. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Monday, July 9, 2012
Kingdom 10 miles
We start on shore in a mass start. The kayakers have already deployed and are waiting in a rough line between the first and second buoys. I hang back, like usual, because I do not wish to start a 10 mile swim by getting kicked in the head. When they blow the airhorn for the the start I take off at a jog into the water. I keep on wading until the water is up past my waist and then I dive forward, dolphin kick a few times, and start swimming. The start is a real jumble. I took a bad line at the beginning so I wandered off to the right and had to come back to get around the first buoy, but at least I was out of the mess for a little while. I rounded the buoy, after I got back into the churning mass of swimmers, and started passing kayakers on my left.
The kayakers were mostly lined up by number from 75 down to 1 so wifey should be around the fifteenth kayak I passed, or about a fifth of the way down the line. Well the kayakers were mostly in order, but there were a few lower numbers hiding out at the beginning of the line. As it turns out finding wifey in the kayak was no trouble. Trying to follow her once I did find her was the tricky part. With all the swimmers trying to join up with all their kayakers it was, possibly, more of a jumbled mess than the beach start. I crashed into one other kayak in the mess. Wifey kept getting boxed out by other kayakers and I would lose track of her.
We passed the buoy by the lighthouse that was the two mile mark in the Son of a Swim. I was still seeing other swimmers and kayakers but things were a little more open. I was feeling great. On the way to the next buoy we took a different line than most of the other swimmers, so things didn't bunch up again until we turned around the next bouy. At the next buoy we turned to the right and started across the lake west to east . This is a long straight stretch. Probably more than a mile between buoys. I'm still feeling good but I find this part a little frustrating. I have no reference points and I can't tell that we are making any progress.
The next buoy is somewhere off of the islands. We go around three small islands. Almost as soon as we turn around this buoy the character of the lake changes entirely. Suddenly I'm being tossed around by waves and we are being pushed toward shore. It is a struggle to get to the next buoy and turn south to complete the trip around the islands. After we turn we get some protection from the wind and I think that maybe there is only to one bad spot.
I was wrong about that. As we continue south past the protection of the islands the chop picks up again, The sky looks ominous. I get nervous thinking that the race will be halted due to the impending storm. Then I get nervous thinking the race won't be halted due to the impending storm. Meanwhile I'm swimming. As soon as we cleared the islands, and I realized this is what I would be swimming through for the next 4 miles or so, I threw all my time goals out the window. Later wifey told me that I was right on pace up to that point. But I find great freedom in not finding out until later.
I couldn't tell that it was raining, but it was. I could see wifey's race bib and hat whipping in the wind. I could see whitecaps all around me. And so it went for another long straight stretch. Maybe with more training these kinds of conditions will affect me less, but I find it takes me more effort to swim slower through rough water.
Occasionally I would ask wifey for reassurance that we were, in fact, making progress. I honestly couldn't tell. She assured me that we were moving forward, we were right on course, and I would have another feeding in nine minutes. Nine minutes could have been nineteeen or thirty or five. I had no concept of time.
Dory from Finding Nemo is singing in my head.
Then wifey told me when we got around that buoy we would be able to see the town. This sounded like a good thing. When she pointed to the buoy, I could actually see it. When we got around the buoy wifey could see the town just fine. What was even more exciting to me is I could see the next, and penultimate bouy.
You can be sure I was not using words like penultimate at this point. But I could see the penultimate buoy because it was much closer than the other buoys had been spaced. Also, having come around a point of land, there was partial protection from the wind and waves. In order to resist the temptation to keep sighting on the buoy and wasting energy I decided I would not peek for at least one hundred strokes. I lost count. Started again. Best guess, there were maybe 700 strokes between the third to last and second to last buoys.
At this point I could actually see the beach, the tent where there was food. But I still had to go around the last buoy. This is the same buoy off the beach that we went around right at the start of the race. I'm pretty sure they didn't move it while I was out on the course. I'd like to say that I poured it on to finish strong. But that is not true. I plodded along like I had been doing for hours. Rounded the final buoy and headed for shore. I had to adjust my course three times between the last bouy and the finish on the beach. The wind was giving me one last push. Wifey peeled off to my right to get to the kayak landing area. I swam until my fingers hit bottom and then I swam a few more strokes. I stood up feeling less wobbly than I expected and stumbled up onto the beach.
Partly I stumbled because I was tired. But mostly because there was a long orange kayak cutting in front of me. One volunteer asked the kayaker to please not trip the swimmers, another one recorded my finish and a third one gave me some blue gatorade.
I found my cheering section: Mom, Dad and baby son. And when they asked me how I felt I told them my most pressing concern.
"I require chocolate"
The kayakers were mostly lined up by number from 75 down to 1 so wifey should be around the fifteenth kayak I passed, or about a fifth of the way down the line. Well the kayakers were mostly in order, but there were a few lower numbers hiding out at the beginning of the line. As it turns out finding wifey in the kayak was no trouble. Trying to follow her once I did find her was the tricky part. With all the swimmers trying to join up with all their kayakers it was, possibly, more of a jumbled mess than the beach start. I crashed into one other kayak in the mess. Wifey kept getting boxed out by other kayakers and I would lose track of her.
We passed the buoy by the lighthouse that was the two mile mark in the Son of a Swim. I was still seeing other swimmers and kayakers but things were a little more open. I was feeling great. On the way to the next buoy we took a different line than most of the other swimmers, so things didn't bunch up again until we turned around the next bouy. At the next buoy we turned to the right and started across the lake west to east . This is a long straight stretch. Probably more than a mile between buoys. I'm still feeling good but I find this part a little frustrating. I have no reference points and I can't tell that we are making any progress.
The next buoy is somewhere off of the islands. We go around three small islands. Almost as soon as we turn around this buoy the character of the lake changes entirely. Suddenly I'm being tossed around by waves and we are being pushed toward shore. It is a struggle to get to the next buoy and turn south to complete the trip around the islands. After we turn we get some protection from the wind and I think that maybe there is only to one bad spot.
I was wrong about that. As we continue south past the protection of the islands the chop picks up again, The sky looks ominous. I get nervous thinking that the race will be halted due to the impending storm. Then I get nervous thinking the race won't be halted due to the impending storm. Meanwhile I'm swimming. As soon as we cleared the islands, and I realized this is what I would be swimming through for the next 4 miles or so, I threw all my time goals out the window. Later wifey told me that I was right on pace up to that point. But I find great freedom in not finding out until later.
I couldn't tell that it was raining, but it was. I could see wifey's race bib and hat whipping in the wind. I could see whitecaps all around me. And so it went for another long straight stretch. Maybe with more training these kinds of conditions will affect me less, but I find it takes me more effort to swim slower through rough water.
Occasionally I would ask wifey for reassurance that we were, in fact, making progress. I honestly couldn't tell. She assured me that we were moving forward, we were right on course, and I would have another feeding in nine minutes. Nine minutes could have been nineteeen or thirty or five. I had no concept of time.
Dory from Finding Nemo is singing in my head.
Then wifey told me when we got around that buoy we would be able to see the town. This sounded like a good thing. When she pointed to the buoy, I could actually see it. When we got around the buoy wifey could see the town just fine. What was even more exciting to me is I could see the next, and penultimate bouy.
You can be sure I was not using words like penultimate at this point. But I could see the penultimate buoy because it was much closer than the other buoys had been spaced. Also, having come around a point of land, there was partial protection from the wind and waves. In order to resist the temptation to keep sighting on the buoy and wasting energy I decided I would not peek for at least one hundred strokes. I lost count. Started again. Best guess, there were maybe 700 strokes between the third to last and second to last buoys.
At this point I could actually see the beach, the tent where there was food. But I still had to go around the last buoy. This is the same buoy off the beach that we went around right at the start of the race. I'm pretty sure they didn't move it while I was out on the course. I'd like to say that I poured it on to finish strong. But that is not true. I plodded along like I had been doing for hours. Rounded the final buoy and headed for shore. I had to adjust my course three times between the last bouy and the finish on the beach. The wind was giving me one last push. Wifey peeled off to my right to get to the kayak landing area. I swam until my fingers hit bottom and then I swam a few more strokes. I stood up feeling less wobbly than I expected and stumbled up onto the beach.
Partly I stumbled because I was tired. But mostly because there was a long orange kayak cutting in front of me. One volunteer asked the kayaker to please not trip the swimmers, another one recorded my finish and a third one gave me some blue gatorade.
I found my cheering section: Mom, Dad and baby son. And when they asked me how I felt I told them my most pressing concern.
"I require chocolate"
Kingdom Swim
So
this weekend was Kingdom Swim. This was The Big Event. I'll have a few more
swims this season but nothing else comparable to this. I can't recommend this
swim highly enough. The atmosphere is fun and friendly. They let me register
for the 10 mile back in January when I only did my qualifying swim three weeks
ago. I also saw some familiar
faces from some of my earlier swims.
Who:
IROC and NEKOWSA
What:
Kingdom Swim 10 mile
When:
July 7 2012
Where:
Newport VT on Lake Memphremagog
Why:
Because I wanted to do a big impressive swim
Monday, June 18, 2012
Big lake swimming
So this was the biggest and the smallest event that I've done so far. Eight swimmers altogether. Four doing six miles and, I think, two each doing 4 miles and 2 miles. The official water temperature they gave us just before the start was 65 degrees. We suited up, greased up, and we got a group photo just a little before the start. Looking at it now it is not obvious that I am nervous. But I most definitely was.
We got the kayaks launched and the wind pushed them off to the right. The eight of us waded just past knee deep into the water and then, as one, hesitated. I stood there thinking how very cold the water felt and wondering if I could really do 6 miles at this temperature. Then Phil sounded the horn on his boat and it was time to stop being nervous and start swimming. It was a pretty good jumble. As much of a jumble as you can make with only 8 swimmers and 8 kayaks. I just pointed myself at the first buoy and tried not to cause any collisions. I figured wifey, who was my kayaker, would be able to pick me up after the buoy. As it turned out, she picked me right up even before the buoy. As I made the turn and set out for the second buoy I caught a look at one other swimmer already way out ahead of me. That was the last time I saw another swimmer. It was just me and wifey in the kayak. Not exactly typically romantic but I kept thinking how wonderfully sweet it was.
The third bouy was also the one mile mark, and just past it I had my first feed. I had prepared six bottles apple juice, diluted about 50/50. They had around 12oz each. I expected that would be more than I would want at most of my feedings. But when I got the first one, sun warmed and sweet, I eagerly drank every drop.
I got my second feeding at the fourth buoy, which was also the 2 mile mark, and again I drank the whole thing. By the third mile I was actually feeling pretty good. I was beginning to think I could do some real distance at this temperature. When we arrived at the last buoy which was the three mile mark I saw Phil in his boat. I guess he was taking pictures. He asked me how the water was and I told him it wasn't bad. He shouted that it was all downhill from here. I got another feeding and we set off on the return trip.
Downhill, maybe but upwind. In fairness it was not such a terribly strong wind. And the chop it was generating as not all that big. But it was enough to feel a big difference. Mile 4 was considerably more difficult than mile 3. But it was not until the 4 mile mark that I had some real problems. Wifey grabbed the next bottle for feeding but with sunscreen on her hands she could not pop off the little plastic cap. After struggling for a minute we decided that I should give it a try. Wifey came back around and right when she was about to give me the bottle my left calf cramped up. It came on so powerfully I barely had the presence of mind to not grab the kayak. This was a serious, potentially swim ending, cramp. It took me several tries before I finally was able to stretch it out. Right when I thought I had fixed it, it cramped right back up again. I guess the cold water was having more of an effect than I had thought a mile earlier.
Once I finally got my leg sorted out. I got the bottle from wifey and, not being in a mood to mess around, simply bit the cap right off and, once again, drained it. The fifth mile was still upwind and right into the chop. And most of the time I was doing a funny lopsided kick to keep my leg from cramping up. At the 5 mile mark wifey was kind enough to bite the cap off for me for what should be my last feed of the swim. At this point I could feel a colder layer of water just an arms length below the surface. I was afraid to tread water for more than a moment because I thought the colder layer might cause my leg to cramp up again. I think that was the only bottle that I didn't drain. I was starting to feel an empty feeling in my stomach but rather than mess around with more solid food I decided to just bring it home and eat on shore. For most of the last mile I could feel that colder layer below me. My stroke would bring my fingers through it almost every time. The last mile was the only time I bothered to sneak a peak at the next buoy. It was also the only time I swam into the kayak. We finally rounded the last buoy and I didn't even try to make a sprint into shore. I just kept my stroke going, then there were lake weeds reaching up to graze my belly. And then the shore, which never seemed to get any closer was there. I grabbed the ground with both hands and got my feet under me. I waded out of the water to the cheers of the 4 milers and the one 6 miler that I had lost sight of more than three hours back.
Then I made a beeline for the car where I knew I had a chocolate bar.
We got the kayaks launched and the wind pushed them off to the right. The eight of us waded just past knee deep into the water and then, as one, hesitated. I stood there thinking how very cold the water felt and wondering if I could really do 6 miles at this temperature. Then Phil sounded the horn on his boat and it was time to stop being nervous and start swimming. It was a pretty good jumble. As much of a jumble as you can make with only 8 swimmers and 8 kayaks. I just pointed myself at the first buoy and tried not to cause any collisions. I figured wifey, who was my kayaker, would be able to pick me up after the buoy. As it turned out, she picked me right up even before the buoy. As I made the turn and set out for the second buoy I caught a look at one other swimmer already way out ahead of me. That was the last time I saw another swimmer. It was just me and wifey in the kayak. Not exactly typically romantic but I kept thinking how wonderfully sweet it was.
The third bouy was also the one mile mark, and just past it I had my first feed. I had prepared six bottles apple juice, diluted about 50/50. They had around 12oz each. I expected that would be more than I would want at most of my feedings. But when I got the first one, sun warmed and sweet, I eagerly drank every drop.
I got my second feeding at the fourth buoy, which was also the 2 mile mark, and again I drank the whole thing. By the third mile I was actually feeling pretty good. I was beginning to think I could do some real distance at this temperature. When we arrived at the last buoy which was the three mile mark I saw Phil in his boat. I guess he was taking pictures. He asked me how the water was and I told him it wasn't bad. He shouted that it was all downhill from here. I got another feeding and we set off on the return trip.
Downhill, maybe but upwind. In fairness it was not such a terribly strong wind. And the chop it was generating as not all that big. But it was enough to feel a big difference. Mile 4 was considerably more difficult than mile 3. But it was not until the 4 mile mark that I had some real problems. Wifey grabbed the next bottle for feeding but with sunscreen on her hands she could not pop off the little plastic cap. After struggling for a minute we decided that I should give it a try. Wifey came back around and right when she was about to give me the bottle my left calf cramped up. It came on so powerfully I barely had the presence of mind to not grab the kayak. This was a serious, potentially swim ending, cramp. It took me several tries before I finally was able to stretch it out. Right when I thought I had fixed it, it cramped right back up again. I guess the cold water was having more of an effect than I had thought a mile earlier.
Once I finally got my leg sorted out. I got the bottle from wifey and, not being in a mood to mess around, simply bit the cap right off and, once again, drained it. The fifth mile was still upwind and right into the chop. And most of the time I was doing a funny lopsided kick to keep my leg from cramping up. At the 5 mile mark wifey was kind enough to bite the cap off for me for what should be my last feed of the swim. At this point I could feel a colder layer of water just an arms length below the surface. I was afraid to tread water for more than a moment because I thought the colder layer might cause my leg to cramp up again. I think that was the only bottle that I didn't drain. I was starting to feel an empty feeling in my stomach but rather than mess around with more solid food I decided to just bring it home and eat on shore. For most of the last mile I could feel that colder layer below me. My stroke would bring my fingers through it almost every time. The last mile was the only time I bothered to sneak a peak at the next buoy. It was also the only time I swam into the kayak. We finally rounded the last buoy and I didn't even try to make a sprint into shore. I just kept my stroke going, then there were lake weeds reaching up to graze my belly. And then the shore, which never seemed to get any closer was there. I grabbed the ground with both hands and got my feet under me. I waded out of the water to the cheers of the 4 milers and the one 6 miler that I had lost sight of more than three hours back.
Then I made a beeline for the car where I knew I had a chocolate bar.
Son of a Swim
Who: IROC and NEKOWSA
What: An official qualifier for Kingdom Swim
When: June 16th 2012
Where: Newport VT in Lake Memphremagog
Why: To qualify for the Kingdom 10-mile
The course is a simple out and back and it includes a 2, 4 and 6 mile option
What: An official qualifier for Kingdom Swim
When: June 16th 2012
Where: Newport VT in Lake Memphremagog
Why: To qualify for the Kingdom 10-mile
The course is a simple out and back and it includes a 2, 4 and 6 mile option
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