Uncle Dan has as many creative words as he does dances. Laguna was “pancakalicious” - extremely flat. There were stand-up paddlers everywhere and the fog-dulled morning sun made the calm water shimmer. We were all smiles until we hit the 59-degree water, my dad laughing at us in his running clothes. Our normal cold-water frenzied race to the main beach buoy continued much longer than usual and by the time we reached the turn around point we were gasping for air. We continued to push the pace on the way back to bird rock, turned around, and full-on sprinted back to the buoy, practicing our open water racing finishes. We were exhausted at the end of the hour when my dad met us at the buoy, and all swam back in easy.

After my almost 48-hours of pure inactive rest, and a light pool workout on Monday, my shoulder felt great, even at that pace. It felt amazing to push that hard, even if just for an hour, and feel okay. I headed over to the gym to do my therapy and weights, but at a much lighter volume. So far the week looks promising, and aside from the cold temperature, I’m on track for a big 5+5 weekend.

This blog post is the story of how in two weeks I went from being miserably out of shape to overtrained and on the brink of injury. After a month off, traveling Europe with Scott and recovering mentally from my New York swim, I returned to the water feeling heavy and slow. I set out on an aggressive 5 week training plan that would get me back into marathon swimming shape. This included, but was not limited to, two interval workouts in the pool, two short ocean swims, two long ocean swims, two weight/therapy workouts, and two cross training workouts (bike or run) - per week. I started immediately, and did pretty much that for two weeks. As though the sheer quantity was not enough, I returned to the amount of weight I had been lifting before I had left. I was making up for lost time; I was working hard.

I should have noticed something was off on Thursday, when I uncharacteristically took the day off because I was exhausted and knew what was coming on Friday - a 6 hour swim. My mom and I set out from CDM Friday afternoon (afternoon in hopes of catching choppier water to better prepare me for the rough conditions I will likely face in Hawaii and Catalina). The water was extremely flat for 1:30 in the afternoon, but the temperature had dropped. The first 45 minutes was under 60, and I was going much quicker than my normal 6 hour pace. I had begun to reassess what Plan B would be if the water temperature did not warm up as we traveled south. Luckily, Crystal Cove was a balmy 62 so we decided to stick to Plan A, the full 6 hour swim. The current pushed us swiftly towards Emerald Bay, where the temperature suddenly dropped to 58 max. We reached Seal Rock in 2:15, record pace, so decided to turn around since the current would be against us just as strongly as it had aided, not to mention the fact that I was losing feeling in my toes. I pressed on, anxiously wanting to get back to Crystal Cove’s inviting waters. As I regained sensation in my extremities, my shoulder began to throb. It was not unusually rough, why was this happening? Had I taken it out too hard? How will I be able to deal with swims I’m doing that will be twice this long and hard?!? The pain worsened and by the time we reached CDM I was in tears - not just from the pain but from the prospect that I may fail. My mom’s encouragement settled me down, and I freestyled and backstroked to the finish. Doing backstroke was so humbling, but I literally could not pull without a twinge of pain in my left shoulder. We called the swim off early, another stab at my pride. (Side note: the green line on the GPS graph, below the map, shows my pace - notice how much higher it is on the first half compared to the second. This is due to both current and my sorry decline in speed.)

On the way home I began to reflect and reassess what was going on. Is my long swim progression too steep? Is the rest of the training too aggressive? Am I lifting too much? Did I just have a bad day? I decided to take some weight off in the gym, and reduce the swimming volume - either less pool yardage or one less ocean swim. I will reevaluate the long swims as the weekend approaches, depending on what my body says.

Now the more pressing question - what about my 2 hour swim tomorrow? I called Uncle Dan and told him we would have to be flexible, and the length of our swim would depend on how I was feeling. He made it crystal clear that he was a-okay with cutting it down to an hour and a half - or less! It was getting late, so I ate, iced, took ibuprofen, and slept for 9 hours. In the morning, I took another dose of ibuprofen and drove to Laguna, feeling rejuvenated and ready to try this again. We started out super slow, even though it was no warmer than 59. We turned around after 45 minutes, just in case we needed to cut it short, and came back stronger. I could feel the pace building, and the closer we got to Laguna the more refreshed I felt. As we approached the main beach buoy we approached our normal 1-hour pace. The buoy, where we normally stop and decide what to do next, came into view; we breathed towards each other to see the other’s reaction, and both kept going - onto Bird Rock. Not a far swim, but more of a symbolic victory for feeling great and doing the extra. Although we ended the swim at 1:45 and 3.75 miles, I finished feeling great and better than before I started. It was a completely opposite feeling than the one I had the day before. I felt better knowing that a large part of the day before was nothing more than just one of those bad days. Yes I still need to make some changes - train smarter and watch the overtraining - but that swim restored my wavering confidence that I can complete my big swims this summer.

I’ve now had a full day and a half off of all physical activity - and it will be almost 48 hours of rest by the time I hop in the pool tomorrow morning. I’ll ride my bike there as one of my cross training sessions. My goal in the pool is to focus on technique and train SMART!

Today Uncle Dan really put on a show at Laguna. As we entered the water, we realized that the temperature had plummeted to an unexpected sub-60 degrees - a shocker for late July, and one that we had not anticipated. Typically, Uncle Dan’s way of coping with this is to do some crazy song and/or dance while getting in. Today, the performance was Beyonce’s Single Ladies. I captured this phenomenon in a series of photos before the swim, and after he put on a special encore and I got a video. There are also some pictures from my weekend swim with Chris and David, two of my teammates doing the Swim22 Catalina channel event.

After my daily dose of swimming combined with entertainment, I went for a run and then lifted at the J. Quite the workout day, but still feeling a bit sluggish from my time off and need to play catch up. Tomorrow I’ll ride my bike to and from WWAC for a pool workout. Assuming the temperature rebounds, the agenda for this weekend is a 6 hour swim on Friday and a 2 hour swim on Saturday.

The 4-by-Catalina crossing is also being referred to as EACH2O = Extreme Adventure Challenge in the water. Check out each2o.net and swim22.net for the latest news about this great adventure the four of us are training for and our primary beneficiary, Jay Nolan Community Services. Spread the word about this never been done before event!

My website is currently under construction to reflect my upcoming summer swims, but in the meantime I wanted to share a very special and exciting event I will be a part of. I will be joining the 3 swimmers pictured below in an extreme adventure challenge: each of us will swim the Catalina Channel back to back, relay style. David (left) will be starting the swim on the mainland. Mike (right) will follow David; I’ll be going third, and Chris (middle) will anchor the relay-style 4-person contagious crossing.

They approached me prior to my Manhattan Island race asking if I would be interested in completing the team. After asking them all of my questions and making sure they are serious (they are!), I decided I would love to help and be a part of this momentous and challenging event. Our collective crossings will likely take at least 48 hours, so logistics will be tricky. As the only person who has previously crossed the Catalina Channel, I got one of the two, possibly three, legs that will necessarily take place mostly in the choppy, windy afternoon. David, starting first, has the other one. None of these swims will be easy; they all come with challenges - not least of which is the uncertainty of where and when each swimmer will start - but the stakes are high. While this endeavor will be extremely difficult to plan and execute, it will be the first event of it’s kind done on any channel. The team and I are looking forward to making history, and for a cause as extraordinary as our event. Proceeds will benefit Jay Nolan Community Services, a wonderful group dedicated to assisting the developmentally disabled. This organization does great work for the people that will be serving as our motivation as we cross the Catalina Channel, and all of us are so excited to be doing something wonderful with our passion for swimming. The event’s website is swim22.net - check it out!

The Daily News of Open Water Swimming featured an article about our swim: http://www.dailynewsofopenwaterswimming.com/2010/06/quadruple-catalina-channel-attempt.html
Also, The Signal: http://www.the-signal.com/section/20/article/31099/

As far as training goes, yesterday Chris and I swam 4 hours at CDM with my mom in the kayak. Below are pictures from the swim. Then today we met David at Manhattan Beach for a 2.5 hour swim, assisted by David’s daughter Brittany and her friend in a 2-seater kayak. Today was pretty choppy and a brisk 63 degrees…a bit challenging to get through especially after yesterday. My arms are pretty sore and I haven’t decided whether or not to take tomorrow off to rest, but after the two back-to-back long swims I finally feel back in distance shape and on my way to marathon swimming shape.

As Caila’s first open water training session, we started out with two boxes to get comfortable. My dad set the pace quick, as he has become more comfortable and must faster with his duck feet. After the boxes we decided to swim out to sea (Little Corona buoys). After a brief close encounter with two fisherman, we headed back to CDM at what gradually turned into a quick clip, and then drop dead sprint finish at the last buoy. It was a great workout and simulation for our shorter races this summer season. I brought along my underwater camera and took a few pictures:

After an incredible month-long tour around Europe with Scott, I am finally back at home and back to training. Scott and I landed in CA on Thursday, my birthday, and no sooner than Friday morning was I back in at Laguna with Uncle Dan to take back our beach! We swam our typical course and it was a beautiful day. I had a few surprises for him out in the middle of the ocean. First, I brought out a hot pink underwater camera I bought in Gibraltar after seeing how cool Sakura’s camera was. I had swam with it in my suit and snapped a few great shots of our swim:

The next surprise for UD, as seen above, were chocolate mini rolls I had stashed along with the camera in my suit. These are all the rage in Dover, the beach where English Channel aspirants come to train. They’re similar to ding dongs: chocolate coated chocolate cake with white frosting inside. Very squishy and easy to eat quickly, and most importantly tasty. So we each enjoyed the mini rolls I traveled with and brought back home just for this occasion.

Next in my back-to-shape-as-fast-as-possible training schedule was a visit to the gym to do my therapy. With the schedule I have coming up to rectify one month of almost no activity, I need my shoulders to be as strong as ever. I will discuss my training plan further in another post, but basically I have 5 weeks to get back in marathon swim shape, and not much of a base. Physical therapy is essential for me to train the way I must to do long swims, and I need it more now than ever.

The next day it was off to the pool for interval training, another must in my soft condition, and then a short run. On Sunday, my mom (kayaking), UD, and Marlena joined me for parts of my 3-hour swim. Marlena did the first hour, and UD did the first 2. Of course, my mom kayaked the whole way :) The hardest thing was to turn around for that final hour and not swim in with UD and call it a day, but I managed to ignore my body’s pleading for rest and finished what I set out to do. During our swim, Marlena had quite the lesson in pacing. After 30 minutes, I stopped to the discouraging comment: “Wow, we REALLY slowed down after 10 minutes. Uncle Dan and I had to slow down for you, Jen.” After offering Marlena the option to swim ahead of us, I then jabbed, well you can swim the whole 3 hours with me if you want. That was quickly denied. Despite the picture above, I was not happy at all, and turned around for another 30. I noticed Marlena falling a bit behind, possibly trying to create space so she could swim faster and catch back up to keep warm, a trick I’ve used in the past with other swimmers. Thankfully though, when we stopped, she blurted “Oh Jen I was WAY wrong, I’m DYING!” This, as you can imagine, was music to my ears. Needless to say, Marlena will be joining me for a few swims to learn pacing :)

For those of you who are interested, an article was published about the study Dan, Lenny, and I did on my Catalina swim. We had a poster presentation in June at ACSM, the annual sports medicine conference, in Baltimore, and this article does a great job of summarizing the study: http://www.dailynewsofopenwaterswimming.com/2010/07/before-during-and-after-catalina.html

Mark, Nick, Sakura, and I were unfortunately unable to swim the Strait of Gibraltar. We did not receive permission from the Moroccan embassy in time, but regardless the weather would likely not have permitted a crossing either way. We still enjoyed our time on the sailboat and did some great coastal swims in the Mediterranean Sea. The first afternoon when we arrived we did a very short swim on the East side of Gibraltar just to get wet. We were greeted by warm waters and two curious sun fish, or mola mola. We got some great pictures of these slow, docile, and not-so-cute creatures with Sakura’s underwater camera. The next morning we did a 2 mile swim along the coast of Algeciras and landed on a beach in Spain. The water was a beautiful deep blue, and again we spotted another sun fish. Following that swim we sailed to Ceuta, a Spanish colony technically in Africa, so now I’ve been to Africa! Captain Scott steered the boat most of the way. Once in Africa, we swam half a mile in one of their ocean-side salt-water pools then went out for a late Spanish dinner.

The next morning we set sail back to Gibraltar, to attempt a Swim Around the Rock, an 11.5 K swim around the entire peninsula of Gibraltar. We set out just north of their on-the-water runway (cool pictures of that too!), and swam south through tankers and past sea walls. Sadly, the already somewhat choppy and windy conditions worsened as we neared the tip of the rock, where a pretty lighthouse sits, and the raw, untreated sewage of all the residents of Gibraltar is released into the sea. After smelling Gibraltarian poo, attempting to swallow as little as possible, and staring at a lighthouse and murky brown water with pieces of tissue paper floating around for over 40 minutes, we realized we were no longer making progress and the tide was increasing against us. The picture above shows just how far off shore we were pushed by the current, and our pace indicates how rough the swim was. We called it a day, boarded the boat, and showered off the poo. Until the end, it was a beautiful swim, and despite the rough conditions I enjoyed myself. It was about as bad as the Hudson at MIMS during some parts, but I was much happier. I also discovered a new fuel courtesy of my swim buddies - Milky Ways! Easy to chew and get down, the chocolately taste was a wonderful contrast to the salty Mediterranean.

Overall, we had a great time in Gibraltar. We were all disappointed the Strait of Gibraltar did not work out, but I suppose now we all have an excuse to return!

Yesterday, Nick, Sakura, and Mark (who I will be crossing Gibraltar with next weekend) took me out for a swim in the Thames River. The beautiful swim was with a slight current, past gorgeous scenery, many swans, and ending swimming into the view of Windsor Castle. It was a great swim and nice to practice all swimming together, which we did well at an even pace all side-by-side. If only Gibraltar were going to be as flat as the Thames!

This was only the fourth river I’ve ever swam in (so before NY I’d never swum in a river). I was surprised with how little we could see, although I had a sense it was not very deep. Towards the end we could see the bottom very close, which typically unnerves me, but I felt okay sandwiched between friends. We passed several boats and keep peeking behind us to make sure we did not get run over. Swimming with and past swans was so amazing. Luckily Sakura brought her waterproof camera; I’ll post pictures soon. At one point we saw a swan with two cute grey baby swans. Near the finish there were at least 20 of them, which we fed with stale bread to encourage them to come closer. It was a bit scary, because even if attacked by a swan, it is unlawful to harm them, as every swan in England is property of the Queen.