Off the Deck

What kind of minion am I — the final Catalina time was ten hours, forty-one minutes and 32 seconds, not forty two minutes as I originally posted.

Thanks to the Math Savant for pointing the error out — very Math Savant-y, always watching the numbers!

And my apologies to all for adding one more minute to the swim!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Downhill skiing is an example of a distinct and definitive seasonal sport. No more snow? No more training or racing. Although…I guess if you are super dedicated/competitive, you could do a winterized version of Endless Summer and travel around the world, chasing snow.

Swimming however, with its indoor/outdoor pools, LCM, SCY, SCM seasons, and open water options (fresh vs salt water, ocean, lakes, streams, quarries, reservoirs, etc.), allows competitors to cycle through several different seasons per year.

It’s a blessing and a curse, isn’t it?

On the “count your blessings” side, you can swim or compete most any time of the year, if you choose. The flip side? You can be cursed by burnout, which, if you’ve been reading along, you know I experienced in 2009.

Since then, “recovery” has increasingly become my watch-word. Neil, my “worth his weight in gold” physical therapist, kicked off this trend for me in 2009 via two ways: 1) per his suggestion, I took several months off, and 2) “active recovery” weeks have become a regular feature of the training cycles he sets for me.

Thanks to Coach Mark, my views on recovery expanded into the water this year. I now understand (and value!) the concept, and am working under his guidence to find and maximize the recovery moment in all four stokes. My favorite Coach Mark-ism from this summer? No need to hurry through drills. Slow down. Work through them completely. When breathing, take an extra breath or two and enjoy glimpses of sky, trees and birds.

Now that it’s Post-Catalina and pre-fall season, the past week has been a perfect active recovery opportunity. Based on the fact that I spent my free time during the first three days either watching TV while snarfing cereral, reading or sleeping, I think the “recovery” notion has seeped into me.

By day four I was twitchy, so I’ve been enjoying a non-timed, easy run, bike or walk per day. Yet, for the first time ever, I haven’t felt panic-y about not “training” or missing out on pool time. On the contrary, I’ve been feeling good about knowing that I’ll return to training phsyically rested and excited about the seasons ahead!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

First, an apology to all of the readers who texted, emailed or called me recently to ask “where are the posts?!?” Absolutely, I have been very busy lately. But you’re right — blogs must be kept up to date, no excuse! Thank you very much for your demand — it not only reminded me of my original blog commitment but also warmed my writer’s heart.

Now, onto the recap! Based on the events of the past few days, I think the quickest approach is a short section per the most commonly asked questions…

Conditions: I got my wish for “water like glass,” major yay! Of course, I wanted calm conditions to make the swim as easy as possible for our intrepid channel crossers. But, one too many training sessions on really choppy fresh water, when I could barely keep up with swimmers for hours on end, had me panicked about rough conditions on game day. Thank God there was very little wave or wind! Water temperature remained at 64 until the final cove when it dropped to 60. That might sound nippy, but even here we lucked out — the Channel had been several degrees cooler for a few days prior.

Results: Yes, all three swimmers, Katie, Cliff and the Math Savant not only swam but finished together: Ten hours, 42 minutes and 31 seconds. In fact, they did a fantastic job of pack-swimming the entire time. They either swam three in-a-row or in a nice little bird-V-formation with the Math Savant taking point.

Best and Worst Swimmer Moments: Oddily, the finish was both. It was beyond amazing to realize that they were going to be successful. But it was so hard to watch them ssssllllllooooowwwww down once they hit the cove due to the water temperature drop, navigate through all the kelp, then struggle to gain a foothold on the very rocky beach.

Swimmer Rage: Cliff smiled a lot and cracked jokes during the feeds. The Math Savant was swimming so strong he was, dare I say it, “giddy.” Katie however, yelled at me, the Math Savant and maybe a few others as well. To her credit, she immediately apologized profusely as soon as she was back on the boat, while her teeth were still chattering. No worries though — anyone who’s either swum or paddled a marathon knows swimmer rage happens. And that what happens on the water stays on the water. Katie — we still love you!

Marine Life: Again, I got my wish — I saw tons! While on the water, I had excellent company — two dolfins on each side of the kayak for my entire paddling shift — such good company! As they clicked and chattered away, I could only imagine that they were talking about me (“What is this tiny human doing out in the middle of our ocean at 2 a.m.? Is she lost?”) I also saw squid, tiny silver fish that leaped out of the water and over the kayak, a sea lion, seals, sea urchins, starfish, jellyfish, a sea turtle (!) and sharks. Yes, sharks. Each time though, they were zooming away from the swimmers, so I figured, “why stress them out by telling them?” So, shhhhhh — it’s our secret! Best part though? On the way back to the dock, about 30 dolfins surrounded the boat and body-surfed and flipped on the ship’s waves. I think it was one of the most joyous things I have seen in my lifetime.

Swimming/Paddling in the Dark: Yes, we started at night. Ten minutes before midnight to be exact. No, it didn’t freak me out to be on the ocean in a kayak at night. After hearing from other Catalina Channel swimmers and paddlers who did get spooked, I was prepared for the worst. Yet, I found it to be a curious mix of “calming” and “exhilirating.” Besides, I wasn’t out there all alone. I had three swimmers with me, a boat, and a headlamp. The strap kept spronging loose though, so the headlamp would slide down over one eye often. It made me feel very pirate-y.

Worst Minion Moment: I definitely had one really bad hour. No-one was there to meet me after my first paddle shift, so in the wake I capsized. My first thought was to gather everything and chuck it back into the kayak. My second was to not separate the kayak and ship. So there I was, in the water, one hand on the kayak, the other on the boat. Luckily one the huge crew members saw my plight and fished me out of the water after securing the kayak. I changed into dry clothes immediately, but I was chilled and couldn’t warm up. And then the sea sickness started… I had taken dramamine before getting on the ship, had the pressure point bands on (thanks again for the loan Teri Jean!), and snarfed some ginger cookies and ginger chewies in the car on the way to the dock. But I still got sick. I think it was one too many factors that tipped the balance, literally, at that point. I was cold, exhausted (I think it was 3 or 4 a.m. or so by then) and moving from ship to kayak to ship was unsettling. At least I remembered to throw up over the side of the ship, and not on the ship, as previously instructed. And I managed to throw up on the opposite side, away from the swimmers. After um, “clearing my stomach,” I decided to take a nap and then wake up magically restored. And that’s what happened — I was fine!

Minion Perspective Summary: As the Math Savant promised me way back in April, it was “an adventure.” Absolutely, it was very phsysically challenging, and I wasn’t even swimming! But it was also one of the most unusual and fun things I’ve done too. The perfectionist in me hopes to do it again because there were so many things I could have done better as Head Minion. But hey, you don’t know until you do it, right? Do I want to swim it myself? Despite people warning me beforehand that I’d “get the Channel bug” while serving as support crew, I can honestly say “no.” Foremost, I don’t think I have the right body type — too small. I would get very cold, very fast and thus fail. Heck, I get shaky-blue-cold just standing around in a pool on drill/technique days. And, as much as I love the ocean and swimming, I don’t think I want to do any activity for 8-12 hours straight. Nor the bazillion of miles of training required. I prefer to keep mixing it up with different strokes, distances, places, events and practices.

This post’s ultimate conclusion and final word however, has to go Katie, Cliff and the Math Savant. It was an honor to serve as your minion because you were AWESOME!

Until next time (and I promise it won’t be weeks!),
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Yesterday I did my first multi-sport event, the “Tri My Way.” The concept is fun — you do a triathlon in any order you choose, or a duathlon (you still do three legs, but you repeat one discipline.)

Since I’ve been running (nothing crazy — just a 5K once or twice a week) for about a year or so now, I thought their “aquaman,” or swim-run-swim, would be a fun, new challenge for me, as well as a low-key introduction to the multi-sport arena.

Thanks to the Big Kahuna’s sage advice years ago before my first open water race, I know that when stepping out of your box for the first time, setting basic goals really is enough. So, I decided to repeat the two original goals he shared with me back then:
1) Finish
2) Enjoy it enough to want to do another one

This time though, I added a third goal to honor the work I’ve been doing with Coach Mark this summer:
3) Maintain new free technique 100%

Luckily, “blending in” was not on my goal list, because I don’t think I did so well in this area. In fact, I spent much of the time feeling like an alien from Planet Swim. Just two of the more telling clues? 1) Pre-race, I was chomping down on groates and soymilk while everyone else was gel-ing, and 2) I wore a tankini (a wild, Marcia-Brady-esque pattern/color scheme), not a wetsuit.

I thought that wearing an ankle chip would bug me, but honestly, once I put it on, I forgot all about it until volunteers asked for it at the finish line. And, thanks to a story the Math Savant shared with me a day or so before the race (perma-scar from getting clobbered right in the chip during a mass-swim phase) I prudently remembered to twist the strap so the chip part was on the inside of my leg before approaching the start line.

Certainly, I couldn’t have asked for a better first event-experience. The weather was perfect (70-degree water temp, air mid-70s with breeze.) The event organization was fantastic — beautiful site, plenty of parking, well-marked course, plentiful supplies — and the volunteers were all so kind and helpful.

Getting cow-belled was a weird but fun new experience (yes, it did take me awhile to associate hearing people call out my number with cow-belling whenever I zizzed by a crowd. I am used to being in quiet-aquatic zone and not being marked quite so much — legs, arms, bib.)

As a visiting Planet Swim inhabitant, I learned that clearly all sponsorship money is in trialthons. I have never received so much swag in my life — two types of cererals, three kinds of bars, electrolytes, a handful of assorted lotions, energy tablets, dried fruit, meal coupons, music downloads for my iPod, my race cap, a snazzy running shirt, and a catered lunch with more iced drinks than I could choose from post-race.

Returning to my original goals, I think I succeed in all three areas. All I thought about during the two swim legs (750m each) was swimming relaxed, reaching and doing my finger-tip drag to ensure a nice high-elbow recovery. I had a lot of fun, enough to want to do another one (Although, not as many to require wearing wearing a pound of tape on my body to be mobile. Seriously, I have never seen so many banged-up athletes at one gathering.)

And, I finished (second in my division — passed during the last transition. Totally vexing! My best friend, who is married to a triathlete consoled me with “It was your first time. Transitions are a practiced skill. You’ll get better the more you do them.”) Heck, working to improve on something for “next time” has always been a huge motivational factor for me!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

One of my faves shows (especially now that they’ve gotten rid of the stupid “live in big house together and go through elimination challenges each week” element) is Last Comic Standing.

This year the format is comedy routines, straight up, and there is a nice variety of comedic “styles,” ranging from impressions to several un-related quick-laugh jokes, to spinning a story towards a big punchline. Ron Wood Jr., one of the comedians still in the running as of this week, leans towards the “weave many jokes around one topic” genre. You can imagine my surprise when he did a routine based on swimming.

Heck yeah, Michael Phelps is as close to a household name as any swimmer is going to get. But I think going out on stage with swimming as a stand up foundation is a sign that the sport may has reached a new national awareness high.

After all, Last Comic Standing is a competition. So, one would assume that to get the most laughs and thus stay on the show until earning the big win, comedians would choose material that lots of viewers (i.e. “competition voters”) would know of and identify with.

So again, I was surprised Ron Wood Jr. chose swimming. It seemed to have worked though, because the monolouge carried him safely though that elimination round.

Today, more than a week later, I’m still wondering why he was thinking about swimming in the first place. Beijing (and thus peak swim media coverage) is long past now. And, while trying not to be judgemental, I must confess that based on his appearance and assumed lifestyle (I’m thinking comics have a lot of late nights that involve hanging about in clubs, drinking, smoking and eating fast food), that Ron himself is not a swimmer.

Hmmm, maybe I could drop him an email to find out. He might even perceive it as “fan mail” and get a morale-boost out of it. Or it could inspire him to talk more about swimming next week…

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

On Thusday night at practice Coach Mark reminded us that the LCM pool closes in early August. He asked us what we wanted to do about practice until the fall season officially starts.

Of course, my initial reaction to the announcement was: panic! I dread transitioning from outdoors LCM to indoors SCY. For me, any time, whether it be August, September or beyond, seems way too early for the annual pool/season switch.

My second thought however, was, “maybe it would be a good time for an active recovery phase.” This is the “maybe I’m finally learning something” part.

During the rest of the year I normally cycle six weeks or so on, one week of active recovery. But the summer season is so short (note the “panic!” reaction above). I hate to miss any outdoor swim opportunity.

I’ve also added lots o’ paddling to the mix this summer, as I prepare to be a minion for the Math Savant’s Catalina Channel swim this August. And running is on the regular schedule because I signed up for my first ever multi-sport event, a local “Tri My Way” event at the end of July. (“My way” is swim/run/swim).

Let’s recap:
–No active recovery in two+ months
–It’s peak allergy season (don’t even get me started on the yearly “I feel rusted-stiff-exhausted” allergy season backlash struggle)
–I’ve been tired enough from the swim/paddle/run mix that I haven’t picked up a weight since I don’t know when

Hmmmm…sounds like active recovery is in order in August for me.

So, Coach Mark, here’s my answer: I’d like to take the middle two weeks of August for active recovery. But then would it be possible to round up the troops somewhere for “seasonal transition mini-camp” workouts until the fall season officially starts? I would love sessions devoted to dry-land conditioning, drills, strategy, fall/winter goal-setting, etc. What do you think?

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

One of my all-time favorite childhood book series is the Ant & Bee collection by Angela Banner. I’ve known them by heart for decades now, but some days I have to re-read one for the millionth time because something happening in my life makes me think of a particular story.

Over the past winter, I was thinking a lot about Ant & Bee and The Doctor. (Bee catches a cold. A model patient, Bee bounces back quickly. Then Ant catches a more serious illness, a virus, and must be quarantined for a month. He is not such a good patient. I am sure you can see where this is headed — I am most certainly more Ant-like.)

Lately though, I’ve been thinking a lot about my favorite book from the series, Ant & Bee and the Secret a lot. In this book, Bee initially proves to be better than Ant at several activities — hopscotch, jump rope and story-telling. Each time, Bee makes fun of Ant’s efforts and calls Ant “stupid.”

Of course, Ant becomes “cross” and runs away. Except that when he eventually comes back, suddenly Ant is better than Bee at whatever game they were playing earlier. Ultimately Ant’s mystery is solved with the help of Kind Dog (Bee deliberately makes Ant feel stupid so he can have Kind Dog “track” Ant as soon as he runs off.) Ant’s “secrect” turns out to be school.

I think this book is on my mind so much lately because I feel like Ant in a way. I was cross with my old training situation so I ran off to swim with kids under a new coach. Thanks to my new enviornment and Coach Mark, I’m learning something new at every practice. In another month or two (epecially when I have more strength to apply to my strokes — right now I am kind of wiped out a lot from juggling swimming, weights paddling and running) I think I’m going to startle swimmers I haven’t trained with for awhile.

Yep, lots of technique changes take time to assimilate into “automatic and with speed,” but I’m starting to get “aha!” flashes here and there at practice now…yay!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

My 16-hour day last Saturday continued after we switched lakes: the Catalina Channel swimmers wanted to get in another long open water training swim.

Foremost, for the paddlers, the conditions were so much better this time. Perfect temperature. Not too hot, not too cold. No wind. May we have similar glass-like water conditions on the ocean in August!

Unfortunately, Slippery Otter (when you paddle for hours on end you start to feel sort of Native-American-ish, so I decided we all needed Native American-ish names for the summer) and I wanted to smack the swimmers with our oars by loop two. Despite voicing our strong anti-separating stance after the last paddle, there was about a mile between two pairs of swimmers by the end of the second loop.

Did I mention that there is an island in the middle of the lake? Yep, that’s right. Thanks to Bird Island (and I don’t fault the birds. They need a place to nest), you can’t do an entire lake-scan from any point on the water. And then there’s the Bermuda Triangle Corner. Due to a rocky, deeply curving shoreline, the swimmers simply vanish in that cove.

After the first paddle, Slippery Otter and I felt horrible for days after because we couldn’t stay with everyone four the entire six hours. By the end of the second loop during our second time out though, we realized that the swimmers were bringing it on themselves. If they didn’t stay reasonably close together, we couldn’t promise that we could feed them on scheudule, let alone site them.

As a result, the paddle-minions are threatening to unionize unless we have a second kayak for the third training swim coming up in July. A 12-box of Pop-Tarts per paddle session may also be part of our negotiating terms. Definitely the strawberry ones with frosting and sprinkles.

Thanks to the addition of Grumbling Bear (Jagged Mountain’s son), we had a third paddler this past Saturday. Not only was it great to have more help (and fresh arms/shoulders) but once Grumbling Bear took over for me, I was able to get in and swim at the end. For me, it’s definitely hard to be out on the water all day and not swim!

Although I worked the entire time at the 6K earlier that morning and then paddled for several hours, I was still “fresher” than the swimmers who were on hour six by then. I kind of felt like a friendly dolphin, encouraging on tired saliors as I swam ahead, behind, in between and to one side and the other of one pair of Catalina swimmers. Even though the water temperature was 73-degrees, I needed to keep moving to stay warm!

Certainly, the long day was good “handle anything that comes my way” training for Catalina in August…

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist & paddle-minion

A special shout-out to Slippery Otter who paddled the entire time — way to train, paddle-minion!!!

Yesterday was a big swim day. So big, in fact, that I need to cover the events in a part one/two format.*

It started with the National 6K in Windsor. Although my preference is always to swim, it’s always good to have an opportunity to live up to my self-professed swim evangelism title — giving back to the sport that has given me so much is very important to me. And, after seeing the flip side of an event, the competitive swimmer in me now has a greater appreciation for having events. It takes a lot of time, energy, money, organization and people to make them happen.

The morning was fun and went by in a blur. I jumped from job to job: register swimmers, cart water bottles to water’s edge, count swimmers/get cap numbers for the raffle during the first loop, call out finisher’s times. Of course, the added perk of the morning was being able to see a lot of the race. Competitive swimming of any type never fails to entertain me, and I always learn so much just by watching.

We had great weather, Karen Reeder did an outstanding organizational job (nice site, no glitches, got off on time, plenty of supplies, creative thoughtful touches like changing tents for men and women, I could go on and on…), and I met a lot of nice officials and swim-spouses. Best of all though, was seeing everyone do so well. I thought it would be hard to watch and not compete, but I totally got caught up in every swimmer’s story and results!

After the race wrapped up, the Catalina 2010 crew moved onto another lake for swimming. Stay tuned for Part II of Super Saturday!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Shout Out of the Day: To all Swim Dads everywhere on their super Sunday today. They help us pursue our passion, and as we know, swimming is a way life!

*And of course the Santa Clara meet was on TV this weekend too. Hopefully I can catch repeats…

Hell yeah, I know streamlining is one of the keys to easy, fast swimming.

But getting my body to streamline 100% in the water (and geez, after last night’s practice we can add “off the blocks” to my “places to streamline” list) well, that might prove to be another story.

The thing that most vexes (scares?) me is that I’m probably starting from square one — I suspect that I wasn’t super-streamlining even as an young, bend-y, quick-to-recover age grouper. So it’s not a matter of “snapping back” or tapping deep into “muscle memory.” Nope, must figure out how to streamline now. As a fossil.

Last night I spied Erica, a young whipper-snapper and summer assistant coach, doing an on-deck demo of streamline position for a kid a few lanes over. Her FOREARMS were criss-crossing. I’m lucky if I can get my hands to touch. And even that takes a lot of warming up.

Which makes me kind of panick-y. What’s it going to take for me to be able to streamline? Will I be able to? Or am I genetically flexibility-challenged and thus doomed for the rest of my swimming days?

If I just keep at it during practice, will everything eventually click? Do I have to find a way to squeeze in yoga, one more activity, to the already tight daily schedule? Do I have to strike it rich and hire two “mashers” to stretch me daily like Dara Tores?

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

p.s. Two shout-outs today:

1) A shout out to Kenny Allen for embracing the “summer suit” spirit with his groovy new “peace” TYR training suit.

2) To the owner of a silver SUV — love your “Swim Taxi” bumper sticker!