OG Attempts the English Channel

Will You Try Again?

2010-10-11T11:39:00.000-07:00

Sunday 10/10/10

The piercing sting of disappointment has faded to a dull, periodic twinge. I was incredibly fortunate to be able to swim on the first day of my window. That gave us six days of touring in England before our scheduled flight back. Each morning, the dreary realization that I hadn’t made it to France would leak out in diminishing squirts of anguish. By the time we reached Lands End on the extreme southwest tip of England, I was almost dry. That was a good thing. Otherwise, I’d have found myself in the middle of the Dolphin Club locker room, gushing out an uncontrollable and embarrassing puddle.

I still would not trade this year-long experience for anything (except maybe a successful swim.) Every milestone was fresh and exciting. Writing about the quest accentuated and deepened each aspect. And that’s one of the problems with giving it another go. I worry that a second attempt would feel less like an adventurous lark and more like a tedious chore.

And then there’s the cost. With pilot fees, registration costs, and kennel charges for the critters; $5,500 is out the door before even thinking about travel and lodging. Circumstances smiled on us this year, but the state of the economy doesn’t promise continued good fortune.

Probably the biggest deterrent to another try is psychological. I had a good deal of confidence going into the swim. I felt extremely well prepared and had regularly visualized success. The possibility of not making it a second time raises the prospect of dread and what fun is that? One man faltered on his third attempt this year and the short note he offered the Channel swimming community was redolent of heartache.

But, if I’ve learned anything from this experience, it’s that some things are unpredictable. I maintained adamantly that a solo English Channel attempt was not in my future right up until the time that it was. So, the best I can say is that I currently have absolutely no plans whatsoever for a redux assault. On the other hand, I am going to start a strengthening program for my gluteal muscles. It certainly can’t hurt.

Surfing to France

2010-09-29T09:26:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 09/28/10

We form a two-car convoy in the dark, scrupulously obeying the speed limit on the A20 to Dover. Jackie Merovich and her fiancé, Larry Heine, are in the trailing car. Darcy W, Lindsay, and I occupy the lead car. Lindsay and I trained our GPS to recognize the location of the Dover Marina on Sunday. Given the female voice, we’ve named the device “Roxanne.” She is cooing directions in the background. For once, we know how to get where we’re going in England and we ignore her. Just another slightly embarrassing example of our “belt and suspenders” mentality when it comes to this expedition.

We roll through two roundabouts and take the three o’clock exit at the third, turning immediately into the Marina parking lot. The harbor office is ominously dark and quiet and the guest dock is empty except for the semi-permanently moored harbor pilot boat. Not for the last time, I have spasms of doubt and anxiety that I’ve misunderstood the rendezvous instructions and we’re actually meeting at 1:30pm on Tuesday instead of 1:30am.

The crew unloads the supplies from the cars as Lindsay and I climb the stairs to the harbor office. No glimmer of light shows through the window and the door is locked. I suppress a surge of panic as Lindsay knocks lightly. After a pause, she knocks a little louder. It’s now 1:00am and the guest dock is still empty. Finally, Lindsay says, “OK, here comes somebody.”

Clearly grumpy, the night harbormaster opens the door in his stocking feet and unceremoniously shuffles to the reception desk. When we tell him we’re here to board a pilot boat for an English Channel swim, he says that all of the other boats have already left. He asks for our pilot’s name and boat name. When we tell him Reg Brickell and Viking Princess, he gives a brief nod of ascent indicating that he believes we are not trying to scam him for long term parking privileges.

We pay for two blue parking passes. He tells us to place them on the dash of our cars and that they’re good for twenty-four hours. His frosty countenance repels levity so I resist telling him that I hope that twenty-four hours is long enough. It’s a shame. This made Reg and Ray laugh on Sunday and I’m loathe to give up on a good joke until it’s slightly tattered.

When we get back to the cars, I call Reg on his cell phone to make sure we have the time right and to tell him about the harbormaster’s comments about the other groups. Reg assures me that all is well and that the other boats will be taking a scenic tour of the Channel. He tells me that we will take a more direct route and he will meet us at the guest dock shortly.

Feeling better, we trundle our supplies down to the pontoon. The water is high, so the descent is easy. We’re set to go and watching the harbor debris stream past at 1:15. At 1:30, I resist the urge to call Reg again. I know that I’m nervous and don’t want to act like a panicked groom any more than necessary.

At 1:45am, the Viking Princess steams around the corner and pulls into our location. Crew, crew supplies, swimmer, and swimmer supplies are loaded and aboard in five minutes. Reg expertly spins the trawler around and we head for Shakespeare beach, stowing and organizing gear as we go.

Lindsay uses a safety pin to attach an orange glow stick to the back of my suit. Ray asks her to add another green one as a backup. I advise her to be sure to pin the green stick on the starboard side. I’ve now gotten Ray to laugh twice at my jokes. That’s not bad for a man whose jokes are often not funny.

Fifteen minutes later and fifty yards offshore, I eschew a ladder entry. My inclination is to dive headfirst but better sense prevails and I jump. I remember the story of Bill Burgess jumping onto some large fish over a century ago on one of his Channel tries and it just seems silly to court disaster so early in the attempt.

The water is very high and the beach rocks hardly hurt my feet. I’m sure adrenaline is disguising the pain. I trot well clear of the water and raise both arms in triumph in the glare of the high-powered spotlight beam from the boat. The time is 2:10am, the horn blows, and I charge back into the sea. I’m thrilled to get my shot to become a Channel swimmer.

The first few minutes in the water, I try to heed the advice of other successful crossers. “Smooth your stroke out and enjoy the experience.” I’m definitely enjoying the experience. Smoothing my stroke is a work in progress.

I reach the pilot boat and we begin our pas de deux across the Channel. The Viking Princess is a full-fledged fishing trawler and has a brilliant array of marine floodlights all blazing away. There will be no problem spotting my feeding bottle.

Shortly, I get into a rhythm and settle in for a long night and day. At the first feeding, I chug everything down in less than twenty seconds and strike out again. A couple of hours into the swim, true to Reg’s prediction, the north wind is pushing the waves in my direction. The surfing feeling is exhilarating and I have the euphoric certainty that I WILL REACH FRANCE! The waves are large enough to rock the pilot boat dramatically from side to side. It doesn’t look like good news for the crew. But the surface of the water is smooth and I feel like I’m zooming.

By the sixth feeding, I’m hoping for dawn to break. The crew spike my feed with instant coffee. It tastes a little weird, but the caffeine jolt comes at a good time. I look over my right shoulder from time to time and the Dover lights don’t seem to be receding. The first ache makes its debut in the front of my left shoulder. After a while, the left shoulder ache dies away and a right shoulder ache replaces it. The doubts creep back.

Dawn doesn’t exactly break. Rather, a lumpy, leaden grey slowly infuses a cloud-laden sky. The shoulder aches have disappeared and now it is the quadriceps turn to bark. What is this? I haven’t had these aches before. In a while, the quad ache dissipates and I’ve found a new tool: Aches come and aches go. I christen it the “Marcelli Tool.” Some years ago, I was commenting to the Dolphin Club Commodore, Lou Marcelli on the high turnover rate at the club. He replied in his trademark gravelly voice, “They come and they go, Larry. They come and they go.” Seems to be the same way with aches.

Four hours into the swim, the crew adds a dose of liquid ibuprofen to my feed. It tastes just awful. Immediately, my stomach feels bloated and uncomfortable. That’s it. I’m going cold turkey on anti-inflammatory medicine.

About eight hours into the swim, Lindsay appears at the rail and gives me the “GO! GO! GO!” sign. This is the only sign we use other than the air horn for feeding. I don’t want to know how long, or how far, or where I am, or what time it is, so we have no signs for that. My job is to shut up and swim. The hurry up signal is to take advantage of favorable current conditions or to combat unfavorable conditions. This appears to be the “take advantage of the slack” condition.

When I try to speed up, I start kicking harder and suddenly, the hip flexor pain goes away. I visited a physical therapist a couple of weeks ago to try and understand this pain and see if I could do something about it. She said my glute muscles were not doing their job and the hip flexors were having to take up the slack. Unfortunately, I’d waited too long to embark on a strengthening program without jeopardizing the Channel attempt, so I’m swimming with a weak butt. Apparently, kicking harder forces the glute muscles into action and gives the hip flexors a break. Shortly, Lindsay gives me the slow down sign.

By now, I’ve used the Cliff Golding trapdoor tool multiple times. Then, unbidden, a slide show of faces and names of the many people who have offered support and encouragement begins playing in my mind. As I swim, the slide show gets longer and longer as new names and faces appear. I dig deeper.

Just before the twelve hour mark, I can see France clearly in the haze. Lindsay calls me to the side of the boat and tells me that Reg says a tide race is just ahead and I’ll need to sprint for about an hour to break through. She asks if I can do that and I reply, “I have to swim fast?” She nods her head and I put my head back down. I try to think of this as a series of 400 yard intervals that Coach Val regularly assigned me. I kick harder and pull harder. In about 15 minutes, my legs give out. The glutes have called it a day and the hip flexors are toasted. I’m trying to keep my torso level and “swim downhill.” Lindsay told me later that it was more like I was imitating a submarine. I’m swimming six inches lower in the water and rotating dramatically to breathe. I’m still pulling for all I’m worth and grunting into the water on every stroke.

Lindsay calls me to the side of the boat once more. She tells me that Reg says that I’ll never break through the tide race at this speed in which case I’ll be pushed along until the current switches and then be pushed right back to the same place about six hours later. She said that Reg was willing to keep going if I was, but finishing was extremely unlikely. I knew that she would not have relayed this information to me if she didn’t agree. By this time, I was in automaton mode and could barely think. I did get a picture of a young dog trying to get through his critter door when it’s blocked on the other side by a piece of lawn furniture. The dog just keeps bumping into the flap and going nowhere. I can imagine that will be my predicament. I’ll be going nowhere, only sideways.

I decide to come out. A flitting notion passes through my head that I should shout, “Then give me the crystal methadrine! We’ll beat this tide race by hook or by crook!” But drug humor stopped being funny twenty-five years ago and I’m too addled and depressed to pull it off properly.

I gingerly and painfully climb the stern ladder. On deck, I dry my head, pull on my fleece beanie, dry my torso, pull on a cashmere sweater/shirt, and don the bulky, warm Dolphin Club swim parka. I climb down the ladder into the forepeak where I take off my wet swimsuit and pull on some warm-up pants and thick socks. I lay down on the bench and cover up with whatever warm detritus is lying around. Lindsay brings me a big hunk of Gouda cheese and an apple. Without the whey and ibuprofen, I am not bloated at all. Instead, I’m ravenous. Within seconds of quenching the hunger pangs, I’m fast asleep and don’t wake up until we return to the Dover guest dock.

We give Reg and Ray the pilot presents of small-batch bourbon that we’ve toted over from the U.S. I shake hands with the Brickells and offer my thanks. Reg asks me how long we’ll be in England and tells me he’ll make up a chart for me showing my swim track. Lindsay drives the car back to the hotel.

The disappointment is crushing. I had dearly hoped for a fairy tale ending, but this is not a Disney movie. This is the Channel. Still, the consolation prize is not insignificant. The outpouring of support and well-wishes has been utterly heartwarming and makes me treasure the friends that I have. The experiences and knowledge that I’ve gained along the way will enrich my memories for as long as I have a memory. All in all, I have to say, “This has definitely been worth the effort!”

Meeting the Pilots

2010-09-27T08:48:00.000-07:00

Sunday 09/26/10

The tide is just starting to flood from its lowest point and the boats are stranded on the mud in Folkestone Harbor. Directly across the street, people are milling in a small throng outside the Ship Inn. Sunday at noon is visiting hours in Folkestone and a few pints lubricate the conversational gears.

Lindsay and I thread through the crowd at the entrance to the bar. This is clearly a very local watering hole but the individuals make way with a smile and small nod. The requisite ancient mahogany bar runs the length of a side wall. A trio of servers behind the bar engage in a cheery bustle with the clientele; greeting, gossiping, and drawing pint glasses from a broad selection of porters, stouts, lagers, and ales. We are here to meet our pilot, Reg Brickell, and are not sure what he looks like. I stroll through to the empty back room thinking that my sheer Americaness will provide adequate identity, but no one intercepts me.

At the far end on the serving side of the bar stands a genial and substantial gentleman in a flowered Hawaiian shirt. I ask him if he might be acquainted with Reg Brickell. He gives me a bemused look and waves his arm in a flourish to the person seated on the bar stool in front of me. We’ve found Reg and his brother Ray.

Lindsay had been apprehensive that I was wearing an earring to the first pilot meeting. Not to worry. Reg and Ray both sport gold hoops twice as large as mine. Once they’ve arranged to supply Lindsay and me with Sunday refreshment, we have a chat. Reg and Ray live in Folkestone. Six years older than Ray, Reg has been piloting Channel swimmers for about forty years by his estimate.

The elder Mr. Brickell first set foot on a fishing boat when he was three years old. His mother handed him across to his dad, making him the first crew to board the newly purchased Bristol trawler. By Reg’s account, he has been there ever since. A newspaper article with a photograph of a younger, buffer Reg graces a prominent position on the wall of the Ship Inn. He and his dad are straining to hoist a twelve foot shark off the trawler and onto the dock. Neither Lindsay nor I can guess the species of the shark, but it’s certainly not a leopard or a nurse. We decide not to ask Reg where they caught it.

Reg tells us that the weather looks promising for Tuesday. He says that the wind is forecast from the north at 6-8 km per hour which makes for favorable swimming conditions. One of his swimmers described the experience as akin to surfing to France. We will jump on a high tide which means the probable starting time will be midnight on Monday. He says he’ll wait until jump time to study the current conditions and decide whether to start from Shakespeare Beach or Samphire Hoe.

Ray Brickell insists on paying for the next round. The brothers refuse to immediately accept the remainder of the piloting fee. I start to get the impression that they consider it bad luck to do any business beyond the deposit until the customer boards the boat for the expedition.

We leave the bar in a euphoric state not entirely attributable to the superb Irish stout. Once again, we have had an experience that mere money can’t buy.

How Old Are You?

2010-09-21T06:59:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 09/21/10

Today is my birthday and we're flying to England. If I succeed in the attempt to swim the English Channel, I will be fifty-eight years old and the oldest member of the Dolphin Club to do so. When I was in my twenty’s, fifty-eight seemed inconceivably ancient for a human being. Fittingly, my sense of scale was stunted in the other direction as well. World War II was a distant conflict and the Revolutionary War was nearly prehistoric.

My cognizance of time is much expanded now. Roman history is relatively fresh compared to the days in 9000 BCE when England was still attached to the European land mass and the “English Channel/La Manche” was simply a large, watery indentation north of the Bay of Biscay. And, thanks to the Dolphin and South End clubs, I know many vibrant and active people in their 70’s, 80's, and even 90’s.

John Selmer successfully swam the English Channel when he was fifty years old. Duke Dahlin advanced that mark when he was fifty-five. Sunny McKee just completed the Ironman Zurich Switzerland triathlon at the age of sixty-one. Margaret Curtis ran the Pikes Peak Marathon last August in the time of 9:34:00 at the age of seventy. This is just a smattering of age-defying athletic accomplishments of Dolphins selected from a potpourri of triathlons, double-century bike rides, and marathon swims. The South End club has its own, commensurate list.

This is not to diminish achievements of the mind. David Perlman of the San Francisco Chronicle is still writing incredibly lucid and fascinating science articles at the age of ninety. But, swimming the English Channel is an athletic endeavour and the physical context dominates. Somehow, the age-awareness deepens and enriches my perspective on “this mortal coil.” And it makes me doubly determined to make every effort to reach France.

Last Pool Training Swim

2010-09-16T14:17:00.000-07:00

Thursday 09/16/10

Coach Valeriy Boreyko handed me a personalized pool workout schedule for the last time before I leave for England. Except when occasional business travel has interfered, I’ve swum at the USF pool every Tuesday and Thursday at 6 am since last November when Duke Dahlin first shepherded me into the masters program. Today’s workout was relatively light. A year ago, swimming 3,200 yards in a pool would have counted as a monumental occasion. Today, it was barely a blip on the training radar screen.

At this point, my new stroke is thoroughly ingrained and Coach Val is all smiles and thumbs-up. He regularly gives me a wry look after a workout and says in his Russian accent, “I want complain.” Then he breaks into a grin, shakes his head and says, “But can’t complain.” Today, he advised me once again regarding the importance of taking measures to stay well. He wished me good luck; we shook hands; and I walked to the parking lot with a strange sense of leave-taking. The feeling was not like I’m going to England for a two week vacation. It was more like I’m relocating permanently to South Africa or India or the back side of the moon.

From USF, I drove the few blocks to Ralph Wenzel’s bakery. He came out from the back in his white chef’s coat grinning widely. I told him how much I appreciated all of his support in helping me prepare for the Channel attempt. I also wanted him to know how much I enjoyed his company in the process. Ralph was his usual gracious self and agreed that it has been a profound experience and one that he will treasure for years. We talked a bit about how well the remodelling project is going at his bakery. We shook hands multiple times and he offered several forms of encouragement. Once again, the leave-taking bore an aura of momentousness and finality.

I guess this is the way it’s going to be. Until we head for the airport, most everything related to swimming is going to seem like a final big deal. Perhaps that’s fitting. Regardless of how it turns out, this experience has already been extraordinary.

What Are You Packing?

2010-09-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 09/15/10

The most cumbersome piece of equipment we are packing is a three gallon, insulated water cooler. We discovered several training swims ago that constantly heating, mixing, and pouring a nutritional dose every thirty minutes was burdensome and error-prone. Premixing the maltodextrin powder with hot water and storing it in the water cooler affords push-button ease and nearly eliminates a potential source of frenzy and panic at feeding time. Conditions aboard a pilot boat in the English Channel are notorious for decimating a non-professional crew with seasickness. Operating a galley stove and managing a steaming tea kettle is a herculean challenge in this circumstance. Push-button convenience could possibly save a swim.

Stuffed inside the water cooler is a full tin of maltodextrin powder. If the swim takes twenty hours to complete, we will have complex carbohydrate fuel left over. Four, swim-tested, BPA-free water bottles and two twenty-foot lengths of Dacron line with marline-whipped ends are stuffed around the tin. We also have a dozen sachets of GU in the “chocolate outrage” flavor. I’ve found that the chocolate taste and a few slugs of plain water provide a dessert-like intermezzo when occasionally interspersed with the regular feedings.

Tearing open a GU sachet with shivering, sea-slick hands can be irksome, though. To address this, we included a roll of duct tape in the gear. Tough, flexible, and water-proof, the tape wraps around the water bottle at the top of the sachet. The swimmer simply tears the sachet off the bottle, ripping the neck open in the process and making the contents slurp-able. Darcy W discovered this trick when piloting a marathon swim in Florida a few years ago. It’s really diabolically clever.

For the boat, Lindsay is bringing foul-weather gear including calf-high sailing boots. A surprising amount of water can wash over the decks of a fishing trawler. Cold, sloshy shoes are no fun after a few hours. And sometimes the skies over the Channel can open a gushing spigot. The swimmer may barely notice, but the crew endures a dreadful downpour. Murphy’s Law dictates that if this happens, it will happen during a feeding when the crew is most exposed.

Both Lindsay and I enjoy a morning cup of coffee. Perhaps that is an understatement. We both require a morning cup of coffee. Neither of us drinks caffeinated beverages later in the day, but our bodies demand that initial jolt. In the best of circumstances, we have not discovered England to provide reliable sources of brewed coffee. In our case, we may be rising at 2 am to catch the favorable tide and the chances of finding a 24-hour coffee shop are dismal. So, we are packing sachets of Starbucks instant coffee. We plan to buy a hot plate and tea kettle in England. Hopefully, biorhythm assistance at the fateful time will be assured.

Also in England, we will buy a hard-sided case to hold swimmer feeding supplies and crew food and drink. We found that soft duffels involved too much scragging around. Cliff Golding defines the verb scrag as “to look utterly clueless in the pursuit of something you can’t find—in the dark!” Speaking of dark, Lindsay is packing three flashlights—one for each member of the crew. These are small, waterproof, LED torches with brand-new batteries.

I will have a small bag containing only swim gear. It will hold two pairs of dark goggles and two pairs of clear goggles with a waterproof LED light pre-threaded through the back of each strap. All straps are pre-adjusted and all goggles have been tested for at least four hours in the Bay. Battery-operated and chemical light sticks with safety pins will round out the swimmer illumination gear. The bag will hold two swim hats in case one rips apart mid-swim. Fortunately, I have very little problem with chafing, but do sometimes rub a spot on my right shoulder raw on my jaw line. The bag will have a stick of Body Glide to help protect the shoulder and a razor for scraping away beard stubble at the last minute before jumping off the boat. Other than this dab of Body Glide, I will use no grease. For one thing it’s a goopy mess and gets all over everything. For another, no evidence exists that it provides any protection from the cold other than psychological.

I won’t be using sunscreen. I tan rather easily and my skin has turned nut-brown from all of the open water swimming this summer. We had a very bright sky the day of the ten-hour swim and my back and shoulders didn’t burn at all. Oddly enough, the only sunburn I’ve gotten during long swims is on my face between the swim cap and the goggles. The water must reflect and amplify the sun’s rays on the face.

We will have a separate “post-swim” bag with the gear I need when I get back on the boat. It will have a flashlight attached to the strap to avoid scragging around in the dark. I wanted to pack a pistol to use on myself in case I don’t reach France, but Lindsay vetoed that idea. She said it would be better to wait until we returned to the U.S. where the firearm laws are more lenient. Instead, the bag will have a towel and a wool beanie packed at the top. This way, I can immediately dry my head and get something warm to cover it. Fleece pants, warm shirt, fluffy socks, slip-on shoes, and a very warm swim parka round out the contents of the post-swim bag.

Assembling this gear has emphasized the expedition aspect of this undertaking. It’s sobering to contemplate. The test swims have proven invaluable for physical, logistical and psychological preparedness. The blog postings of other swimmers have been immensely helpful. Arguably the most comprehensive and detailed information source has been the Channel Swimmers Google Group. The accumulated facts, wisdom, and opinions stored in its archives comprise a treasure trove for the English Channel aspirant. And the periodic rants and raves can be exceptionally entertaining. In any event, my motto since embarking on this adventure is, “I’m determined to be prepared.” Thanks to the support and encouragement of Lindsay and so many others, I feel I’m as prepared as I possibly can be.

Don't You Get Bored?

2010-09-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

Monday, 09/13/10

A man with an impossible name has studied and written extensively on the subject of happiness and creativity. Mihály Csikszentmihály is probably best known for coining the word “flow” to describe a psychological state of peak performance. He created a dual axis chart which has skill level plotted on one axis from low to high. The other axis plots challenge level from low to high. As one might expect, when the skill level is high and the challenge level is high, a person can experience a “flow state,” being fully engaged and energized.

On this chart, Mr. Csikszentmihály adds apathy, worry, anxiety, arousal, control, relaxation, and boredom. This is a pretty good list. I’ve experienced all these emotional states while swimming. But I’d add fear and anger even knowing it would disturb the symmetry of a beautiful chart. While fear and anger might not belong on a chart of emotional states related to happiness and creativity, they definitely belong on a list of feelings experienced during cold, open water swimming.

All Bay swimmers experience fear. This is a generalization based on extensive private study over more than twenty years. Even the toughest, most stoic swimmers have admitted being scared occasionally. Close encounters with seals and sea lions provoke a fear response. When the pinnipeds start biting and scratching, the fear factor increases. Swimming in contaminated water, colliding with stinging nettle jellyfish, jamming a hand into a submerged plastic garbage sack, dive-bombing brown pelicans, and getting swept into a barnacle-encrusted piling are dependable fear-inducers. Just getting into the cold water in mid-winter can scare swimmers with the prospect of hypothermic catalepsy.

I experience fear and anger in rapid succession when faced with a narrow racing shell streaking through Aquatic Park at ten miles an hour. The anger really ratchets up when the rower shouts out “watch where you’re going, ***hole!” as the oar dips inches from my head and the shell zips past. This is a sure cure for boredom.

Boredom most often strikes on relatively short, one and two mile swims around Aquatic Park. On a clockwise loop around the cove, it usually kicks in just past the Goalposts. I start thinking, “how much longer?” “Am I really up to a second loop?” A year ago, this oft-recurring ennui made me seriously question how anyone could possibly swim steadily for hours on end without succumbing to terminal boredom.

Now I savor the vast irony of not having once been bored on the long training swims. Each one has represented a new milestone in my swimming career, generating doubt about its potential success. Each one began with worry and anxiety which typically lasted for about ten to fifteen minutes. Then, I’d get into a rhythm and begin to relax, concentrating fully on my stroke mechanics. Sometimes, when the exquisite light, the clear water, and the soaring scenery conspired, I’d experience the state of arousal that accompanies the aesthetics of a wilderness experience in an urban setting. At times like this, I’ve enjoyed a relaxed and peaceful meditative state that a Buddhist might describe as “no-mind.” This alone has made the whole project worthwhile.

Of course, the good times don’t last. Usually, especially after five or six hours, the predominant emotions return to worry, anxiety, and fear. I worry about which ache, which twinge, or which cramp might become so overwhelming as to cause me to quit. I fear the self-condemnation that would ensue. This fear is such a useful tool to keep me going that I've named it “la muerta pequeña." Cliff Golding’s mental technique of clearing debris away from the metaphorical “trap door” is another handy invention to deal with the anxiety.

Lindsay and I leave for England a week from tomorrow. The first day of my window is a week after that. The last thing I’m worried about in the attempt to swim the English Channel is boredom. I’m just too worried and anxious for boredom to stand a chance.

Ten Hour Bay Swim

2010-09-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

Sunday 08/22/10

The Mr. Magoo is knifing straight towards me. Racing on a broad reach under its trademark green spinnaker, the J105 sailboat is making nearly seven knots. Its favoured path to the next racing mark is directly between the two pilot boats guiding my ten hour swim. The driver of Mr. Magoo seems intent on teaching us a well-deserved lesson in the “rules of the road.” In general, boats under power must give way to boats under sail and the racing vessel is standing on to plough through the middle of my two pilot boats, presumably rehearsing a few well-chosen epithets to shout our way as it rips past and crushes me in the process.

Like the pseudonymous cartoon character, the crew of Mr. Magoo may have comically impaired eyesight. The orange and yellow signal flag, OSCAR, is flying from both pilot boats. It telegraphs that a person is in the water and vessel manoeuvrability is limited. Admittedly, the signal flying from the spreaders of our sailboat is small and easily mistaken for a yacht club insignia. However, the large flag streaming in the 15 knot wind from the stern of the Arias is clearly visible.

On the other hand, marine signalling is not a subject of widespread knowledge. While the seamanship of racing sailors includes areas of extreme competence, my experience is that signal knowledge is not necessarily one of these areas. The silver lining in this potential collision cloud is that the Mr. Magoo crew is uniformly decked out in foul weather gear costing well over $1,000 apiece. The suit of sails is costly and the boat itself is expensive. A used J105 goes for $135,000. Deep pockets are in abundant evidence and Lindsay should be compensated quite well in a wrongful death settlement.

At this point, we are a little more than seven hours into the swim. I started from the Dolphin Club beach at 6:40a with Reuben Hechanova piloting in the Arias. Swimming west on the dying ebb, we met Gary Ehrsam at Gas House Cove. He was driving his Hunter 30, the Catana, and was carrying Darcy W and Lindsay as crew. They were delighted to finally be travelling on a pilot vessel boasting a fully functional head. With both radios crackling, we continued west to the Wave Organ and then turned around and headed back east.

Reuben kept me in mid-channel all the way around the city front. As a right-side breather, the various landmarks of the San Francisco skyline glided past: Coit Tower, Transamerica building, Bank of America building, the Ferry building, the new Rincon Hill residential skyscraper. After two and a half hours of swimming, I cruised south under the Bay Bridge yet again. For some reason, the sense of mystery and majesty this crossing evokes had not abated.

Ralph Wenzel is sitting this one out, so I was swimming by myself for the first time during a long training swim. The sense of solitude was new and gave me confidence that this was a terrific dress rehearsal for the English Channel. As we passed by AT&T Park, the sun was well up in a cloudless sky and the wind had yet to make its entrance. I remained nervous about completing the entire ten hours, but so far no body parts had revolted.

Four hours into the swim, we’re over a mile offshore from Hunter’s Point. Lindsay gave me a small dose of whey with my feeding. We tried administering ibuprofen in tablet form this time. I shook the pills out of a feeding bottle and two of them bounced out of my hand and into the bay. At the next feeding, the pills stuck inside the wet bottle and refused to come out at all. We’ll just have to stick with the noxious liquid stuff.

At the five hour mark, Reuben guided me around the green and red markers that stand sentinel at the entrance to the South Bay Channel. We were a little north of Oyster Point and the wind had picked up, churning the water into a brown, lumpy froth. My stomach was feeling bloated and various body parts were starting to squeak. Peter Perez taught me to relieve hip flexor pain by bending a leg slightly and dragging it through the water for a few strokes. Of course, this slows the swimmer down, but the relief is instantaneous and lasts for a while.

At the six hour feeding, I bent my right knee up to 90 degrees and immediately, my hamstring seized in an excruciating cramp. It felt like I’d been shot through the back of the thigh with a high-powered rifle. This felt serious. I was terrified that this would end the swim. The panic-induced paranoia rapidly extrapolated to forecast a failed English Channel attempt. I immediately straightened my leg, hoping to clear the cramp. I chuggged down less than half my feeding in order to get swimming again right away. After a few minutes, the pain went away and I was left with the uncomfortable but endurable ache of hip flexor distress. I could deal with that the Jens Voigt way. I told my body to shut up and do what I wanted it to do.

Shortly after the seven hour feeding, the Mr. Magoo makes its appearance, maintaining a constant bearing straight at me. As it closes to within 100 meters, Gary Ehrsam snatches the air horn and gives five short, urgent blasts. The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea specify, “When vessels in sight of one another are approaching each other and from any cause either vessel fails to understand the intentions or actions of the other, or is in doubt whether sufficient action is being taken by the other to avoid collision, the vessel in doubt shall immediately indicate such doubt by giving at least five short and rapid blasts.” This signal is often heard around San Francisco Bay. It’s usually issued by a large container ship encountering some pleasure vessel in mid-channel. In contrast to the politely formal language of the International Regulations, the clear and unvarnished interpretation is, “get the hell out my way or I’ll smush you like roadkill!”

The signal works. Mr. Magoo luffs up and sweeps past closely on the port side of the Catana. Half of the crew is giving us the stank-eye. The other half is gesticulating in shock and amazement at the swimmer in the water. For now, Lindsay will just have to make do with a live husband in lieu of a large settlement.

Eventually, we round the corner at Pier 39 and head west. At the Jeremiah O’Brien, the horn sounds for the last time. I’ve been swimming for ten hours and five minutes. What a sweet sound! I hurt all over. Worst of all, my stomach feels grossly bloated and distended. The crew ask if I want to keep swimming to the club beach. It’s only about twenty minutes away, but I’m ready to stop the torture and find I’m really eager to see the doggies. I struggle into the Arias behind Reuben and we chug back to the club dock.

I don’t feel quite as bad as I did after the eight hour swim, but it’s a close call. Some kind soul brings me a mug of hot, sweetened tea to drink in the sauna. It tastes good, but kicks the nausea over the precipice. I race to the bathroom to puke. Whey solids are in clear evidence and it’s obvious that the lactose sealed off the digestion process as effectively as a cork in a bottle. No way is the whey going to make the trip to England.

Back home that evening, Lindsay makes some plain white rice with a little salt, pepper, and grated Reggiano parmesan. It really hits the spot. Once again, the martini tastes as medicinal as the liquid ibuprofen. I go to bed early, but can’t easily get to sleep. My whole body is sore and my stomach is queasy. I’m still lying awake at nine o’clock and thinking about Suzie D’s recent swim across the Catalina channel. It took her 18 hours and 36 minutes. I lay there realizing that I’d still be swimming. In fact, I’d still be swimming until one o’clock in the morning! This thought gives me a perverse feeling of comparative comfort and I drift into a light slumber.

Two weeks later and I’m finally recovered. The stomach pretty much recovered overnight and the muscle soreness was gone in a couple of days. But several days passed before I felt like lifting weights again. Emotional stability took even longer. I have a fairly mercurial temperament anyway, but this was freakish and reminded me of teenage. One day lethargy. Another day exuberance. Least charming were the splenetic periods. I suppose Jens Voigt would say something like, “Shut up, hormones, and do what I tell you to do!”

The last long training swim is behind me, though. I’m back to swimming regularly in the old swimming hole for relatively short distances and enjoying the experience immensely. I’m anxious about completing the Big Swim, but feel I’m well-prepared. More than anything, I’m absolutely determined that the next long swim I undertake will end on land.

Have You Gained Weight?

2010-08-10T12:02:00.000-07:00

Monday 08/09/10

Common wisdom proclaims that people with a higher body mass index are more impervious to the effects of cold water. In our weight-obsessed society, this topic generates vociferous discussion. A very amusing example is the furor aroused when a gentleman posted a query on the channel swimmers Google group regarding use of a wetsuit in the English Channel for a charity relay. One response labelled wetsuits as “textile steroids.” However, not a single person challenged the inverse relationship between body fat and susceptibility to cold.

Of the twenty Dolphin Club members who have swum the English Channel somewhat less than half gained weight for the attempt. Tom Keller is an example of someone who poured on the pounds with glee. He delighted in the prospect of adding a scoop of ice cream to his double cheeseburger. One multiple channel crosser tsks at the folks who don’t gain weight. She says, “We have a saying for those people—too vain, no gain!” By my observation, though, more than half of the successful swimmers headed to Dover toting no additional body baggage.

According to three studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine, all fat is not created equal. In one of the articles, the research team led by Aaron M. Cypess writes, “The adipose-tissue pool in mammals is composed of at least two functionally different kinds of fat: white and brown.” The fat is brown because it is filled with mitochondria. These tiny organelles live in animal cells and function as the “energy plant” manufacturing ATP. When activated by a cold environment, brown fat can burn substantial numbers of calories. Leslie Kozak conducted a study on mice that lost forty-seven percent of their body fat by being kept in a 41 degree room for a week while eating more than normal.

Some people have extended this notion to conclude that brown fat creates heat and keeps the body warmer in cold water. Another extrapolation is that exposure to cold does more than activate brown fat, it actually creates it. Proponents of this belief traipse through the winter months in shorts and flip-flops. My brief review of the literature supported neither of these notions but the thought is still intriguing.

At six feet tall and 180 pounds, I’m sandwiched between the endomorphs and the ectomorphs. My weight has only varied within a five pound range in the past year, usually dropping after a long swim. Until recently, I haven’t worried about the water temperature in the English Channel or my body fat percentage. Twenty-two years of swimming in the Bay have lulled me into a sense of security regarding cold water and sixty degrees has long seemed positively balmy. The eight hour swim cracked that confidence a little, but I still believe that resistance to cold is mostly related to the fat between the ears. Perhaps the ten hour swim will further challenge this belief.

In the meantime, vanity continues to play a determining factor for me in avoiding weight gain. BUT, I have some scientific support for my complacency. When patients have a heart attack, they apparently benefit from 24 hours of induced hypothermia. This led a research team headed by Joost Jimmink to conduct a study entitled, “The influence of body composition on therapeutic hypothermia.” Dr. Jimmink and his team found that, “The time to reach target temperatures seems not to be influenced (or at most only partly) by body composition.” Yet another argument to just "shut up and swim."

Eight Hour Bay Swim

2010-07-30T14:22:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 07/20/10

The tide book is predicting that relatively little water will move in and out of San Francisco Bay today. Less than 4 feet will rise on the flood and only 1.3 feet will recede on the subsequent ebb. This raises the possibility of attempting a swim that has long tickled my fancy. Several years ago, Laura B told me about one of her Channel training swims. She nonchalantly mentioned swimming to Oakland and then around Treasure Island and various other landmarks. I was stupefied at the time. However, today seems like a good time to undertake a similar swimming tour of the Bay.

A maximum flood current of 2.8 knots is supposed to flow at the Golden Gate Bridge at 7:25am. If we jump at 6:30am, we can ride the end of the flood maybe as far as AT&T Park and then loop around Yerba Buena and Treasure Islands. Depending on the conditions, we may even be able to circle Angel Island and have the weak ebb current help us back to Aquatic Park.

Reuben Hechanova is the Dolphin Club boat captain and he will be piloting the Arias for the first four hours. Ralph Wenzel will be swimming with me. Lindsay and Ralph’s nephew, Ben Sathis, will crew for the whole time. In what is now an almost practiced manner, we help Reuben load and launch the pilot boat. Ralph and I wade into the water and once again stroke for the Opening.

The Arias catches up with us part way down the breakwater and I chuckle to hear the crackling radio announcing our “marine event.” The flood current is still flowing and Ralph and I swim in tandem past Pier 39. Reuben takes us out to mid-channel to catch the maximum possible current. The soaring San Francisco skyline slides by on our right and we stroke under the west section of the Bay Bridge at mid-span. By the time we reach the end of the South Beach Harbour breakwater, we’re on our fourth feeding and encounter the early stirring of a weak ebb.

We turn east and curve toward the eastern span of the Bay Bridge. Construction is active on the replacement bridge and the engineers ask us to swim further east to avoid falling debris. None of us are wearing hard hats so it seems like good advice. The new bridge is actually starting to look like something. It’s easy to imagine the graceful, soaring towers eventually dressed in a geometric array of suspension cables. This memory is definitely one for the archives.

In spite of the surrounding beauty, I’m starting to feel pretty crummy. I’m cold. My hands and feet have been hurting for a while, now. My belly feels like I’ve swallowed a slowing inflating balloon. The liquid ibuprofen burns my throat, scores my stomach, and leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Various body parts are whining. My brain is starting to question the wisdom of this whole project.

Jens Voigt is a professional cyclist. He is one of the best rouleur (all-round) riders on the tour and has won two stages in the Tour de France. He provides a living example of determination and fortitude. In this year’s race through France, he crashed repeatedly. Once, with his own bike smashed beyond repair, he borrowed a child’s bicycle to avoid being picked up by the “broom wagon.” He eventually caught up to the grupetto and retrieved one of his spare bikes to finish the race and earn the right to continue to Paris. When a reporter asked him about the pain he replied, “Sometimes you can hear like your body start talking to you. It goes, ‘Ohhh! I can’t do it anymore, I can’t do it anymore.’ And then your mind goes, ‘Shut up body and do what I tell you to do!” Later, another reporter asked him, “Jens, one more time. What do you tell your legs?” Voigt turned from signing an autograph, grinned and declaimed, “Shut up legs!”

Just after four and a half hours in the water, Barry Christian arrives in a zodiac to change places with Reuben. He brings a crew change. Jackie Merovich replaces her boyfriend, Larry. From my torture chamber in the water, I barely notice. I summon an image of Jens Voigt and his dry, sarcastic sense of humour to force myself to keep going. The six hour swim was so much easier. Eight hours is starting to seem an unreachable goal. Ten hours looms as impossible. The English Channel menaces like an insane and ludicrous nightmare. I begin to imagine scenarios where I just abandon the whole quest. I rehearse my excuses to friends and family. I calculate the forfeited expenditures. I tally the financial commitments the crew has made and how much it will cost to compensate them. And then it’s time for the next feeding. Saved by the air horn! I remind myself to just swim from feed to feed.

We’re now officially in “the Slot.” On a typical summer afternoon, the sun pounds down on the baked East Bay hills and creates an outdoor furnace. As the hot air rises it generates suction, dragging cooler air from the San Francisco Bay. The headlands that frame the Golden Gate Bridge form a natural Bernoulli funnel, accelerating a cold air mass toward Berkeley and beyond. The turbo-charged wind and the unchecked fetch from the open ocean typically create a lumpy, chaotic mess in the Slot. This afternoon is no exception. The wind is blowing 25 to 30 knots and the waves are four to six feet high at a six second interval. And, of course, the waves have breaking tops. The wind-generated current completely erases the small ebb and Ralph and I creep slowly up the Slot past Angel Island to Pt. Blunt.

Life on the pilot boat is a sodden, spine-pounding scramble. Lindsay stops recording and stashes the video camera in a water-proof pouch. The crew pump vigorously on the bailer. The sea is pummelling boat and swimmer alike. A couple of times, I reach out for a stroke and a breaking wave spins me completely around my axis. This is actually good news. Concentrating on timing my stroke to the breaking waves and avoiding swallowing the salt water distracts me. The other pains don’t exactly diminish but they blur into a tattered miasma.

Eventually … blessedly … the final horn sounds. We’re part way back to Alcatraz and the Bay is in an uproar. Ralph and I struggle over the pontoon sides and into the heaving craft. We wedge ourselves into the bow to distribute the weight and endure a jarring, icy trip back to Aquatic Park. Barry is threading his way expertly at no more than ten miles an hour, but the periodic, precipitous drops from the top of a wave into the trough of an oncoming successor are unavoidable and drenching. With each slamming impact, I barely suppress another grunting “unhhhh.”

On the drive home from the Dolphin Club, I slouch uncomfortably in the passenger seat. Halfway there, I implore Lindsay to pull over to the side of the road where I spew three loads of projectile vomit into the gutter. Charming. Someone sagely advised checking your dignity at the door when you attempt the English Channel. That evening, I’m reminded of the aftermath of the five hour swim. Lethargic and demoralized, I barely touch my dinner or my dinner cocktail. Franklin Roosevelt reportedly described drinking a well-made martini as “sipping a cold cloud.” Tonight, it just tastes like frozen medicine to me.

A week and a half later, I’m almost fully recovered. The specifics of the anguish are now hazy, but I’m wary of the remaining trauma. On the other hand, Lindsay and I have a grand time sticking pins in the San Francisco Bay chart to mark our latest trek. We amuse one another all week with our horror stories during cocktail hour and the gin once again mimics Mr. Roosevelt’s “cold cloud.” We’re planning the last long training swim for ten hours on August 22nd. And this time, we will not be anywhere near the Slot.

Six Hour Bay Swim

2010-07-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 06/23/10

I’ve been sick. I haven’t swum since last Thursday when my throat first started feeling scratchy. Since then, I’ve been napping heavily and chugging Nyquil at night to keep the wracking cough and congestion at bay. Someone trying to cheer me up suggested that I think of this time as “an enforced taper.” Very funny.

Ralph Wenzel and I were scheduled to swim in the Bay for six hours on Tuesday, but Lindsay convinced me to put it off a day. That was good advice. The extra day makes me feel better, but I’m quite jittery about suddenly attempting a long swim. On the other hand, delay would jeopardize the remaining Channel training schedule. Feeling so rotten has tapped a pessimistic vein and once more in this long preparation process I wrestle with the demons of doubt. Suzie D, a multiple Channel crosser, calls these moments a crise de coeur. Finally, I decide to just shut up and swim. The temperature will be four or five degrees warmer than it was for our five hour swim. That alone should compensate for whatever physical infirmity the illness has meted.

At 7:30a, Ralph and I join Darcy and Lindsay on the dock to help Paul Brady load and launch the Arias. The women then clamber into the inflatable with Paul at the helm. For this excursion, Lindsay and I have premixed the maltodextrin powder with hot water in our old, blue, two-gallon water cooler. The new system allows the crew to simply push a button and squirt a dose of feed into the BPA-free bottle each half hour. This eliminates the necessity to juggle half a dozen bottles; makes it possible to supply a warm feed; and avoids a messy mixing and measuring process. The remaining feeding task is to mingle additives such as apple juice, liquid ibuprofen, and whey protein at the designated times. We use a large ice chest to hold the crew lunch and drinks, the spare water bottles, and alternative feeding material. We found it much easier to quickly grab the necessary item out of a hard-sided container than rummaging around in a soft sack on a pitching watercraft. Any suspicion we might have harboured that this project was not a learning process has long dissipated. We are thoroughly convinced that repeated rehearsals in all facets of the campaign are valuable.

Shortly after 8a, Ralph and I leave the beach at the Dolphin Club and crab into the flood tide to reach the opening at Aquatic Park. We turn the corner and shoot down the side of the breakwater. The volume on the Arias’ radio is cranked up and the speaker crackles loudly. San Francisco Bay Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) is communicating with a commercial tug. “Roger, Yankee Hotel. Your deviation request to proceed westbound in the eastbound traffic lane south of Alcatraz has been granted ... And there’s a marine event: Two swimmers in the water from Aquatic Park to Candlestick Point accompanied by the Dolphin Club Arias. They’re monitoring 14 and working channel 71.” For the rest of the swim, pilot Paul Brady keeps VTS informed of our progress. When we reach the Russian guided missile cruiser docked at Pier 17, the VTS controller warns us to remain at least 100 yards clear. The Japanese training vessel, Kashima, has no such qualms. It actually cruises by us and the cadets lining the side smile and wave.

The temperature is about 55 degrees Fahrenheit, markedly warmer than our last long swim. It’s still a little chilly, but balmy in comparison. When we turn the corner at Pier 39, it warms up yet another couple of degrees. By the time we pass under the Bay Bridge on our southbound leg, the temperature has climbed to 58 or 59. I shake and shiver some at the second feeding. Shortly after that, I completely forget about the cold. This is a walk in the park compared to our five hour freezing ordeal.

Opposite Hunters Point, we turn around and head back. We have reached slack tide and the natural back-eddy filling India Basin grips us in its maw for a half hour. Eventually, we escape and the building ebb current sweeps us back north. Three and a half hours into the swim, my upper thighs start aching. At one point, the pain is bad enough that I start dragging my legs through the water without kicking. I can’t do this for very long since my lower half rapidly sinks. I resume kicking just hard enough to stay level in the water. At the four hour feed, Lindsay spikes my mixture with a little whey protein to provide some fat and adds 600 milligrams of liquid ibuprofen. Shortly afterwards, the pain in my thighs disappears.

At Pier 19, we pass another security zone—this time for an American military ship. The zone extends 100 yards off shore and I am at least 20 yards beyond that. However, as we pass, burly men dressed in dark colors begin to bristle and posture until we slide by.

At the six hour mark, we’re opposite Pier 27 again. The ebb has strengthened and Ralph and I both feel fine. We know it would be satisfying to finish back at the club beach, so we agree to keep going. A Hornblower ferry is carting a horde of tourists to Alcatraz. On some unheard cue from the captain, the throng on the upper deck give us a cheer and wave excitedly as they motor onward to visit the prison.

Having achieved our goal, I am starting to emerge from that long-distance meditative swimming zone. I stop concentrating on stroke mechanics and begin to think of non-aquatic obligations. These thoughts whirl for about fifteen minutes until I stop swimming and suggest that we pack it in. There are a couple of things I’d like to get done before 5p. Later, I learn that Ralph has an appointment with his insurance agent at 3:30p.

Back in the shower and sauna, Ralph and I are feeling mighty good. We marvel at how much better we feel than we did after the five hour swim. I’m excited to think that Lindsay and I have the feeding sorted out. One measure of Ralph’s outlook is that he readily agrees to accompany me on the next swim for eight hours.

This open water swim represents the final “t” that I have to cross in order to be officially qualified to attempt to swim the English Channel. The Channel Swimming Association requires an affidavit signed by two witnesses attesting to an aspirant’s swim of six hours in water 60 degrees or colder. Adherence to this mandate is based on the honour system.

Last April, Jacques Frederik started a firestorm when he published an entry on the Channel Swimmers Google Group. He freely and very publically confessed, “I, for instance, didn’t do the 6 hour swim and got a personal friend at a national swimming body to sign the document. Instead, I wanted to focus on the Channel swim and build it up mentally and physically mainly in the pool.” When the inevitable admonishment sprang forth, he went even further and demanded that people “spare me your moral issues and patronising.” This expression of petulance predictably fanned the flames. Mike Oram had probably the most vituperative response. He wrote, “It’s not the moral issues and patronising you should be spared from. You are a liar - and a self-centred, vain, conceited cheat with little or no morals.”

For my part, I can’t imagine faking the six hour swim. In order to feel that I have done everything I can to be prepared, I’m planning an eight and a ten hour swim in the next two months. In fact, just a few years ago, the CSA demanded a ten hour qualifying swim. My perception is that Monsieur Frederik not only cheated the system—he cheated himself. It doesn’t sound like he tried to enjoy the process of preparation and celebrate the journey. In fact, he admits “after my Channel swim, I was so sick of swimming that I stopped for some time.” Regardless of whether I ultimately stand on France or not, I don’t expect that to be my reaction. Rather, embracing the odyssey has been unbelievably fulfilling. It has also made me care more about swimming than I would have ever thought possible.

The First Woman (Part II)

2010-06-29T15:50:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 06/29/10

Ms. Ederle returned from England to both cheers and jeers. Much of the reaction split along the schism that prevailed in 1925 related to ideas of a woman’s proper place in the world. The cheers celebrated Trudy Ederle’s massive effort as a testimony to women’s athletic potential and an example of the true grit of the female gender. The jeers lamented the coarsening of the female ideal, the threat that athletic endeavour presented to potential motherhood, and the prospect of an emasculated race of men. And the simmering tiff with Jabez Wolffe fanned the negative flames. In her influential monthly column in the Washington Post, Dorothy Greene wrote, “the whole matter is not worth a fiftieth of the publicity which it has received, and we are tempted to agree that ‘woman’s place, though it may not be in the home, is certainly not in the English Channel.’”

The swimmer, though still young, was no longer a child. The WSA had shaved a year off of Ms. Ederle’s age, but she was actually nineteen and ready to strike out on her own. Helen Wainwright once again led the way. She accepted an offer to be a spokesperson for American Tobacco Company. She appeared in a magazine ad proclaiming, “We swimmers have to keep in strict training. When I first got started a veteran swimmer advised me that I could smoke Lucky Strikes without affecting my wind or throat. I tried them and found he was right. They’re great! They have never affected my throat and they taste fine.”

Like Ms. Wainwright, Trudy Ederle didn’t smoke. Unlike Ms. Wainwright, she refused to endorse any product she wouldn’t use. Still, the lure of independence offered by turning professional beckoned and she knew the WSA was disinclined to sponsor another Channel effort. Forgoing amateur status, she and several of her compatriots, including Helen Wainwright, took positions as iconic swim instructors at large hotels in Florida. And, a motoring enthusiast, Ms. Ederle found a product she could endorse—the Reo Roadster. She was well on her way to financing another attempt at the English Channel on her own.

The true financial breakthrough came from the newspaper industry. It was becoming obvious to publishers that stories which lent themselves to serialization sold papers. The Scripps-Howard chain had already snatched up Lillian Cannon with exclusive rights to the story of her coming attempt to swim the English Channel in the summer of 1926. Joseph Medill Patterson of the Chicago Tribune-Daily News immediately did the same with Trudy Ederle. According to Gavin Mortimer in The Great Swim, “On May 29 Ederle, accompanied by her father, signed a deal with Patterson’s organization. She would write regular dispatches from France and Patterson would pay her $5,000 with an additional $2,500 if she was successful.” Joe Patterson sent Julia Harpman and her husband, Westbrook Pegler along to ghost-write the dispatches and to protect the newspapers’ exclusive.

For this attempt, Ms. Ederle hand-picked a support team in which she had complete confidence—her father Henry and her sister Margaret. Henry Ederle provided a loan and helped negotiate a contract with Bill Burgess for ten thousand francs including a retainer to guarantee that he train Trudy and no one else. Margaret helped her design a new pair of eye goggles that they hoped would work better than those the year before. Rounding out the team, Joe Patterson hired Joe Corthes and the tug Alsace to provide escort exclusively to Ms. Ederle until she achieved her goal. Mr. Patterson considered the cost of three hundred francs per hour a small price to ensure that no other Channel swimmer had access to the vessel.

For this iteration, Ms. Ederle chose to make home base in France. On June 10, 1926, she and her entourage checked into the small Hotel du Phare in the little village of Cape Gris-Nez. This was no resort. It lacked electricity and running water. According to Tim Dahlberg in America’s Girl, “If someone insisted on a bath—which seldom happened—Mrs. Blondiau and the chambermaid would heat water in huge iron vessels on the kitchen range and carry them upstairs to the tub on the second floor.”

On reaching France, the first order of business was to confront Bill Burgess for violating his contract and agreeing to coach Lillian Cannon as well. Gavin Mortimer relates, “Burgess apologized and explained that … Cannon’s newspaper had paid him twenty thousand francs, and what with the collapse of the French economy because of its war debt to America, he needed the money to prop up his garage business. Of course, if Gertrude’s newspaper were to match what Cannon was paying him, he would be delighted to coach only her.” Eventually, Ms. Ederle grimly agreed and laid down her own set of rules. She insisted that he not try to convince her to use the breaststroke, that he not try to interfere with her stroke rate, and that he absolutely had no authority to pull her from the Channel unless she, herself, requested.

About this time, Jabez Wolffe was looking for work. The public tit-for-tat with Gertrude Ederle had soured his reputation and none of the women aspirants cared to contract with him as a coach. He had heard of an American swimmer named Clarabelle Barrett. She was renown not only for her open water swimming prowess, but also for her size. She was six feet two inches tall and weighed two hundred and twenty pounds. Rumour suggested that she had sailed from New York on July 3, but three weeks later she had yet to appear at Cape Gris-Nez. Lacking newspaper or other financial support, she was conducting her undertaking on a shoestring. She had taken quarters in Dover and planned to swim from England to France. This left Mr. Wolffe fruitlessly prowling the environs of Cape Gris-Nez searching for large women on the chance he might meet Ms. Barrett and offer his services.

The weather and temperature combined to thwart most attempts at swimming the Channel until late in the season. Finally, on August 1, Clarabelle Barrett began her assault from Dover. The New York Times, thanks to its London-based correspondent, Alec Rutherford had the scoop. As Gavin Mortimer says, “It was a tale of indomitable resolution in the face of relentless adversity, a story guaranteed to stir the hearts of Americans.” As so many before, she came excruciatingly close to her goal before fog and tide beset her. Nearly cleaved by a passing steamer in the fog, she finally gave up after twenty-one hours and forty-five minutes.

News of Ms. Barrett’s near success spurred Trudy Ederle to action. On August 6, she entered the water in France covered in three layers of olive oil, lanolin, lard and vaseline until she looked like a “basted chicken.” She was wearing the goggles she and her sister had created which were sealed the night before with a serendipitous amount of candle wax. She was also wearing a shocking two-piece bathing suit, designed and sewed by her sister, to eliminate the horrible chafing associated with women’s swimsuits of the day.

Onboard the accompanying Alsace were Henry and Meg Ederle, Ishaq Helvi, and John Hayward of the London Daily Sketch. Mr. Hayward traveled in his capacity as the official British witness. Julia Harpman allowed no other reporters on the tug. As told by Gavin Mortimer, the remaining stranded newsmen were furious. They understood that, “She was within her rights to protect her paper’s exclusive, that they understood as fellow reporters, but she had intentionally deceived them by allowing them to believe they would be welcome on the official escort tug. Now, at the eleventh hour, she was marooning them on the beach and sailing away like some eighteenth-century pirate.”

Three hours later, the beached reporters had caught up with the swimmer as she made good progress in the calm sea. They had cleverly seized on the realization that Lillian Cannon was not swimming that day. Ms. Cannon allowed them to borrow her chartered vessel, La Morinie, and sailed with them to watch Ms. Ederle conduct her swim.

By mid-morning, the weather started to turn. The wind began to blow from the southwest and the waves began to get rougher. Bill Burgess began to worry. Glenn Stout in Young Woman and the Sea records that, “He thought now of the packet he had stashed in the pilothouse, the papers he had drawn up. Burgess had been afraid that the weather would turn and that he might have to stop the swim and take Trudy out of the water, but all he had heard for the last two months, from Trudy and Meg and Henry Ederle, was that once Trudy started to swim, she would not stop, and no one, absolutely no one, was to touch her and take her from the water, no matter what, unless she called for help herself.” The papers were a release for Henry Ederle to sign absolving Mr. Burgess of responsibility.

As they approached the Goodwin Sands, Bill Burgess and Joe Corthes, the tug pilot began to fear for the safety of both the swimmer and the boat. They called Mr. Ederle into the pilothouse and explained that the responsible course was to return to France. The alternative was to swim into the current for a time to circumnavigate the sandy barrier, but the current was too strong, the wind too stiff, the waves too tall, and the light was beginning to fail. Henry Ederle chose to keep going. His daughter was swimming strongly and even seemed to be enjoying herself. He was not going to thwart her wishes. With a snort, he signed the release.

This sparked a loud argument among the seasick passengers. In the confusion, someone whose identity is lost to history leaned over the rail and shouted, “Come on out, girl! Come on out!” Trudy Ederle famously rolled on her back and shouted back, “What for?” Effortlessly, she had created a catch phrase to spark the imagination and inspire Americans for some time to come.

As Glenn Stout writes, “In an instant the unconquerable Channel was subdued, and the weather, while still atrocious, didn’t matter anymore. With each stroke of her arms and kick of her legs Trudy was taming the Channel. There wasn’t any question about it, not any more. Trudy wasn’t coming out of the water, and if she didn’t come out of the water, she was not going to fail.”

Finally at 9:40p, she walked out of the water onto a Kingsdown Beach that was alight with the bonfires and flares of the people assembled to greet her. She was the sixth person and the first woman to have swum the English Channel. She also owned the record. She had bested Enrico Tiraboschi’s time by almost two hours.

After visiting her grandmother in Bissingen, Germany, she and her family returned to New York City to a ticker tape parade. The incessant press of gargantuan crowds and whirlwind tour of events took their toll. She broke down in exhaustion and rested for a day before returning to her rigorous schedule of luncheons and meetings.

Before her manager could lock down the various lucrative offers that flowed her way, Mille Gade Corson became the second woman to successfully swim the English Channel. Although Ms. Corson was one hour slower, she was a mother of two children. Shortly after this, Arnst Vierkotter set a new crossing record of twelve hours and forty minutes. The pile of offers meant for Ms. Ederle were withdrawn and replaced with smaller ones.

Still, Trudy Ederle made a decent living capitalizing on the fame of her historic conquest of the English Channel. Later in life, she taught deaf children to swim. She died at the age of ninety-seven in New Jersey having never married—her one opportunity probably sabotaged by deafness. Before she died, she told a reporter, “I have no complaints. I am comfortable and satisfied. I am not a person who reaches for the moon as long as I have the stars.”

The First Woman (Part I)

2010-06-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

Monday 06/21/10

Depending on the historical source, Henry Ederle had nineteen or twenty-one brothers and sisters in Bissingen, Germany. Seeking more opportunity in 1892, he immigrated to New York City at the age of sixteen and found work as a delivery boy in a small butcher shop on the Upper West Side. He certainly embodied the classic immigrant success story. Twenty-two years later, he owned a thriving butcher shop of his own, dabbled in investments, and kept a summer cottage in the Highlands in New Jersey. It was here, at a pier in Sandy Hook Bay, that Mr. Ederle taught his three children to swim.

In 1915, most swim instruction was exceptionally primitive. Mr. Ederle’s innovation was to apply his skills learned wrapping meat at the butcher counter to create a harness out of cotton clothesline. Trussing his youngest daughter, Gertrude, he strolled onto the Patten Line Pier near their home in the Highlands and spooled out the line below. Snugging up the rope, he encouraged “Trudy” to enter the water from the beach. The clothesline acted like training wheels on a bicycle. Within minutes, Trudy was performing a vigorous, thrashing dog paddle without assistance from her dad. She was in heaven. As reported by Glenn Stout in Young Woman and the Sea, she would later say, “To me, the sea is like a person—like a child that I’ve known a long time. It sounds crazy, I know, but when I swim in the sea I talk to it. I never feel alone when I’m out there.”

Perhaps part of her affinity for being immersed in the water sprang from her diminished hearing. When she was five years old, an attack of measles left her with an ear infection and hearing loss. In noisy settings with a gabble of conversations, she became confused and distracted. Although she was outgoing and lively with her family and friends, around strangers she appeared shy. She regularly retreated to her private world through swimming and reading—spending hours in the open water at the Highlands or burying herself in dime novels of the day.

In one of several fortunate coincidences, 1917 was the year that Charlotte Epstein created the Women’s Swimming Association in New York City. Trudy’s mother, Gertrud (spelled without the trailing “e”), immediately recognized the opportunity and signed up all three of her daughters. Ms. Epstein had cleverly positioned the WSA as an ancillary and subservient arm of the Amateur Athletic Union. According to Tim Dahlberg in America’s Girl, “Epstein got the AAU not only to accept women’s swimming as a sport but to allow swimmers to wear suits they could compete in.... American women would compete in swimming in the 1920 Olympics for the first time, and they would do it mostly in the black silk racing suits of the WSA.”

In another fortunate coincidence, Louis de Breda Handley was the swim coach for the WSA. An Italian immigrant and champion swimmer in his own right, Mr. Handley co-invented the “American crawl” stroke. Known today simply as “freestyle,” this is the stroke he taught to swimmers at the WSA. Far superior to the popular “trudgen” and “Australian crawl” strokes, the WSA competitors used the American crawl to dominate the 1920 Olympic swimming trials and then the Olympic swim events themselves.

Practicing three times a week at the WSA pool in the winter, Trudy Ederle was mastering the new crawl stroke but showing little interest in competition. It was her sister, Margaret, who registered her for a three-and-a-half mile open water swim from Manhattan Beach to Brighton Beach in 1922. Organized by Joseph P. Day, the swim featured the WSA Olympic swimming stars as well as Hilda James of England. The Liverpool native carried the reputation as Europe’s greatest woman swimmer. The stellar quality of the competition made no impression on Trudy Ederle. Now sixteen years old and perfectly content in open water given her Highlands experience, she finished nearly a minute ahead of her closest competitor and burst upon the swiming scene. With her youth and unforced charm and modesty, she quickly became the new face of the WSA.

By 1924, Gertrude Ederle and Johnny Weissmuller were the stars of the U.S. Olympic swim team. Although she won three medals, Ms. Ederle’s performance along with the rest of the women’s contingent suffered from mismanagement of the team logistics in Paris. She nevertheless returned to great acclamation, but any thrill she had ever mustered for pool competition waned dramatically.

Charlotte Epstein of the WSA had new plans, though. Given the lull between Olympic years, she saw an opportunity in the English Channel to keep the WSA in the newspaper headlines and attract donors. No woman had yet swum the Channel and she convinced the WSA board to authorize a $5,000 budget for the project. They assigned Ms. Epstein to make all the arrangements and accompany the swimmer in the attempt.

Fifty years after Matthew Webb swam the English Channel, only four other men had replicated his feat. It wasn’t for lack of trying. The Dover Express, considered the doyen of Channel swimming at the time, estimated that the number of attempts since 1875 exceeded 1,000. Jabez Wolffe single-handedly contributed at least twenty-two and maybe as many as forty failed attempts to this number without a single success.

In 1911, Bill Burgess finally became the second man to swim the English Channel after several failed attempts of his own. It took him almost an hour longer than Captain Webb. Shortly after Mr. Burgess’ success, the Great War threw a wrench into the works of further efforts for several years. After the war; after the mines were cleared; and after the world economy finally began to rebound, 1923 represented a break-through year for Channel crossings. Three men more than doubled the ranks of successful swimmers. One of them, Enrico Tiraboschi, finally bettered Matthew Webb’s time by more than four hours with a time of sixteen hours and thirty-three minutes. He set the new mark swimming from France to England for the first time, a route widely deemed to be much easier than starting in Dover given the more favourable landing conditions.

Charlotte Epstein and Louis Handley believed that they had a swimmer who could not only become the first woman. They believed that she could best the time of Mr. Tiraboschi by as much as two hours. They believed this woman was Helen Wainwright. Biographer Glenn Stout muses that, “this was a measure of just how far Trudy’s star had fallen, for Wainwright, despite all her talent, didn’t have nearly as much experience as Trudy in open water.”

Fate intervened when Ms. Wainwright slipped while exiting a trolley and tore a muscle in her thigh. Once again, Margaret Ederle immediately began a campaign to convince her younger sister to take up the challenge. Trudy Ederle was the obvious choice to the press and the coaches to provide a backup. The WSA board authorized additional funds to take two swimmers.

While making the arrangements, Ms. Epstein had the choice between two well-credentialed coaches for the endeavour. Jabez Wolffe was based in England and could certainly boast vast, if unsuccessful, experience. Bill Burgess, the other obvious choice given his success in 1911, was based in France. Ms. Epstein believed that the best course of action was to train in England and then attempt the crossing from France. She went with Mr. Wolffe.

Before leaving for England, Ms. Wainwright slipped again and reinjured her thigh leaving Trudy Ederle to travel alone with her chaperone, Elsie Viets. Louis Handley had carefully structured Ms. Ederle’s training agenda both in America and during her preparation in England. With the help of Margaret Ederle, he had convinced the young woman that she was prepared to succeed and filled her with confidence. This set the stage for a dramatic showdown with the cantankerous Mr. Wolffe.

Although he was Jewish, Jabez Wolffe had the strict, thundering style of his fellow Scot, the pinched and decidedly protestant John Knox. Mr. Wolffe continually berated his young charge and constantly drilled her on the dangers of the English Channel. He even introduced the notion of man-eating sharks. He berated her stroke and recommended the breast stroke. He lambasted her stroke rate of twenty-eight per minute and suggested eighteen or twenty as more suitable for the Channel distance. He tried to interfere with the training schedule Louis Handley had given her. He condemned her effort to teach herself the ukulele outside of training hours as fatuous. He insisted that Ms. Ederle accept deep, vigorous massages to “harden” the muscles and make them immune to fatigue.

With the backing of Ms. Viets, the aspiring Channel swimmer resisted all of these entreaties with the possible exception of being frightened about the potential for sharks. According to Glenn Stout, “to Trudy, Wolffe was ‘all wet.’ … Although Trudy was generally shy, when it came to swimming she knew her stuff and wasn’t afraid to express her opinion.” By the time they moved camp across the Channel to Boulogne, France, the battle lines were deeply drawn.

On August 17, 1925, Ms. Ederle began her attempt from a rocky outcrop at Cap Gris Nez. During the crossing, she and Mr. Wolffe continued to spar. He continually chided her for swimming too fast and insisted that she stop every thirty minutes for chocolate and beef tea. Tim Dahlberg in America’s Girl says, “Trudy would later talk about her distrust of the beef broth and Wolffe’s insistence that she drink it. It gave her a warm, burning sensation, which made her think it might be wine or liquor. Wolffe would tell her it was just juices of genuine beef, but this butcher’s daughter knew what beef and its broth tasted like, and it tasted nothing like this.” Many experts at the time believed that doses of whiskey or brandy helped to warm the blood and stem the effects of cold water. However, Ms. Ederle simply didn’t like alcoholic beverages of any kind and firmly refused Mr. Wolffe’s efforts to get her to imbibe during training. Some historians even allude to the possible addition of opiates or barbiturates.

In any case, Ms. Ederle swam swiftly for close to nine hours to get within six and a half miles of the English coast. Then, in a moment that remains controversial, Jabez Wolffe ordered Ishaq Helvi to “grab her” or some command to that effect. Mr. Helvi was a large, gregarious Egyptian who had become friends with Ms. Ederle during her stay in France. He was a Channel aspirant himself with multiple attempts under his belt. He was in the water acting as a pacer at the time and once he touched Ms. Ederle, the swim was over—her attempt a failure. Although she returned to America a celebrity, the Channel remained unconquered by a woman that year.

The Mental Stuff

2010-05-31T15:56:00.000-07:00

Monday 05/31/10

The mystery is solved. Cliff Golding is the Channel swimmer who taught me about the psychological tool for surviving an attack of debilitating doubt in the middle of a long, cold swim. Fortunately for me and the rest of the marathon swimming world, he recently updated his handbook for swimming the English Channel and posted it on the channel swimmers chat site.

According to Swim Trek, "in 1981 Mr. Golding was a twenty-six year old, very contented endurance athlete. Then he took up Channel swimming and ruined his life.” His handbook belongs on the “must read” list for swimmers preparing to attempt a solo English Channel crossing. It covers almost every practical aspect of the swim from boarding to re-boarding the pilot boat. He has graciously permitted republication of this material.

Alison Streeter, MBE, has completed forty-three successful solo crossings of the English Channel, more than any other woman. For this accomplishment, she carries the title, “Queen of the Channel.” Ms. Streeter has famously declared that “Channel swimming is 80% mental, 20% the rest.” In light of this piece of wisdom, I have excerpted the following psychological tips from Mr. Golding’s handbook:

“Now the heavy bit!

There will/might come a stage when you way are out of your comfort zone, having exceeded the longest time previously spent in the water and think the task is now beyond you. Or you might think this early in the swim. Or it might happen when a lot of swimmers hit a rough patch – around the 5-7 hour mark. This is normal. I say again – this is normal!!!!! Oh yes, this is so normal!

I have two hard learnt theories pertaining to Channel swimming. The first is that women are inherently mentally tougher than men! There you go, I’ve said it – and not for the first time! I don’t wish to be too general, but when a man goes to the edge and topples over he can fall into an abyss of despair and stress. If others have witnessed this mental implosion the situation is exacerbated ten fold as far as he is concerned. If a man boos his leg off and calls for his mummy then it can be game over! I never booed or cried for mum in my early days of Channel swimming but I did implode mentally in spectacular fashion and this mental falling apart was, for me, shameful and insurmountable (mad, hey?). Women, on the other hand, are different. Not always, but, in most cases, when a women falls over the edge, she boos her leg off and then gets on with it with a, “So what? Never seen a girl cry before?” defiance.

The shame and insurmountable odds I referred to lead to the second theory which applies to both men and women. I believe we all have secret doors in our heads. When we do long, meaningful swims in training or, ‘on the day’, we can crash headfirst into these secret doors when our task seems beyond us. They are double, triple bolted and have huge mounds of debris in front of them. This debris is not the debris of the swim or the day but of our other, day to day, life. It took me 5 years and 6 Channel attempts in the early nineties (doh!) to realise that I could shift this debris and break down the doors.

The first time I pushed through the ‘secret door’ was one of the most empowering, most enlightening experiences of my life. My whole world, my whole existence, seemed calmer and friendlier. It was then that I realised it was OK to be shit scared, that this gut wrenching paralysis was surmountable. Indeed, instead of fearing fear I saw that it was actually something to acknowledge and embrace and respect. And, guess what? You CAN go beyond your previous limits and succeed - ‘cos, if I did …………!

The reason for this quite revealing section is to tell you that when it hits you (some people deny ever feeling scared or mentally bereft during their Channel swim but I don’t believe a word of it!) let it happen. And don’t be surprised if it hits you early on and more than once. If it does, just move the debris again and open the secret door.

Each swim I do I get hit by the demons again. They don’t announce their arrival, it can be after 1 hour or 6, but once they hit me it’s full on. They burrow and forage and worm their way in, feeding on my fear and trying to get me to quit. And they talk to me!!! 'Go on,' they say. 'The ladder’s just there. Touch it, feel the warmth of a helping hand. We have hot soup and warm clothes and a bed for you to sleep in.' They’re buggers the lot of them. I despise and hate them. Sometimes they gain ground and I have a torrid time but at least I know what to do now.

Be assured, you will be scared - in training, in the lead up and, especially, on the day. Slow or fast, young or old, you will have doubts and wonder what ever inspired you to take this crazy gig. But, crucially, you are not alone. Everyone, to one degree or another, is going through the same angst, I promise. You CAN push through the pain and self doubt. Just unlock the secret door!

When you land it is amazing. Your life will change from that moment – guaranteed. Whatever journey you have taken to get there, and whatever trials and tribulations you encountered on the way, to achieving your dream, you now have the right to call yourself a Channel swimmer. WOW! How cool is that?

WELL DONE! WELL DONE! WELL DONE! WELL DONE! WELL DONE! WELL DONE! WELL DONE! WELL DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Five Hour Bay Swim

2010-05-26T14:57:00.000-07:00

Monday 05/17/10

The forecast calls for rain. Dark streaks of charcoal smear the western end of an already grey and gloomy sky giving credence to the forecast. We can actually see the sky because it’s 9am and well past daylight. In a departure from routine, we’re not planning to start swimming until 10am. Oddly, a winter that was warmer than usual has been followed by a spring that’s colder than usual. Lately, the water’s been pretty danged chilly in the early morning. We hope to encounter slightly warmer conditions in the middle of the day. Regardless, it promises to be a cold five hour swim in the Bay.

The plan is to use the end of the Dolphin Club dock as a base of operations. Ralph Wenzel and I will swim “mostly coves” and return periodically to the dock for feedings. This way, we avoid the logistics associated with a motorized pilot craft. We also gain the advantage of being able to easily warm the water in the club kitchen for the feedings. Perhaps as important, we’ll be able to involve the entire crew scheduled to assist on the boat in the English Channel.

Lindsay C, Darcy W, and Jackie M will take turns providing kayak pilot coverage for us. That will afford everyone the opportunity to become familiar with the progression of my swim stroke over time. Each crew member will also get a chance to prepare the feedings. Popular conception portrays crossing the English Channel as a long and lonely venture--the isolated swimmer struggling against the dynamic sea. It may be true for some. It’s not true for me. I am fortunate to have a committed and supportive team.

As Ralph and I are undressing in the locker room, we get a report that the water temperature this morning was 51.5 degrees Fahrenheit. The report does nothing to calm our nerves. This swim is the longest either of us has ever attempted. All of us, swimmers and crew, are plagued with various levels of performance anxiety. Forefront in my mind is my failure to complete five “coves of death” a week and a half earlier. I’m tucking the sting of that defeat into my psychological tool bag. Having it there doesn’t relieve the anxiety, however.

Jackie M launches the Sweet Lorraine, the kayak we’ll be using for pilot coverage. She paddles toward the Opening. Ralph and I shake hands, wish one another luck, and wade into the water to follow Ms. M. Our first leg is a trip to Fort Mason and back. The water has warmed slightly from the early morning. Still, the temperature varies between 52 and 54 degrees, depending on current flows and upwellings.

By the time we reach the Opening, we’ve settled into a steady rhythm. When we reach the second pier at Fort Mason, we take a wide turn and head back with the building flood current. With almost six feet of visibility, the water is quite clear. The wind is negligible and the surface is reasonably calm. We’re feeling good. We’ve been swimming for forty-five minutes when we stop at the dock for our first feeding.

Using warm water to mix with the maltodextrin powder is a definite improvement. It doesn’t exactly warm me, but it also doesn’t send an inner chill coursing through my body. In another modification, Lindsay has added a small dose of apple juice to the mix. It cuts the gumminess of the plain mixture and offers a small fructose boost. I try to keep the feeding time to twenty seconds or less and chug down 300 ml with some leaking out the sides of my mouth.

For the second leg, we swim a large, clockwise cove. Stopping again at the dock, we refuel and head back for a counter-clockwise tour of Aquatic Park. As we stroke for the Oprah, Ralph shouts a suggestion that we swim on the east side of Hyde Street Pier. I agree and we thread our way through the piers. Lindsay C is taking her turn in the kayak and sees us disappear behind the Thayer. She didn’t hear our agreement to alter course and spends a few frantic minutes searching for us until she realizes where we went. She meets us at the Alma and escorts us the rest of the way around the cove.

At the next feeding, I’m feeling cold and uncomfortable. With the extra curlicues, we’ve been in the water for almost two hours—longer than my abbreviated swim the fifth of May. I was worried that coming back to the dock regularly would exacerbate the desire to cut the swim short. I was right to be worried about that. For the first time today, I trot out the “la muerta pequeña” tool. It works. I glug down another feeding and we set off for an “outside-inside.”

By now, the flood current is really piping down the side of the breakwater. It’s noticeably rougher water and we shoot east. At the “creakers,” we spin around to face the flood and creep back along the inside of the concrete wall. When we reach the dock again, we’ve been swimming two hours and forty-five minutes. Ralph shouts out loudly, “Over the hill, Larry! We’re over the hill!” The crew members on the pier laugh at the unintentional double entendre as it relates to our progress in this swim and our ages. The best response that I can muster is a bland nod of the head and a widening of the mouth that looks more like a grimace than a smile. I concentrate on feeding as fast as possible and striking out again.

We set out on another clockwise loop around the cove. Just past the Flag, I pull out the “tunnel tool.” The cold has permeated my body and the achy, odious physical sensation is flooding my consciousness. I again imagine looking for the trap door in a dark, icy tunnel. I sling the pile of debris that’s blocking the door out of the way until I break through to a second wind. This is not the first time I’ve used that tool today, but it comes at a fortuitous time.

Darcy W is taking her turn in the kayak. Just past the Goal Posts, she begins screaming. Ralph is also screaming. I don’t realize that the shrieks are coming from my friends. I see what I think are children on the Muni Pier and I think they are warning me away from their fishing lines. It’s not until I see a massive white turbulence three feet in front of me that I realize the alarm signals a swarm of sea lions. They are stealing bait from the fishers on the pier and at one point they have me boxed in a thicket of swarming pinniped flesh. I have just geared down into “tunnel mode” and ignore them. The part of my mind that can still think rational thoughts decides, “What can be done anyway? They’re ten times faster than you. Just keep swimming.”

The sea lions are only interested in the bait, not me. Ralph saw them early enough that he veered into the middle of the cove to avoid them. We rejoin at the Repair and continue stroking. Back at the dock, we feed quickly. In honor of our marine mammal friends, we decide to abandon the counter-clockwise cove in favor of another outside-inside.

After two more loops around the breakwater, we’ve been in the water for slightly more than four and a half hours. Ralph exclaims, “This is it, Larry! Just one more!” I don’t need a tunnel tool. I don’t need a “la muerta pequeña” tool. I can smell the barn and it smells good. We finish with a Flag, Bad Becky, Flag and back to the beach. We shuffle onto the sand after five hours and five minutes.

We spend a long time in the shower. We’re so cold that we’re not really shivering. In the sauna, we compare notes and agree that we’re both hurting. My skin quickly feels seared even though I’m not warm on the inside. I move to a lower bench and that helps some. After dressing, we congratulate one another and make plans to swim again the next Monday.

The rest of the day, I feel out of touch with my body. Lindsay insists that I eat some dinner and I find that I’m hungry and didn’t know it. I nurse part of a single, small martini and look at the Giants on the television. The game barely registers and I go to bed early.

It takes me a little over a week to fully recover. For the six hour swim, we’re absolutely going to find warmer water. That will make a six hour swim seem much easier than what we’ve just endured. The Central Bay is four or five degrees warmer. We’ll probably start at the San Mateo Bridge, swim past AT&T Park, around Treasure Island and back to the Dolphin Club. This will mark the completion of prerequisites for attempting a solo English Channel crossing with the CSA. Given the outcome of this most recent milestone, I’m as confident as I’ve ever been that I’ll be prepared.

La Muerta Pequeña

2010-05-11T13:20:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 05/05/10

On May 5, 1862, a seriously out-manned and out-gunned Mexican army soundly defeated the French army at the Battle of Puebla. While not much celebrated in Mexico, the fifth of May is a big deal in the United States. Accentuating this irony in 2005, the U.S. Congress ordered the President of the United States to observe Cinco de Mayo with appropriate ceremonies and activities. Decades before Congress got into the act, Bill Horgos, a member of some notoriety of first the Dolphin and then the South End clubs, suggested a swimming tribute to the fifth of May. He designed and promoted the aptly named “Five Coves of Death” swim.

The swim begins at the clubs’ beach in Aquatic Park. The clockwise option will take the swimmer to the Flag and then to the Goal Posts. Nothing much death-defying about that. From here, though, the course threads under the length of the Muni Pier, a thin, barnacle and starfish-encrusted pathway between concrete and creosote posts. It continues under the Roundhouse and past the jagged pilings out to the Opening. The swimmer then navigates the surging current squishing in and out through the thin gap at the Jacuzzi. From here, the course takes the swimmer behind the Balclutha, swimming over and under scratchy, barely submerged lines and hoses draped from boat to shore. Swimming behind the Thayer presents a similar and slightly more confining challenge. Emerging from behind the Thayer, the swimmer has a short distance to reach the South End pier. Downing a shot of tequila at the pier completes one “Cove of Death.”

I’d always considered this swim well beyond my meager means and more than a little wacky. Upon deciding to train for the English Chanel, though, I made a mental list of previously unimaginable swims that I wanted to tackle and this one ranked in the top (ahem) five. This year, the South End is hosting two swims—one at 5am and one at 5pm. Ralph Wenzel and I choose 5am.

From home, I zip across the sleeping city a little after 4am and find the coveted four hour parking places across the street from the clubs completely empty. A few South End members are filtering down the street, flickering into and out of the light cast by the streetlamps. Inside the South End clubhouse, I pick my way quietly past a person sleeping on a cot and grope up a flight of well-worn stairs and through the dark passage connecting the two clubs. The electronic doors of the Dolphin Club don’t open until 5am, but Lou Marcelli has left the connecting doorway unlocked for us. Once inside the Dolphin Club, I can turn on a few lights without disturbing anyone and gain access to my locker. I pad to the sauna to hang up my towel and look out the window to see Ralph’s truck parked next to my Mini Cooper.

A few minutes later, Ralph and I meet on the beach. The sun has yet to hint at its existence and the few city lights cast sparkles on the inky stretch of water before us. A couple of South End swimmers, yipping from the cold, splash into the dark cove and turn left at the Dolphin pier. Ralph and I decide to leave the deathly coves to the likes of Mr. Horgos and agree to swim our normal large loops sans tequila. At 53 degrees, the water temperature is challenging enough.

We immediately lose track of one another in the pitch black. Fearing a collision with a buoy, I take a wide track to the left. Our paths rejoin at the Flag and we turn toward the Goal Posts in tandem. Breathing on the right side, I can see the ebony sky resting on a band of persian blue that is starting to lift above the horizon of the Oakland hills. By the time we reach the Repair, the persian blue has risen and is seamlessly blending with a band of indigo below. In the completely cloudless sky, the shades of blue continue to push back the black and shed imperceptibly lighter layers beneath until the yellow ball of the sun first peeks above the hills and pierces a band of cornflower blue. By this time, we’re at the Flag again.

When we reach the Opening the second time, the first doubts begin to creep into my mind. I’m cold and uncomfortable. My lower back is starting to ache. These thoughts are insidious. They seep into the crevices of my psyche leaving a corrosive trail of negativism. I forget to search for that tunnel door. Instead, I start rationalizing. “You swam a fairly long distance this weekend.” “You were completely knackered after that sprintathon from Fort Mason on Monday.” “Yesterday was a long, tough, interval workout in the pool and you were fagged out all day.” “Tomorrow will be another tough interval workout in the pool.” “You always intended this five coves thing as a lark.” “Keep your eye on the prize—the real swim is the English Channel.”

When we reach the Opening for the third time, I tell Ralph this is my last loop. He cheerfully accepts my decision and says that he’s going to keep going for a bit. At the South End pier, I have a final, short debate with myself about continuing. My lower back has ceased squeaking and has launched into a full-throated squawk. I know I’m going to regret it, but I turn toward the beach.

When I get to the Dolphin showers, some people notice that the yellow light on my goggle strap is still flashing. By now, it’s been sunlight for over an hour and they are incredulous that I’ve been in the water since well before dawn. I tell them about my abbreviated five coves and that Ralph is still out there. They shake their heads in disbelief and make note of the remarkably chilly water.

After I warm up and dress, I go down to meet Ralph at the beach. He wades out of the water with a hypothermic hunch and a “thrill of victory” grin. He has completed five coves. Later in the day, he will come back to swim five more coves at 5pm. I think there may be an English Channel in this man’s future.

I don’t remember ever failing to complete a swim to which I’d committed. Even in the most difficult times of my champion Polar Bear year, I could gut out a three mile swim in 47 degree water if that was my goal. This defeat deals a sting that I don’t want to experience again. In honor of the Five Coves of Death, I’ll call it “la muerta pequeña.” On the other hand, it may just be another tool I can put in my bag for that day I’m desperately trying to clear a path to the trap door in my mind that opens to yet another second wind.

The Mr. T

2010-05-06T14:08:00.000-07:00

Monday 05/03/10

Ralph Wenzel and I roll into the Dolphin Club at our usual time on Monday. Because of business travel, we haven’t seen one another for a week and we both look forward to swimming together again. I retire to the weight room to lift for a few minutes and warm up my core. I will need a warm core. With the spring snow-melt and runoff, the water temperature has dipped again and it’s hovering around 53 degrees on the ebbs. This morning is an ebb tide and it’s definitely cold.

The last quarter moon is only two days away, so I expect a relatively smaller neap tide swing. Perhaps I should have checked the tide book. It predicted an ebb current at the Golden Gate Bridge of 3.9 knots at 8:08a. 3.9 knots is about 4.5 miles per hour. With the extra water streaming out from the Delta, this was probably a conservative estimate.

It’s 6:45a when we wade into the water. Between the beach and the plunge, we have a quick route consultation and decide on an “inside-outside.” This will take us to the Bad Becky and then on to the east end of the breakwater. The South Enders call this endpoint “the creakers” because it used to be marked with large creosote posts that waved in the current and made a creaking noise. The posts are gone, but the name remains. From the creakers, we planned to swim north of the breakwater and back to the opening.

Just past the Bad Becky, we meet a few South End members swimming west. They are coming back from a Pier 39 Sunriser swim. After a brief exchange of “hellos,” Ralph and I continue our slow trudge east. Near the end of the breakwater, the shelter from the ebb begins to dissipate and our progress slows further. The swirling current brings even colder water swilling up from the bottom. Oddly, I find this invigorating rather than intimidating. We are both having a great time!

Rounding the creakers, we meet another group from the South End. The flat water and clear sky have us all in a good mood. Sausalito sparkles distinctly across the Bay. The San Francisco city front gleams in the brilliant, golden sunrise. Once again, we savor the wilderness experience in an urban setting.

The whirling current whizzes us west in fits and starts. The churning but flat water alternates between cold and colder. When we reach the Aquatic Park opening, I suggest that we keep going to Fort Mason and Ralph replies, “That’s just what I was thinking!”

The ebb doesn’t seem to be providing much of an assist. We stroke past Muni Pier like two horses in harness with a slight tailwind. Reaching the easternmost pier of Fort Mason, we discover that the truck tire which serves as a fender is too high out of the water to receive its ritual slap. During the brief pause, we can see that the ebb is slight. Going back against the current should be no step for two steppers like us. Grinning at one another, we start stroking again.

We make our way steadily east past the greywacke sandstone of Black Point. As we approach the curve of Muni Pier, our progress slows to a crawl. A man with a hat leans on crossed arms against the side of the pier and watches us struggle against the current. He watches for a long time only moving his head. At the northernmost edge of the curve of the pier, the ebb increases. It is buffeting us cruelly.

Seemingly telepathically, we both start sprinting. I begin thinking of the moment in the English Channel when my pilot might ask that I pick up the pace to achieve a certain milestone. I’m swimming almost as fast as I possibly can. I’m also concentrating on maintaining the smooth glide that Coach Val has taught me. Even so, we measure our progress in inches per minute. Our progress is not exactly glacial. It only seems so.

After about fifteen minutes of sprinting, we reach the corner of the Roundhouse. Here, we are able to reduce our speed somewhat, but still have to be careful not to get swept into the jagged posts at the periphery of the pier. A couple of dozen more strokes and we are safely inside Aquatic Park and heading for home.

In observance of the Dolphin Club rules regarding out-of-cove swims, we warm up in the South End sauna. The Pier 39 Sunrisers have long since cleared out and we have the place to ourselves. After discussion, we decide that this swim route needs a name. We christen it, “Mr. T.”

Wednesday is the South End’s annual “Cinco de Mayo--Five Coves of Death” swim. This swim will probably take me about two and a half hours to complete. Given that I’m going to have a fairly strenuous workout in the pool on Tuesday, digging so deep today was probably not such a good training stratagem. On the other hand, I derived a great deal of mental comfort discovering that I could indeed make an extra effort when required. Hopefully, all these experiences will contribute to a successful Channel crossing.

Four Hour Bay Swim

2010-04-28T16:22:00.000-07:00

Sunday 04/11/10

Launching the Arias is a complicated operation. It involves ropes, chains and multiple people executing a choreographed dance at the brink of the Dolphin Club dock. The Arias is a 16 foot inflatable craft with a hard, V-shaped bottom that slices through the waves rather than bouncing over them. It sports an overhead transom metal rack complete with flashing lights and siren. The pilot commands from the center of the boat with a steering wheel, throttle and pitch control. The 75 horsepower outboard can propel the craft at speeds suitable for Special Forces operations. When the crew wear wetsuits, orange personal flotation devices, and dark baseball caps, it looks like Homeland Security personnel is patrolling the San Francisco Bay for saboteurs. Several years ago, Lindsay and I drove the Arias to assist Park Service personnel in posting signage on the Aquatic Park breakwater and one employee enviously offered to trade his craft straight up for the Arias. It’s a really cool boat.

Besides the cool factor, the extra effort required to launch the Arias pays off in passenger comfort. The crew and pilot sit on a padded center bench facing forward rather than twisted around on the side of a slippery tube. The V-shaped bottom spares the spine-jarring impact associated with the smaller, flat-bottomed Zodiacs. Nature breaks are much less tortuous, public or error-prone on the Arias, even for women. Since Ralph Wenzel and I are planning to complete a four hour swim today, the Arias is a perfect choice for pilot craft.

Paul Brady has earned lifetime status as a Dolphin. He is among the most experienced Arias drivers in the club and he will pilot today. He leads Lindsay, Ralph, and I through the launch process and makes it look simple. Shortly after 7:00a, Ralph and I are once again wading into the water and following a pilot boat out to the cove opening. In spite of daylight savings time, the sun is already beginning to chase the darkness away.

Ralph and I have euphemistically labeled this an excellent opportunity for a training swim. Like the previous three hour swim we have another, stronger flood accompanied with another gale-force wind from the west. It will definitely be bumpy. And cold. With snow melt and reservoir water release, the water is around 54 degrees. This will equal Ralph’s longest Bay swim and set a new personal best for me. Our plan is to head west again, staying close to the shoreline for protection from the current. We hope to make it to the Golden Gate Bridge this time before turning around and heading back.

Lindsay is handling crew and feeding duties for the first two hours. In spite of the improved circumstances for biological relief, we plan to nudge the Arias into the Crissy Field beach after two hours, drop off Lindsay, and pick up Jackie M to continue crew duty. Ms. M will be on the boat in Folkestone with Lindsay and Darcy W for the Channel attempt. This will be her first chance to practice with us.

When Ralph and I turn the corner at the opening, the waves begin to break over our heads and we sneak a glance at one another. We’re both thinking the same thing. “This is going to be tough.” We strike in closer to shore to seek the skimpy shelter from the flood and chop offered by the Fort Mason pier. When we swing out around Fort Mason, our progress over ground slows to a crawl. We barely reach Gas House Cove before it’s time for the first feeding.

Mr. Brady has been out farther in the channel to check current and has found it just as strong away from shore, so we continue on our path to the Wave Organ, hoping to benefit from the protection that jut of land might provide. We are barely even with the St. Francis Yacht Club when it’s time for the second feeding. We’ve been in the water for an hour and haven’t made it as far as we did for the three hour swim. It’s an odd sensation. We’re simply training and the goal is based on time, not distance. An unemotional, intellectual analysis would say that this should be little different from swimming in a salty, cold, and bumpy endless pool. Still, the creeping pace gnaws at the psyche.

At two hours, we’re even with the easternmost beach of Crissy Field. The pounding swell makes it impossible to make the planned personnel transfer. Ms. M waves from the shore, wishes us well and then heads back to the club, having devoted her morning to a fruitless wait. Ralph and I keep swimming.

Some Channel swimmer posted an entry on the channel swimmers chat site last fall when I was just beginning this quest. I haven’t been able to find it in the archives and mourn the loss of the person’s name and exact words. The sentiment has stayed with me, though. I’m pretty sure the writer was a man and he said that his experience of marathon swimming was punctuated with many dark moments. He said it was like searching for himself in a cold, dark, intimidating tunnel until he came to a blockage that he couldn’t navigate. He’d have to forcefully make up his mind to clear the blockage. He’d reach in and grab the rocks and rubble, the rocking chairs and boat anchors, the cardboard boxes and filing cabinets. He’d fling this debris aside until he found the trap door. Forcing the door open, he’d have discovered another part of himself and keep on swimming.

I have a couple of these moments on this training swim. It was odd. It was like gearing a car down from two-wheel drive to four-wheel drive. Not that my stroke rate changed. Lindsay said she kept track and I maintained a metronomic pace of 47 strokes per minute regardless of circumstance. I need to remember to tell Coach about that. He’s been drilling me on consistency and I think he’d be proud.

After three hours, Ralph and I are only slightly west of the point we reached at the two hour mark on the previous swim. We’re a bit past the Warming Hut where we have another feeding and turn around. Once again, the ride home is a whole ‘nother matter.

We re-enter Aquatic Park and the world changes. The wind and turbulence decrease dramatically. It seems like we could keep going, but I’m agenda-bound. This is a four hour swim. When we climb out of the water, Ralph and I shake hands as is our custom and grin at our accomplishment. We are both hunched and shaking, holding our hands like claws in front of us. It reminds me of Kevin Costner’s portrayal in The Guardian of a Coast Guard rescue swimmer instructor when he was teaching his class about hypothermia. We both check our ability to touch our thumb to little finger and laugh out loud that we can pass this simple hypothermia test.

We warm quickly. By the time we get back downstairs, Mr. Brady and Lindsay have recovered and stowed the Arias. We invite Mr. Brady to lunch at Capurro’s next door. I may not do that again. It seems like a nice gesture and decent tradition, but we were all so knackered that I think any one of us would have opted for a nice nap instead. I’m glad we made the effort, though. It was good to share a meal and our perspectives of the swim before scattering to our separate lives.

One thing, though. I’m going to keep searching the chat site archives to find that entry about the tunnel. I’m pretty sure that I’ll need to reference it again.

How Much Does It Cost?

2010-04-07T16:34:00.000-07:00

Sunday 04/04/10

The English Channel is often cited as one of the busiest shipping straits in the world. A quick glance at the website depicting live English Channel Ship Movements easily confirms that a west-east crossing will encounter many moving obstacles. And these moving obstacles can be quite large—sometimes reaching the equivalent of three American football fields. A multitude of these football fields steam north and south at up to thirty-five miles an hour and can take miles to turn or stop. In short, just as they do in San Francisco Bay, the big boys have the right of way.

Often, these floating behemoths carry hazardous materials making collision avoidance a high priority. To keep order, the International Maritime Organization has established a Traffic Separation Scheme. A set of buoys delineate an aquatic superhighway in the Channel with northbound traffic staying to the east and southbound traffic staying to the west. A daily dose of ferry and drayage traffic runs east and west across the grain of shipping creating a veritable enforcement headache for the authorities.

Since the superhighway straddles international boundaries, the traffic cops are multi-national as well. And the fines can be steep. In October, 2000, the Dover Coastguard cited a sailboat captain for violating the rules resulting in ₤15,000 in fines. On the French side of Le Manche, the marine sheriff is the Centre Régional Opérational de Surveillance et de Sauvetage Gris Nez. CROSS Gris Nez is the more manageable appellation for the French Coastguard.

The Maritime and Coastguard agency of England publishes a handy guide to “unconventional crossings of the Dover Strait in unorthodox craft.” The guide points out that the Maritime Prefect of the Channel and North Sea has issued an order number 14/93 which expressly forbids swimming in the French side of the traffic separation scheme. The order allows for two exceptions: events organized and approved by either the Channel Swimming Association (CSA) or Channel Swimming and Pilots Federation (CS&PF). Thus, searching for someone to pilot a swim across the English Channel is fairly easy. Just visit the two websites and look up the contact information.

About 16 pilots are registered with either the CSA or the CS&PF. Each pilot provides evidence of qualifications, insurance, boat certification and inspections to satisfy the necessary organization standards. While pilot fees vary, a solo crossing attempt will cost in the neighborhood of ₤2,100 pounds. Most pilots require a ₤1,000 payment in advance which is non-refundable under normal circumstances. This fee covers what amounts to a twenty-four hour workday for the pilot and crew on the day of the swim. First, the swim itself will take from eight to twenty hours. Then, loading and preparing the boat; motoring to the starting location; retrieving the swimmer on the other end; motoring back to England; and unloading, refueling, and securing the boat adds a surprising amount of time. This doesn’t count the time the pilot and crew spend on standby waiting for the weather window to clear or shuffling paperwork and dealing with cancellations and other swimmer interactions.

The fees for boat surveys and inspections, commercial certifications, examinations, insurance, fuel and repairs are the owner’s responsibility. The wages for the one or two crew members also come out of the ₤2,100. Most of the boats come equipped with sophisticated electronic equipment suitable for the open ocean including radar, Loran, GPS navigation, depth finder, and communication devices. As any boat owner will testify, all of these gadgets tend to break giving rise to the definition of a water craft as “a hole in the water into which you throw money.”

While the pilot fee is the largest direct outlay, both swimming associations assess their own, separate charges. For the Channel Swimming Association, these break down as follows:

Associate membership     ₤21
Swim registration fee         39
Administration fee           170
Ratification fee                160
Total                            ₤390

The ratification fee covers the cost for an official observer who rides in the boat, keeps a log, and verifies that the swimmer follows the general rules governing a certified crossing. The observer will make sure that the swim gear, any medications used, the start, the crossing, and the finish all adhere to the requirements. The observer will also keep the official crossing time. CS&PF fees are slightly less.

Indirect costs include a physical examination with an electrocardiogram (ECG). The attending physician must complete a medical certificate testifying to the fitness of the individual to undertake a Channel swim. Travel and lodging are big ticket items for aspirants who don’t live in England. Swim food and lights add a few dollars.

Lindsay and I budgeted substantially more for this adventure than we would for a normal vacation. On the other hand, when we decided to undertake this challenge, we agreed that it represented a potential lifetime achievement. So far, it’s already paying dividends in education, relationships, entertainment, and raw personal growth and satisfaction. And anyway, it’s cheaper than climbing Mt. Everest.

Round Trip Blackaller

2010-03-31T20:37:00.000-07:00

Sunday 03/28/10

With the switch to daylight savings time, it’s again quite dark at 6a. A 20 knot wind is streaking rain from the west. At this early hour, one four-hour parking place remains open directly across from the Dolphin Club and that is good news. I’ll need an extended-term parking spot because today is the day for a three-hour Bay swim.

Once again, I’ll be swimming with Ralph Wenzel. Barry C will drive the inflatable and Ralph’s nephew, Benjamin, will assist Mr. C. We plan to swim west into a swelling flood for about two hours and then return to the club. The tide chart says that the maximum current at the Golden Gate will be 4.5 knots at 11:25a. That means we should wind up almost swimming in place by the time we turn around and shoot back to the club beach. It will seem as if we were snapped back at the end of a long rubber band.

At 7:20a, the pilot boat is loaded, launched, and waiting. Ralph and I wade into the surging water and head for the Aquatic Park Cove opening. Unusual for this early hour, the storm-driven wind has already roiled the water in the cove and it takes a few minutes for us to find our stride. When we turn the corner into the bigger Bay, the chop increases and begins to batter us from three sides.

The wind creates a surface current that flows directly against us and we creep westward past the opening to Gas House Cove where we have our first feeding. We agree to stick close to the shore to try and take advantage of any back eddy available and strike out again into the west.

At the third feeding, Mr. C insists that we both respond verbally to his simple questions. He pronounces Ralph fit for duty and says to me, “Well, you’re shivering, but you can talk. I guess you’re ok.” He’s right. I’m a little uncomfortable from the cold and the constant sloshing and pounding has scrambled my brains a bit. By the time we reach Crissy Field, both Ralph and I get driven to shore by wind and current. We wind up scraping our hands across the sandy bottom where we alter course and start crabbing more northerly.

Just before the fourth feeding, a complete rainbow breaks out over the Golden Gate. It unfurls its full spectrum of colors over the entire span of the red bridge. The arch is unbroken and both ends are clearly visible. It beckons us to keep stroking even though we’re beginning to gain ground literally by inches.

About even with the Blackaller buoy, we chug down our fourth feeding and agree to head back. Oh, what a difference! The sea is no less choppy, but swimming in the same direction with the current and wind feels more like surfing and less like getting bludgeoned. The landscape scoots past. We decide to skip the last feeding and just enjoy the ride.

We arrive back at Aquatic Park with a little time to spare, so we swim a small loop to complete a full three hours. By this time, I’ve regained equilibrium and have stopped shivering. Ralph and I step ashore, shake hands, and grin at one another. This was yet another swim that was definitely worth the effort.

Back in the shower, Ralph and I compare notes. We both found that the second hour of the swim was as cumbrous as the trip home was joyous. Ralph speculates that the English Channel swim promises to have its own share of emotional ups and downs. From everything I’ve read, I’m sure he’s right.

Stuff Happens

2010-03-19T17:44:00.000-07:00

Thursday 03/18/10

I stood at the edge of the Koret pool, loosened my limbs, and adjusted my goggles. The 25 yards of clear, chlorinated water stretching before me promised to be my home for the next five hours. Behind me stood a yellow plastic sandwich board sporting black, bold, block letters proclaiming “LANE CLOSED.” My feet straddled an array of BPA-free water bottles enriched with 60 grams of maltodextrin powder apiece. They were accompanied by a couple of bottles of plain water. On a chair next to me rested a cotton duck bag bearing the blue Dolphin Club logo and a commemoration of the 1993 Crissy Field swim. A video camera nestled inside the bag for Coach Val to use periodically to record the evolution of my stroke mechanics throughout the five hours. It was 6:15a when I dove into the lane.

On every stroke, I chanted to myself and concentrated on form. “One—smooth recovery. One—lead hand stretching for far wall. One—lead hand passing down the body centerline.” This continued until I reached the starting point, performed an open turn to maintain an aerobic state and then thought, “Two—swimming through the tunnel. Two—toes click to ensure a streamlined body. Two—smooth entry into the water with the new lead hand.” Eventually, this became “Thirty-two—trailing hand almost catches the lead hand. Thirty-two—bubbles from lead hand streaming not too far on side of head. Thirty-two—it’s been a half hour; time to feed.”

I paused at the end of the pool, snatched a maltodextrin feed bottle and forced myself to drink half in less than 30 seconds. Half a bottle provided over 100 calories of complex carbohydrates to fuel the engine. Even so, the literature talks about a bonking effect at the five or six hour mark as the carbohydrate replenishment loses pace to the rate of energy consumption. At this point the body looks for new sources of fuel and begins to cannibalize the muscle tissue. All reports indicate that this is a very painful, discomforting, and demoralizing experience. All reports also indicate that enduring this phenomenon is a critical component to training the mind to complete an English Channel crossing. I was curious to see if five hours were enough to trigger such an episode. I was also curious to see how my body reacted to the forced feedings. Either way, it promised to be interesting.

From time to time, Coach Val showed up at poolside to give me a thumbs-up. His encouragement helped to reinforce my hope that the new stroke he had taught to me was becoming fully ingrained in my psyche. At 8:00a, I could see Coach talking to Patrick McBride and showing him how to use the video recorder. Coach works a split shift and he was leaving. He returns to the pool at 6:00p to supervise the evening Masters workouts. Mr. McBride is a Koret lifeguard and a ten-year member of the South End Rowing Club. We had met one another in the shower some weeks ago. We talked about people we knew in common at the two Bay swimming clubs and compared notes on local swimmers’ exploits. Mr. McBride had volunteered to continue the periodic recordings to document my form for later review.

At the two and a half hour mark, I forced myself to chug another half bottle of feeding liquid and set off again. By now, I’d passed 100 laps and was chanting, “Sixty-one—push the water to the back of the lane. Sixty-one—check the bubbles from the lead hand.” Then, “CLUNK!” The overhead lamps flickered. Then, “CLUNK, CLUNK!” The lamps went out. After a few more strokes, my eyes began to adjust to the ambient light that streamed in from the glassed-in catwalk at ground level far above our heads. I’d never been in the Koret pool past 8:00a, so my initial reaction was that this might be a normal occurrence. Continuing to swim, I could glance up and see swimsuit-clad figures beginning to accumulate at the darkened edges of the pool. Perhaps this was some sort of temporary power outage and the lights would come back on again in a few minutes. I kept swimming. I was determined to reach my five hour goal.

I was swimming next to the bulk-head which provided a walkway across the middle of the pool. Mr. McBride's shadowy figure appeared on the bulk-head above me and I could tell that he was saying something, but I couldn’t make it out with the earplugs blocking the sound. I kept swimming. When I returned to the starting end of the pool, an ominous, dark oblong confronted my outstretched hand and I instinctively recoiled and stopped. Patrick was holding a kickboard down in the water to get my attention. He said, “We’ve lost power. You have to get out of the pool.” I got out.

The power was completely gone. The usually thrumming pool pump was deathly silent. The cacophony of splashing echoes had disappeared and the entire tableau was hushed. The pool surface was mirror-calm and illuminated with ghostly hues from the trickle of surface sunlight. It was a colossal, man-made, underground grotto in a tranquil state that very few people ever experience. In retrospect, it was fantastic. It was a veritable aquatic cathedral. At the time, though, I was bummed.

The pool supervisor announced that power seemed to be off through half the campus. Later, I learned that PG&E had toppled a power pole, depriving several square blocks of electricity. This was not going to be fixed soon. I gently asked Mr. McBride, “What prevents us from swimming in the available light?” He replied, “The pump is out and in the dark, the lifeguards can’t see into the bottom of the pool.” He was right, of course. The deep end of the pool was farthest from the remaining light source and shrouded in dark shadows. A person could easily lie unnoticed at the bottom for a long time. I thought for a moment about asking for an exception, but realized that would be the supervisor’s call and he was slightly frantic with the emergency demands on his time. I also realized that if the roles were reversed, I’d absolutely refuse. So, I headed for the showers.

Fortunately, the water was still hot. The emergency lights provided enough illumination to shower, shave, and dress. On the way out, a troop of firefighters descended the staircase carrying various implements of destruction. Apparently, with the power gone, people were stuck in the elevator and the fire department was coming to the rescue.

Emerging into the sunlight, I was disoriented and dazed. I had had it firmly in my mind to swim until 11:15 and was suddenly cast adrift. Exiting the parking lot, I was unsure what direction to take. After heading east for a couple of blocks, I decided to go to the Dolphin Club. I had conference calls scheduled for the afternoon beginning at 1p, but that would still give me time for a one hour dip in the Cove.

When I reached the beach, Fast Eddie was coming out. He had just finished a two hour Bay swim. Although he was shivering slightly, he stopped to chat. We both agreed that 60 or 62 degrees was no problem, but 54 degrees was on the chilly side. He gathered up his swim material and headed into the South End clubhouse. I waded in from the beach and swam the two-mile “Maylander” course that Ralph Wenzel had taught me. When I came back, Eddie had tied his swimming leash to the South End dock and was stroking in place between the club piers. Apparently, he had warmed up and gone back for more.

The rest of the day, I was discombobulated. I hadn’t completed my five hour swim. On the other hand, I had swum for over three and a half hours. Lindsay and I sipped martinis on the balcony overlooking the back yard that evening. Spring had sprung and the warm evening sun was drenching us. We agreed that the training was still on track. She offered the advice, “Stuff happens. You may as well get used to it, because stuff is likely to happen in the Channel, too.”

Two Hour Bay Swim

2010-03-16T15:37:00.000-07:00

Saturday 03/13/10

Fate played a dirty trick this week. When I left for Chicago on Tuesday, the Bay temperature was over 55 degrees Fahrenheit and seemingly headed higher. When Ralph Wenzel and I waded into the water four days later on Saturday, the temperature hadn’t climbed. Instead, it had dropped to 54 degrees. For people who don’t swim in cold water, it’s not easy to understand that 1.5 degrees can make such a big difference. To warm-water swimmers, anything under 70 can seem prohibitively cold. My experience, though, is that the “state of cold” is not linear. The difference between 60 and 62 is hardly noticeable to an acclimated cold-water swimmer. However, the difference between 54 and 55.5 is quite noticeable and hypothermia is a distinct possibility. The impending prospect of a two hour dip made Ralph and I both a little nervous.

In addition, we were swimming in the afternoon and the wind was piping. A Force 5 fresh breeze blasted across the water from the west. It collided head-on with the outgoing ebb current and churned up a steep, high chop. In other words, conditions were excellent for an English Channel training swim.

Doug J operated the Zodiac pilot craft and carried a crew of Darcy W and Lindsay C. By 3pm, we had loaded and launched the boat. Ralph and I waded into the water at the Dolphin Club beach and swam out to the Aquatic Park Cove opening. By the time we approached the Jacuzzi, our pilots had tested the current and found it was still ebbing strongly, so we headed east toward Pier 39. We stayed inside the breakwater which offered some protection from the howling wind and sloppy sea. At the east end of the breakwater, a gargantuan bull sea lion charged directly at Ralph and me and dove a few feet in front of us. At the time, I felt a brush down my left arm and thought it might be Ralph. It wasn’t until afterwards that the crew told us what had happened. They decided that information was best kept compartmentalized at the time. It wouldn’t have mattered. Ralph and I were shutting up and swimming.

As we cruised by Pier 39, I could see a throng of people lining the wooden railing. The sea lions have not returned in their previous numbers, so Ralph and I provided the most entertaining aquatic spectacle available at that moment. People took pictures and gestured and shouted. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Lindsay C said later that it was mostly a mixture of questions about the water temperature and speculation on our sanity. One woman asked the crew to try and get the swimmers to smile for the camera.

At the end of the Pier 39 breakwater, we turned around and headed back west, giving the tourists on Pier 39 another photo opportunity. The waves were irregular and choppy and the afternoon boat traffic flung forceful wakes across our path. Thanks to Coach Val, my stroke felt smooth and strong, though, and we sliced through the turbulent and turbid saltwater at a decent pace.

We once again swam inside the Hyde Street breakwater to get a little respite from the waves. We threaded our way through the gap at the Jacuzzi, out the opening, and kept going west to Gas House Cove where we turned around and headed back to the barn. Oddly, we began making very, very slow progress. The pier at Fort Mason seemed to creep by. The tide chart said that the flood was scheduled to kick in at Golden Gate 4:11p. Here it was 5:00p and the ebbing current still flowed at about a knot right into our teeth. This presented a decision to either keep slogging for another thirty minutes to finish at the beach or determine that we’d accomplished our objective and climb into the Zod. As we treaded water and discussed it, the current pushed us farther west, even against the roaring wind.

Ralph was game for continuing, but I was planning to swim 5 hours in the pool the next Thursday and opted for declaring victory and withdrawing. Ralph accepted my proposal with his usual gentlemanly grace and slid smoothly over the side into the boat.

The shower and sauna offered a delightful reward for our efforts. We were both exhilirated from our adventure and looked forward to the next Bay training milestone—a three hour swim.

What Do You Think About?

2010-03-07T14:13:00.000-08:00

Sunday 03/07/10

I’ve asked many Channel swimmers what they think about on their long training swims. Not one has given an answer that I can succinctly summarize. Maybe that’s because they think about a lot of things.

Before starting this project, the longest time I’d swum in the water was about three and a half hours. Pat M and I swam from Sausalito to San Francisco one summer a few years ago. Had we made our intended landing point, it would have taken closer to two and a half hours, but we misjudged the tide and started late. Much like missing Cap Gris Nez on a Channel swim, swimmers who miss Aquatic Park on a flood tide must chase a receding San Francisco shoreline as the current carries them east.

Since we started in the pitch black at five a.m., the first thing I thought about was getting in the water without serious injury. The traditional launch for this swim is at the sea lion sculpture on the Sausalito waterfront. The statue sits near water level and is constantly washed with surge. This makes the pedestal, the walkway, and the surrounding rip rap as slick as snot. We cleared this hurdle with only minor mishap.

The second thing I thought about was how silky the water felt. We seemed to slip through it with less friction than the water in cove. Then, I thought about keeping a steady pace with Pat. We had practiced together many times in Aquatic Park, including a couple of two hour swims. We were pretty evenly matched, but I wanted to make sure I kept up. Then, I started thinking about how long it would be before we could see the Golden Gate Bridge. By then it was time for a feeding—a partial packet of GU; a slug of water; and back to stroking.

After the second feeding, I really don’t remember thinking of much at all other than getting across the Bay. When the current pushed us east to Alcatraz Island, Laura B announced that we’d “treat it like a Channel swim.” From then on we’d try to get to San Francisco, regardless of location of landing. At this point, I remember being determined not to climb back into the boat until we were across. Other than that, it was just a series of, “Ding! Feed time,” followed by slurp, slug, and go. In fact, that is one of the regular pieces of advice appearing on the channel_swimmers Google chat site. “Just swim from feed to feed until you finish.”

What I find now that I’ve dramatically increased my weekly swim mileage is that I mostly think about my stroke. That would have been hard to imagine before the instruction from Coach Val. For hours, I now concentrate on stroke mechanics. I think about each hand entering the water directly above my head. I think about a strong, positive “catch” of the water with my hand. I think about a bent arm pull directly past my face and down the centerline of my body. I think about a smooth, powerful glide. I think about a relaxed recovery. I think about my toes ticking each other to indicate that my legs are not flying apart. I think about swimming through a narrow tunnel. I think about pushing water as far behind my toes as possible. There’s a lot involved in the swimming stroke. Who wudda thunk it?

Occasionally, I’ll practice breathing on the left side and then my thinking gets over-thought. My brain goes into over-drive. My stroke no longer feels natural. Left-side breathing is something I’ll have to keep thinking about.

In the Aquatic Park Cove, I spend time thinking about avoiding collisions with people and things. When it's dark, buoys and flotsam demand keen attention. With the water getting warmer, swimmers who use wetsuits are coming out in greater numbers earlier than normal for the season. They often swim in rather large groups and create a swim obstacle course. With the currents shoving and pushing in different directions, sighting a course is something to regularly think about. Swimming under the “round house,” I think about staying equidistant between the concrete support columns. I think about avoiding the nasty, broken wooden pier post at the periphery. It pokes its jagged barnacle-encrusted head above the water at the lower tides and forces a swimmer to carefully navigate. At times like this, my stroke suffers.

On the longer Bay swims, though, the pilot does the thinking about course and collision avoidance. Then, I think almost exclusively about stroke and swimming from feed to feed. It’s hard to believe, but true.

Paul Boyton

2010-02-28T16:36:00.000-08:00

Sunday 2/28/10

“The great waters roll from beyond the Isles of the Dead to thunder and shatter against the rocks at the west of Britain. The sea heaves there, as if the ocean gods flexed their muscles, and the white birds cry endlessly, and the wind rattles the spray against the cliffs.” This is how Bernard Cornwell describes the wild ocean on the western side of England. This is the sea into which Paul Boyton leapt in 1874 to demonstrate the original “life-saving dress.”

As a teenager, Mr. Boyton possessed a reckless and peripatetic streak. At fifteen, he spent less than a year in the Union Navy fighting the Confederates. He served briefly on a collecting voyage to the West Indies before the boat sank. He joined Benito Juarez’s Mexican Navy to fight the French. Then he joined the French Army to fight the Kingdom of Prussia. He served six months as a diver for a submarine company in New York until he took passage to South Africa to hunt for diamonds. On his return to America, an unscrupulous captain attempted to shanghai him. He escaped by swimming in the middle of the night over a mile to shore in the port of Malaga and hiding in the hills.

When he finally returned to Philadelphia at twenty-four years old, the president of the Camden & Atlantic railroad Company hired Mr. Boyton to take charge of the lifesaving service in Atlantic City. His duties included supervising the lifeguards at the seaside resort. In light of these aquatic management responsibilities, he received the honorific of “Captain.” A strong swimmer, he harbored a passion for lifesaving dating to his youth when he saved a child pinned beneath a log by the strong Alleghany River currents. During Captain Boyton’s tenure, the incidence of drowning deaths dropped from twenty per year to none. When he left the service, he had saved seventy-one lives.

His responsibilities included maintaining the various lifesaving apparatus which he spent hours perfecting. In this process he discovered the newly invented survival suit of C. S. Merriman, a discovery that was to alter the course of his life. The survival suit consisted of pants and tunic made from highly vulcanized rubber. With rubber gaskets at the waist and head, it was waterproof in much the way dry suits are today. The suit contained five inflatable air chambers to assist in flotation. The wearer of the suit propelled himself feet first with a double-bladed paddle such as kayakers now use. A small sail attached to the foot could harness a convenient wind for additional propulsion.

Mr. Merriman was the quintessential Victorian inventor who was horrified by the number of deaths resulting from pleasure boat shipwrecks. He and Captain Boyton collaborated to promote the adoption of the survival suit and save lives. Of course, their efforts far pre-dated the emergence of radio and television advertisements. The most effective route to a mass audience in those days was the newspapers. In this pursuit, Captain Boyton conducted a series of demonstrations around New York. Paddling around, shooting off flares and smoking the occasional cigar, he found the public reception rather tepid. The remedy was some heroic and sensational stunt that the news-hungry papers could not ignore.

He announced his intention to sail two hundred miles to sea in the Atlantic Ocean and paddle back in the survival suit. People jeered in disbelief. Another obstacle was that even before the age of rampant lawsuits, no sailing captain would agree to knowingly transport him to his liquid launch site. Undaunted, he snuck aboard the steamer ship Queen and stowed away until he guessed it was 250 miles off shore. In the middle of the night, he donned his suit in the shelter of a life boat. He was equipped with a rubber bag containing food and water. He strapped a double-bladed axe to his leg in order to defend against sharks and sword fish. Before he could leap overboard, a deckhand grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and growled, “Where are you going?” Mr. Boyton reportedly replied, “I’m going ashore.”

The captain of the Queen confiscated the survival suit. He was not impressed with Mr. Boyton’s argument that, having no ticket, he must be ejected from the vessel. Instead, the captain offered comfortable quarters and settled in for a long chat. Mr. Boyton charmed the captain with stories of his many adventures. The captain also embraced the clearly sincere desire to promote a device intended to save the lives of sea-faring men. For the duration of the crossing, they spent time in the chart room poring over possible locations for Captain Boyton to enter the sea and paddle to shore.

The other ship’s officers protested in vain. The passengers, on the other hand, were enthusiastically curious. They lined the rail as the survival suit-clad figure lowered into the water about two and a half miles off the Irish coast. The Queen sailed on and left Captain Boyton to deal with a growing gale and bucking seas. He narrowly survived being smashed against the massive cliffs in the vicinity of Cape Clear. Swept into a narrow ravine, he climbed to the top of the plateau and eventually stumbled to the seaside village of Baltimore in the midst of the crashing gale.

His appearance first prompted fear due to his outlandish costume. The next reaction was shock and concern for what must have happened to the other passengers. Finally, as the tale unfolded, the villagers embraced the heroism of his feat. They sent him off to Skibbereen in a horse-drawn jaunting car with a loud huzza.

Captain Boyton made the most of the public relations opportunity. As soon as possible, he sent telegrams to the Queen and the New York Herald announcing his accomplishment. By the time he reached Cork, he was famous. He spent the rest of the year capitalizing on this fame. He held exhibitions where he would paddle around for an hour, smoking cigars, lighting signal flares, and knocking the tops off bottles with a Bowie knife. He was making money and popularizing what was becoming known as the “Boyton Suit.” But his sights were now set on gaining the attention of Europe. For this, he planned to cross the English Channel.

In the second week of April, 1875, Paul Boyton and his entourage (including C. S. Merriman) checked into a Dover hotel. At three o’clock on the morning of April 10, he set out on his journey to the cheers of the Dover crowd. After a promising start, the weather turned nasty. Reporting from the pilot tug boat, Mr. McGarahan of the New York Herald wrote, “It was a strangely fascinating spectacle to watch him in his hand-to-hand struggle with the ocean. The waves seemed to become living things animated by a terrible hatred for the strange being battling with them. Sometimes they seemed to withdraw for a moment, as if by concert, and then rush down on him from all sides, roaring like wild beasts.” Fifteen hours after he had started, Captain Boyton acceded to the pleas of his brother and the tug boat pilot and gave up the attempt.

Despite the failure, the publicity was favorable and Mr. Boyton earned additional riches performing exhibitions in France. By the end of May, he was ready to try again going the other way. Once again, he started at three o’clock in the morning near Cap Gris Nez in France. This time, he had a much more peaceful crossing and landed on a rocky strip of beach at Fan Bay in England. The Queen of England and the Prince of Wales sent telegrams of congratulations. He traveled throughout England and his appearance fee soared to fifty guineas a day.

Six months later, Matthew Webb dramatically eclipsed Mr. Boyd’s accomplishment. Captain Webb swam across the English Channel in a simple swim suit and without swim aids. In The Crossing, Kathy Watson writes, “Boyton’s exploits were history, the previous hero of the Channel cut down to size, written off as a pushy little New World adventurer with a funny rubber suit and too high an opinion of himself.”

A fierce debate continues today regarding the use of rubber suits for swimming in cold water. Channel_Swimmers@googlegroups.com has some very entertaining threads on this topic. Few people question, however, that the pinnacle of swimming achievement remains the English Channel. And few people dispute that the acme of accomplishment is to make the crossing with one standard swim costume, one standard swim cap, and a pair of goggles.

Is It Hard to Write this Stuff?

2010-02-21T16:33:00.000-08:00

Sunday 02/21/10

In the beginning, I had no difficulty at all capturing my thoughts about this project. In fact, at first, I had a hard time keeping pace with the unfolding events related to making a commitment to try and conquer one of the world’s most challenging pinnacles of athletic achievement. With all due respect to Moses, Mohammed, and Joseph Smith, it flowed from the keyboard like I was taking dictation from God. Actually, I am paraphrasing a line from Anne Lamott’s book, “Bird by Bird.” In it, she refers to a writer for whom this effortless creativity abounds. Ms. Lamott warns, however, “This is a very hostile and aggressive position. One might hope for bad things to rain down on a person like this.”

Among the options for publishing this blog, I promised Google that these entries would be devoid of adult content. When writing about the South Enders, it’s almost impossible to avoid adult themes, but I don’t think that counts. Words generally accepted as profane probably do cross the line, though, so I’ll refer to one of my favorite chapters in “Bird by Bird” with the adulterated title: “[Really Crummy] First Drafts.”

In this chapter she plumbs a subject to which she will repeatedly return. Ms. Lamott says that it is a misconception to believe that successful writers “take in a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their necks a few times to get all the cricks out, and dive in, typing fully formed passages as fast as a court reporter.” Being successful in the trade herself, she naturally knows “some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts.” Then she admits one exception, “but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her.” When she mentioned this to a friend of hers who happened to be a priest, he replied, “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

I have the memory (perhaps recovered) that Isaac Asimov once commented that great prose was generated, “not in the writing, but in the rewriting.” This thought is echoed in Ms. Lamott’s book and most other treatises on the writing process and profession. When it comes to rewriting, I’m forced to admit that “I resemble that remark.” This is not to say that the prose is great, but that what finally reaches the blogosphere is a substantially improved product due to incessant rewriting. Getting those initial words down on the screen has become a somewhat steady struggle and I must go over and over the original raw material as if carding exceptionally coarse wool by hand.

A wonderful aspect of the blog form of publishing is that rewriting is genuinely organic. A host of (sometimes anonymous) readers provide free copy editing and fact checking. How many steps is it actually from the Dolphin Club deck to the men’s locker room? How long was Mike R. actually in the water for that New Year’s Day Alcatraz swim in 49 degree water? Isn’t your grammar a bit unparallel in this passage? Are you truly determined to use that unwieldy word? Probably just as valuable is the ability to reread old entries during a lunch break from work and easily administer a little word chiropractics: tweak a phrase, add alliteration, or axe superfluous text.

Charles Dickens must have had a pre-internet experience of this sort. By publishing his stories in serial format, he could benefit from public reaction to each episode. He could shape subsequent installments with the derived insight. It’s quite possible that when he assembled these entries into a complete book, he took the opportunity to give everything another once-over.

Generating the raw wool—brittle, dry, and wiry as it might be—is definitely the hard part. On this, Anne Lamott should have the final words. “You turn on your computer and bring up the right file…. You begin rocking, just a little at first, and then like a huge autistic child. You look at the ceiling, and over at the clock, yawn, and stare at the [screen] again. Then, with your fingers poised on the keyboard … you try to quiet your mind so you can hear what that landscape or character has to say above the other voices in your mind. The other voices are banshees and drunken monkeys. They are the voices of anxiety, judgment, doom, guilt. Also, severe hypochondria…. Yet somehow in the face of all this, you clear a space for the writing voice, hacking away at the others with machetes and you begin to compose sentences…. It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work. So you might as well just go ahead and get started.”

Hmmmm. Sounds just like training for swimming the English Channel.

Four Hour Swim

2010-02-14T16:25:00.000-08:00

Thursday 02/11/10

Coach Val closed a lane at Koret pool for Peter Perez and me today. It was the occasion of our four-hour swim. Peter’s window starts a month before mine, but for now our training schedules coincide. We piled our various nutrition concoctions at poolside and hit the water at 6:10a.

Having a training companion was a real treat. Peter and I are pretty well matched in speed. We were able to settle into a steady pattern and gauge our speed against one another. Coach Val recorded split times on the half hour and validated that the pace was consistent.

Just as importantly, Coach was very happy with my stroke. He pronounced it, “very stable.” Compared to my original boogie-woogie stroke, it was also a much slower rotation rate. Lindsay laughed when she saw the video and said, “It looks like you’re going sooooo slow!” But in fact, the new stroke has shaved about 12 seconds off each hundred yards—about a 10% improvement in actual speed. Three and a half hours into the swim, a young man dropped into the lane next to me. His rotation rate was about twice mine and his speed was about half my speed. He would wait at the end of the lane for me to arrive and then race me back across, experimenting with increasing head starts. I could see the wonder and frustration in his countenance. Peter noticed the young man’s fascination with us as well. I was reminded of what a pitiable swimmer I was when I joined the Dolphin Club. I owe a big debt of gratitude to Coach Val.

This swim was also a chance to work on nutrition. Research has convinced me to make maltodextrin powder the foundation of my feeding. Different people have different preferences and the raw science of endurance nutrition seems to be subject to distortion in the service of a particular sport or a paid product endorsement. However, picking through the various information available, I’ve drawn a few preliminary conclusions.

The main conclusion is find what works for you and stick with it. Everyone seems to agree on this. Captain Webb made the crossing on bread, barley soup, and beer. Some swimmers have made the crossing on Gatorade. One reportedly succeeded on chocolate. The six inches between the ears are arguably the most important distance relative to a successful 21 mile crossing. Having confidence in your feeding choice is a key to working on the six inches.

My choice for primary feeding source is a maltodextrin powder. For one thing, it is almost flavorless and can be mixed with water or some other flavored liquid. For another thing, it is a straight carbohydrate feed and the literature indicates that carbohydrates provide fuel more quickly than fat and over a longer period of time than sugar. For another thing, during the course of a twelve or fifteen hour swim, the additives in some feeds can far exceed the maximum daily allowance. I’d prefer to add these separately as needed.

This swim boosted my confidence quite a bit. Next week, I’ll swim from AT&T Park back to the clubs’ beach with the Southend Sunrisers. That swim will give me two hours in the open water. The six inches between my ears should benefit from that as well.

Another Slice of Heaven

2010-02-07T14:29:00.000-08:00

Sunday 02/07/10

Starting just east of Aquatic Park, the piers of San Francisco radiate out of the city front like irregular sprockets. The point of reference for all pier numbers is the Ferry Building. First opened in 1898, the Ferry Building and Plaza mark the picturesque terminus of Market Street. In the early 1900’s, it was the second busiest transit terminal in the world. It continues to offer ferry docking and still serves as the starting point for numbering other San Francisco piers. Going north from the Ferry Plaza the piers bear odd numbers. Going south, the piers carry even numbers.

Odd-numbered Pier 7 juts into the Bay three blocks north of the Ferry Building. After the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, the pier was condemned. Multiple city, state, and national authorities pooled together almost $7,000,000 in funding to create a truly beautiful public access pier with wrought iron railings, timber decking, and ornamental lighting. It is a favorite starting point for Sunriser swims. The ground track from Pier 7 to Aquatic Park is roughly two and a half miles, making it a longish swim in 53 degree water and suitable for winter training for the English Channel. The Sunrisers had planned a Pier 7 for Friday the 5th, and I was eager to go along.

Determined to arrive early enough to help prepare and launch the pilot craft, I crossed the dark beach between the Dolphin and South End clubs at six a.m. The tide was just beginning to ebb from a height of 6.1 feet and the beach was awash. Reaching the South End dock with sea-slick flip-flops, I gingerly climbed up the inky, slippery steps to confront a lightless, barren tableau. The last time I was here, light poured out of the big, open bay door to illuminate a pre-dawn scene of bustle and purpose. Now, it was just a cold, damp expanse of gloomy concrete with one or two cove swimmers milling about. I wandered around the warren-like building searching for a familiar face. Befitting the club-within-a club nature of the Sunrisers, I met nobody knowledgeable of the Sunriser schedule or the potential for a Pier 7 swim. I was disappointed. The thought of once again crisscrossing the cove several times was not very appealing.

On my last circuit through the various club nooks and crannies, I came across Joe Butler in the men’s locker room. He said, “Yep. Today’s Pier 7, another trip to heaven. Go sign up and I’ll meet you downstairs.” Hot dang! We were in business! An attack of olds-timers had caused me to forget the Sunriser’s weekday schedule. 6:30 a.m. is check-in. 7 a.m. is jump time. I’d just been a half hour early.

When I got downstairs, the bustle had still failed to materialize. Only one other swimmer had checked in. We introduced ourselves and chatted a bit while we waited. I saw that a Zodiac was stowed in the inflatable boat rack in a quick-launch fashion with the outboard already attached. When Mr. Butler came, I asked if he wanted me to retrieve a fuel tank from the outside storage locker. He gave me the combination and we two swimmers went to fumble with the lightless lock. Next time, I’ll have to remember to bring reading glasses.

By the time we secured the fuel tank, Mr. Butler had wheeled the Zodiac out of the boat barn. He then sent us for the radios. Without glasses, we again fumbled with the lock on the radio shack, but did return with two working radios—one for boat-to-boat communication and one to speak with the Vessel Traffic Service. By the time we got back, Mr. Butler had wheeled the Zod down the ramp and had it in the water with the engine idling. He secured the radios, asked me to untie the leader and we were off. The sun was still below the horizon and we kept a sharp lookout for swimmers in the black water.

Just as we turned the corner at Pier 45, the eastern sky was starting to glow, splashing the lengths of stratocumulus clouds with blue and orange tinges. The water was almost glassy calm and heaved slowly in a ponderous swell that made it feel like the Bay was breathing deeply in a heavy slumber.

As we passed the odd-numbered piers, Mr. B pointed out the normally active ones, teaching us the potential piloting hazards of various tugs, cruise ships, and work ferries as they might leave or enter their homes. He never once expressed the slightest disappointment at the prospect of piloting only two swimmers. We were all three enjoying the wilderness experience in an urban setting and the beauty of the breaking dawn.

We glided to a stop south of Pier 7 just before 7 a.m. and paused to check the strength of the ebb tide. It was clearly strong and building. This was going to be a good ride. Mr. Butler contacted VTS and gave our location and intention. VTS responded with an admonition about shipping traffic. Mr. B assured them that the two swimmers would stay together and pilot coverage would be close. They responded positively and we two swimmers rolled backward off the pontoons and splashed into the water. Once again, the icy shock of the dark water provided an adrenaline bump that lasted well after we began stroking for mid-channel to catch more current.

About the time that we reached Pier 27, the supply ship for Alcatraz, the Solitary, was heading out on its daily 7a run. This ferry has the exclusive contract for bringing water, food, and equipment to the island. It also carries back waste and discards. By radio, the pilot told Mr. B that it intended to stick to its normal course and the swimmers would have to let it pass. As a result, we were well north of the city front by the time we were able to turn west. At this point, though, the more prudent course was to head due south back to land. As it was, we wound up sprinting perpendicularly to the massive ebb current to regain the city front before being swept past the Aquatic Park opening. We safely joined the fisherman's wharf breakwater partway down its length and zoomed into the opening accompanied by other South Enders who had been swimming laps outside the cement wall.

We helped pull the zodiac onto its trolley and trundle it into the preparation area where Mr. Butler shooed the swimmers into the saunas. All of us wore huge grins in commemoration of the spectacular and rare occurrence of flat water and blue skies. Another Pier 7. Another slice of heaven.

Three Hour Swim

2010-01-30T16:09:00.000-08:00

Saturday 01/30/10

Coach Val is perturbed with me. The thumbs-up and smiles have vanished. When I catch sight of his face at the edge of the pool, it is pinched into a lethal glare suitable for a close-up in a Clint Eastwood western. The occasion for this dissatisfaction is my first three hour pool swim.

I’ve never swum for three hours in a pool. My longest continuous swim was three and a half hours in the Bay when Pat M and I swam from Sausalito to San Francisco in 1996. The prospect of a turn-infested slog through the chlorine found me a little nervous.

Peter Perez was also swimming three hours that day. Coach was kind enough to close a lane and let us share it for the duration. Every fifteen minutes for the first half of the swim, Coach made a video recording of my stroke with commentary. “You come back to your old technique and it’s not making me happy what your right arm pulling straight. I need more and more bend your arms.” After an hour and fifteen minutes he says, “Stroke looks not bad. It’s getting better than you begin. My concern is your pulling underwater. You should more bend your elbow because arm is pulling straight. You’re becoming tired. But you should save your forms and you should more bend your elbows in the middle part of your pulling. I can’t complain about your legs. Legs on the top. It’s all right. I complain about the pulling form.” Halfway through the swim he says, “In my opinion, you start to lose the stroke and the main problem for me is to start to save the technique. You can see the arms pulling a little bit far from the center part of your body and arm is too straight underwater. But, we will work with this. We have a couple more months.”

Watching and listening to the recording later, I was crestfallen. I was convinced that I had conquered that wild, flailing stroke of my past. I was certain that I had licked the boogie-woogies. I even had the hubris to observe the stroke of swimmers in other lanes and imagine dispensing guidance. It brought crashing home, once again, the indispensable value of good coaching.

My history is relatively devoid of lessons. I mostly prefer to figure things out on my own with the help of a good book or two. This inclination certainly dates to the time that I began learning about computers. In 1970, universities were not well equipped to teach practical computing science and I learned by doing. I held several summer and part-time jobs and learned a number of computer languages through trial and error and the beneficence of employers who knew that a steep learning curve was the price of cheap labor. I came to disdain the university instruction. Entering the professional world, I again found formal instruction to be a bit tedious. Most of the programmers that I admired were self-taught.

When I was thirty-five, Lindsay bought a tenor saxophone for my Christmas present. Knowing my disdain of instruction, she also bought me a book by Larry Teal. Of course, I tried to assemble the instrument without Mr. Teal’s advice and managed to generate a screeching that reduced my mother-in-law to tears. Whether she cried from laughter or pain, she was definitely incapacitated until I stopped. This humiliation spurred me to study The Art of Saxophone Playing and I learned to assemble the instrument properly. I even managed to work out a recognizable version of “Summertime.”

A couple of years later, at a well-attended company function, a couple of friends and I produced and starred in a skit that featured familiar tunes with original lyrics. On one of the songs, I took a solo on saxophone. Viewing a video of this event later, I hoped the audience was laughing at the inside jokes embedded in the lyrics, but I feared the saxophone playing was unintentionally comical as well. That’s when Lindsay finally convinced me to seek professional coaching.

She performed her customary miracle of research which led to a decade of daily study and weekly lessons. She found Michael G, the perfect saxophone teacher. He was exactly the right combination of master and taskmaster to keep me striving for improvement. One of the most difficult aspects for me to learn was pitch. I could simply not hear that I was flat in the upper register. Mr. G would regularly have me produce long tones at the top of the horn and then squinch his face and lift his hand, palm up, to indicate that I should tighten my lower lip. Having this outside view was indispensible to my musical progress.

Having Coach Val’s outside view is just as indispensible to eradicating the boogie-woogies from my mind’s stroke as it was to eliminating the flat pitch in my mind’s ear. One of the problems was that after the three hour swim, I was not going to see Mr. Boreyko for more than a week. I was going to Atlanta for business.

Thanks to the internet, I found an LA Fitness near my hotel with four, twenty-five yard lanes. The schedule worked out so that I was able to swim about 14,000 yards that week. Concentrating on pulling straight down the centerline of my body, I worked on mentally seeing my hand pass in front of my eyes and pull directly toward my stomach. Almost half the yards were devoted to the catch-up drill. With no-one to provide guidance, it was impossible to know if these were anything more than garbage miles.

The next Tuesday, I was back at the pool. Coach seemed glad to see me and reiterated that we had plenty of time to clean up my boogie-woogie mess. He had me start with eight, five hundred yard segments—the first five hundred using catch-up drill, the next five hundred using free style. This was similar to the routine I used in Atlanta. Apparently, the concentration had paid off. We were back to smiles and nods. “Nice long stroke with the catch-up. Like it. Nice pulling. Is exactly what I want on the English Channel. Beautiful! Today, you do it. You good today.”

I was certainly nervous the day of the three-hour swim. This experience emphasized something I already knew: When people are nervous, they fall back on the most comfortable and ingrained habits. I haven’t talked to a single person who has swum the English Channel who said they weren’t nervous. I’ll need to remember this little lesson. I'll continue working to make that smooth, rhythmic style that I think of as the "Texas two-step" the stroke that I naturally employ when the nervous demons descend.

Death in the Bay

2010-01-23T15:09:00.000-08:00

Saturday 01/23/10

To the best of my knowledge, Jim Small is the only person to die swimming in San Francisco Bay. Like many large bodies of water, the Bay has its share of drownings, murders, and suicides. Mr. Small was not one of these. He was an excellent swimmer. He was not eaten by a shark nor did he succumb to hypothermia. In October of 1963, he was run over by a fishing boat.

He was twenty-seven years old when he died, a strapping young man over six feet tall weighing 185 pounds. James Baird, the man who swam stroke for stroke with Jim Small the day of the tragedy, said, “We were water babies. We swam, played water polo, surfed, were lifeguards.” A month earlier, Mr. Baird had barely edged out a victory in the annual Dolphin Club Golden Gate swim. According to Art Rosenbaum’s column in the San Francisco Chronicle, Baird turned to his best friend after the race and gasped, “I was lucky—you’re the best swimmer.” Small replied, “Luck had nothing to do with it—you made the course. You deserved it.”

The setting for the disaster was a long open water race in San Francisco Bay sponsored by the Dolphin Club. The course ran from Richardson Bay, across the shipping lane to a buoy moored near the St. Francis Yacht Club, and then turned east to end at the club beach in Aquatic Park. Given the distance and potential boat traffic, the organizers required a pilot craft for each swimmer. Come race day, though, ten swimmers showed up with eight pilot boats. Because Mr. Small and Mr. Baird were so evenly matched in speed, it seemed reasonable to allocate one support boat for both swimmers. Inauspiciously, another contestant arrived at the last minute and begged to swim. The organizers knew Joe Flahaven as a strong, fast swimmer and made a scrimmage-line call to allow him to participate. That made the count eleven swimmers, eight pilot craft.

Nowadays, it’s not unusual to have as many as three swimmers per pilot boat. One difference is that modern swims are covered with one or more motorized vessels. Typically these are fast, inflatable boats that zoom around the periphery of the swimmers, creating a safety zone. These zippy boats are easily capable of intercepting anything that poses a threat other than the large tanker and container ships. As they do in the English Channel, these behemoths have the right of way over swimmers. Prior to 1961, the Coast Guard provided patrol boats to support Bay swims. In July of that year, the newly appointed Rear Admiral Allen Winbeck rescinded that policy. For the fateful race, human-powered, hand-built wooden row boats provided the sole protection.

Another difference is that this swim pre-dated the formation of the San Francisco Vessel Traffic Service or VTS. Established in 1972, nine years after the death of Jim Small, the VTS is located on Yerba Buena Island in the San Francisco Bay. Its responsibility is to monitor and control shipping traffic much the same way that Air Traffic Control monitors and controls air traffic.

A third difference is that pilots of out-of-cove swims for both clubs now employ modern marine communication equipment. With these hi-tech “walkie-talkies,” they contact VTS at the beginning of a swim and provide swimmer count, origin, destination, and approximate finish time. VTS closely regulates container ship movement, so pilots have very early warning of the approach of large vessel traffic. Using separate marine channels, pilots can also directly communicate with other Bay traffic as well as with other pilots. This technology was prohibitively expensive and bulky at the time.

On race day, Dan Osborne and Dave Hinton were the oarsmen in the double-seated rowboat assigned to cover the two lead swimmers, Mr. Small and Mr. Baird. A champion swimmer himself, Mr. Osborne was an extremely experienced open water pilot. As Mr. Flahaven had no personal pilot and was fairly fast, the plan was for the one rowboat to provide support for all three swimmers. Unfortunately, by the time the group was halfway across the Bay, Mr. Flahaven had fallen a hundred yards behind the leaders. Mr. Osborne and Mr. Hinton split their attention fore and aft until the fateful moment that they spotted the conning tower of a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine steaming east in the deeper channel north of Alcatraz. Black and stealthy, numerous submarines plied San Francisco Bay in the days before the Mare Island submarine base closed in 1996. The nearly submerged ship appeared to be headed toward the trailing swimmer. The pilots assayed the scene and saw no threat for the two leaders, so they decided to drop back.

Just as the pilots found themselves the farthest from the two leaders, Glen Newmann, captain of the sport-fishing boat, Pacific Dawn, decided to try and improve his luck. The fishers pulled their lines and Captain Newmann steamed at top speed along the Alcatraz Shoal, cutting right across the lead swimmers’ path.

Brian Gilbert, a lifetime member of the Dolphin Club, has written the most well-penned and well-researched account of this calamity available. Published in the Spring 2002 issue of the Dolphin Log, Mr. Gilbert’s article draws on extensive interviews with the eye witnesses. With permission, I will quote liberally from Mr. Gilbert’s account:

‘Dan Osborne: “When we saw the threat, we turned around and went back to Baird and Small at our best speed. When we realized we couldn’t reach them in time, we stood up in the boat and shouted and waved our arms, trying to draw attention. The captain was lounging in the cabin and he just waved back, apparently thinking we were just being overly friendly. He never altered course or looked at where we were pointing.”

Glenn Newmann: “I heard a thump and I thought we’d hit a piece of driftwood. Then I saw that head with goggles bob up, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, we’ve hit a skin diver.’”

James Baird: “I looked up and saw the thing five feet away. I saw it coming because I breathe on the left side. I pushed myself away from the hull and just missed getting hit by the propeller.”

Dan Osborne: “It was terrible. When I first saw the area, there was a circle of blood in the water 30 feet across. Somehow I got hold of his arms and tried to lift him up and into the boat, but I found I just couldn’t do it. Dave couldn’t help me because he had all he could do to keep the boat from capsizing with me trying to lift an unconscious man, slippery with his own blood, up over the gunwale. I cracked two ribs in the attempt, but I just couldn’t do it. We retrieved his severed leg, but that’s about all we could do for him.”

Philip Christiana, captain of the Sea Raven: “We could see that boat cutting right across the swimmer’s path. We could all see it was going to happen, but it was too late for us to do anything. When we reached the rowboat, we all helped to get the swimmer on board and laid him on the hatch cover.”’

Rushed to Letterman Hospital in the Presidio, Jim Small survived for three days. Hospital doctors told Art Rosenbaum that only Mr. Small’s remarkable physique and stamina kept him alive through the many surgeries and the amputation of his other leg.

One of the hand-built boats belonging to the Dolphin Club is named in Jim Small’s honor. His picture occupies a prominent position in the Staib Room. His cautionary tale has led to numerous additional safety precautions and provides ample incentive to exercise vigilance swimming outside Aquatic Park.

Consummated Sunriser

2010-01-13T14:35:00.000-08:00

Sunday 01/10/10

At six o’clock on Friday morning, the sky is still pitch black. Cloudy overcast obliterates any feeble starlight or moonlight. In the South End boat house, harsh electric lights illuminate only the main corridor. The corners remain in inky shadow. The conversation is muted as befits a group not yet quite awake. Most people exhibit hair bearing traumatic evidence of a messy divorce with the pillow. Half of the group grasp steaming mugs of coffee or tea. The bustle of organized chaos reflects in echoes off the dark walls. The Sunrisers are preparing for a Pier 7 swim.

The equipment layout bespeaks a practiced efficiency. Three or four people slide an inflatable boat out of its specially constructed rack and position it onto a small, wheeled trolley. The Zodiacs roll into their place in the assembly area just outside the boat house. The heavy outboard motors have their own specialized hand cart. These carts wheel out to the assembly area where two people wrestle an engine onto the stern of a boat while another person keeps the bow tilted down. With the outboard locked into place and pitched forward, the stern is allowed to settle. Someone retrieves a gas tank from its locker outside the boathouse, checks the fuel level, connects it to the motor, opens the vent, and primes the hose. The appropriate number of personal flotation devices and blankets begin to fill the boat bottoms. “Man Overboard” signal flags, bailers, and marine radios find their way into their constructed slots. In slightly more than fifteen minutes, the fully equipped Zodiacs stand like sentinels in a row. The entire activity has the feel of a Special Operations mission (minus the weapons, of course).

Leadership is ad hoc. Individuals who know the drill perform the necessary tasks and direct any bewildered bystanders.

“We need some help pulling this Zod’ out of the rack.”
“Would you hold that bow down while we mount this motor?”
“Get six life vests and toss them in the bottom of each Zod’.”
“Let’s do a radio check on channel 69.”
“How many swimmers do we have so far?”
“Has everyone signed the sign-out sheet?”
"OK. Let's do a final swimmer count."

The calculus of pilot coverage begins with the swimmer count. A brief negotiation ensues and one swimmer may give up a slot in order to pilot and provide the appropriate balance. By 6:30 am, we are trundling the Zodiacs down the boat ramp in a cacophony of wooden clatter. Once in the water, the pilots give sharp tugs on the starter ropes, assign seats to distribute the weight, and carefully pull away from the dock.

Several cove swimmers are plying their way around Aquatic Park and not all wear lights, requiring pilot and passengers to keep a sharp lookout. We edge cautiously to the Bad Becky where the passengers hunker down in an amiable pile amid swim coats and surprisingly warm and snuggly blankets. The pilot accelerates and we cruise past the breakwater.

A fresh breeze from the west is in combat with the east-flowing ebb current. The battle generates a steep high chop and we begin bouncing along at our top dry speed of 10 knots. As we approach the corner at Pier 39, a blue-gray glow begins to puncture portions of the cloud cover in the east. The dim celestial light provides an incandescent backdrop for Yerba Buena Island and the Bay Bridge. Fifteen minutes after leaving the dock, we are coasting to a stop at our rendezvous point off Pier 7. The city has not quite come awake and the urban symphony has yet to commence. The chugging of the engine ceases and we soak in the early morning stillness.

We wait a brief spell to give the ebb a chance to build. One of the pilots contacts Vessel Traffic Service. He gives them our location, destination, number of swimmers, and number of the marine channel we will be using for boat-to-boat communication. VTS responds with a laconic acknowledgement. Two minutes later, the swimmers roll backwards into the 51 degree water. The shock of the cold water erases the last traces of sleepiness. Breaking dawn shoots shafts of light sideways into the translucent green water. With the tangy taste of brine in our mouths, we strike for home.

The agitated sea demands concentration to maintain a smooth, even stroke. The pilot craft disappear behind the taller waves. Occasionally, a recovery stroke greets nothing but air until the body drops off a watery precipice. Other times, the Bay snatches an arm in mid-return and slams it back, forcing a one-arm stroke drill. Coach Val’s instruction is paying dividends though, and the steady glide of the Texas two-step builds confidence for the Channel.

This is not a race and swimmers bear partial responsibility for pilot coverage. The faster swimmers reverse course a couple of times to return to the group and tighten the spread. Sunrisers call this behavior “podding up.” It adds to the sense of camaraderie.

By the time we turn the corner again at Pier 39, the ebb has gained strength and we are streaking back to Aquatic Park. Within an hour of getting wet, we curl around the breakwater and stroke for the beach.

At the beach, the swimmers make their way back down the boat ramp to meet the pilots. Together, they retrieve and stow the Zodiacs. After-drop and hypothermic tremors take a toll among the swimmer helpers. One by one, they make their way to the warm sauna. By the time they are dressed, the equipment is re-stowed and ready for the next mission.

The Sunrisers conduct perhaps three hundred swims a year. It’s small wonder that they operate with such quiet competence. For me, it was a treat to be liberated from the strict confines of the Cove. The hour seemed to fly by. The rough water was just an added training bonus. This experience and the anticipation of the ones to follow make me glad to have established a dual membership with the South End and the Dolphin Clubs.

Why Are You Doing This?

2010-01-08T15:00:00.000-08:00

Friday 01/08/10

People have expressed a curiosity about the decision process leading to a commitment to swim the English Channel. Acquaintances typically voice their wonder with the question, “Are you crazy?” Friends approach the topic more obliquely. “I’ve read your blog and I know you and Lindsay had some champagne at Foreign Cinema on the anniversary of your Channel relay and you discussed a solo attempt and she was supportive—but are you crazy?” So why am I doing this?

Massive amounts of ink have been spilt on the subject of human motivation. Modern game theory examines the nooks and crannies of human choice in a staggering array of circumstances. These studies provide detailed glimpses into myriad specific scenarios. Before this field became so scientific, two giants in the field of psychology wrote seminal works in the 1960’s that shaped my personal conception of why people do the things they do.

Frederick Herzberg proposed a dual structure theory. According to Mr. Herzberg, people shape their behavior in response to “motivator factors” and “hygiene factors.” Hygiene factors pretty much relate to comfort. Pay and benefits, co-worker relations, and job security are examples. When the hygiene factors are adequate, people probably won’t be desperate for another job. They may not do their job well, but they’re likely to continue not doing their job well where they are. Motivator factors, on the other hand, contribute to passion and missionary zeal. Achievement, recognition, and growth are examples of factors that cause people to do the best job they possibly can. To my high school student brain, the subtitle was: motivator factors motivate and hygiene factors placate.

Abraham Maslow took a different, but complimentary approach. In his book, Toward a Psychology of Being, he organized human desires into a pyramidal hierarchy of “needs.” At the bottom of the pyramid are the basic needs such as air, food, and security. At the top of the pyramid is the need for “self-actualization,” a term that Mr. Maslow borrowed from Kurt Goldstein. Mr. Maslow simplified the various needs on the pyramid into two basic types: “deficiency motivators” and “being motivators.” “Being motivation” refers to the un-striving, almost organic flow state that can emerge when the deficiency motivators are reliably satisfied.

A friend of mine has poured these basic concepts into his own unique cognitive blender. As reflects his Calvinist upbringing he says, “Other than basic survival, people do things for two reasons—duty or amusement.” He gives the example of choosing to have children and raise a family. “Some people have children because they feel a sense of duty to their parents or their religion. They MUST propagate the species or carry on the family name. They MUST produce grandchildren for their parents. Other people have children because they think it will be amusing: babies growing, learning, transforming; seeing the world through a child’s eyes; experiencing the unexpected marvels that children occasionally wrought. This is entertainment.”

Not having children, I’m in no position to comment. I can say that Lindsay and I decided to commit to this English Channel project because we thought we would find it amusing. We knew we’d learn new things. We knew we’d have new reasons to collaborate and plan. One of the unexpected marvels is how much satisfaction I’m getting from writing regularly. Another is how broadly my social circle has expanded.

It is true that Lindsay encouraged me over the years, courting the boundary of coaxing. But, the decision was ultimately mine. Her advocacy simply furnished the freedom necessary for the undertaking, providing me assurance that we were both willing to shoulder the inevitable burdens. Without that knowledge, this project would definitely not be fun.

Abraham Maslow wrote, “If we wish to help humans to become more fully human, we must realize not only that they try to realize themselves, but they are also reluctant or unable to do so. Only by fully appreciating this dialectic between sickness and health can we help to tip the balance in favor of health.” Were Mr. Maslow still alive, he might say that a little coaxing is not necessarily a bad thing.

For a closure-oriented person, this is remarkably process-oriented stuff. I will say, though, that it will be far more amusing if I successfully cross that ditch.

NYD Alcatraz

2010-01-04T17:51:00.000-08:00

Saturday 01/02/10

The 2010 NYD Alcatraz swim was a humdinger. The huge tide made this a race that people will recall for several years. In a thirteen hour period, the water rose from 2.8 feet to 7.1 feet and then dropped off the chart to a -1.6 foot finish. Tides don’t come much bigger in San Francisco Bay, making it quite tricky for the organizers to pick a start time.

One hundred and twenty swimmers participated and their speeds varied from nearly world class to nearly dog paddle. The worst mistake possible would be to jump too late. This happened a few years ago and only five people finished at the club beach. All but one of the remainder were scooped up as they were being swept to the Golden Gate Bridge and points beyond. The exception wound up getting out at the beach at St. Francis Yacht Club and walking a mile back to the club barefoot in his Speedo.

In order to avoid a repetition of this scenario, the organizers scheduled a jump while there was still a strong flood. As a result, some of the slower swimmers were pushed as far east as Pier 39. Even the fastest swimmers didn't catch the ebb until they were well east of the breakwater. The stage was set for one of the most exciting aspects of open water swimming—a choice of routes. (Click here for a map)

Based on the swimmer’s local knowledge, level of craftiness, and sheer audacity, three basic choices offered themselves. The first and most natural option (marked “A” on the map) was to swim outside the breakwater and enter Aquatic Park Cove through “the opening.” This is the traditional finish for Alcatraz races and would appear to be the default option. It was also the slowest.

Swimmers with a better understanding of San Francisco aquatic geography chose the route marked “B” on the map. This option took the racer inside the breakwater and past the Bad Becky, shaving off a couple of hundred yards and providing protection from the end of the flood. Pretty smart.

The craftiest and bravest swimmers went one better than this. They took the most direct route, “C”, cutting under Hyde Street Pier. Packed with barnacle-encrusted pilings on a rip-roaring ebb tide, this path required a bit of pluck.

The water was reasonably smooth given the extraordinary tide race mid-channel. The air was moderately warm for mid-winter. The water temperature was a relatively benign 51 degrees. Visibility was good. Pilot coverage was plentiful. The best part was that everyone finished the swim and had a great time comparing notes. This was an outstanding NYD Alcatraz.

Matthew Webb

2010-01-01T08:02:00.000-08:00

Friday 01/01/10

Perhaps the age of true human marvels is past. Two men rowed across the Pacific Ocean and received a scant few column inches in the San Francisco Chronicle. The papers of Midwest America made no mention at all. Since 1977, men and women have run nonstop each July from Death Valley to Mt. Whitney. They cover 135 miles and 13,000 feet of vertical ascent with no national press coverage whatsoever. In fact, very few people have even heard of the Badwater Ultramarathon, much less the name of the first person to complete this satanic test.

Matthew Webb was not so slighted. When he successfully swam the English Channel in August, 1875, the world took notice. His biographer, Kathy Watson, reports the reaction in her book, The Crossing. The swim “made Webb more than merely famous, it recast him in heroic mold. In England, he was seen as a peerless example of manhood, a role model for the nation’s youth….here in the papers, over and over again, was his story in full. Hour by hour, sometimes minute by minute, his long swim was recorded.” The New York Times reported that, “From the remotest village in the Highlands, down to the lowest slum in Wapping, there is probably not a soul to whom the name of Captain Webb is unknown.” His crossing was not the first amphibious success, but it was the first with no artificial aids. Captain Webb was dressed only in the standard swimming costume of the time and employed a steady breast stroke at a relatively sedate twenty strokes per minute. The man was resolute and epitomized the saying, “slow and steady wins the race.”

A year and a half earlier, he had dived from the side of the steamship sailing liner, Russia, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean attempting to save a seaman who had fallen from the rigging. His action was purely spontaneous and typical of his stubborn, physical courage. Fortunately, someone saw the plunge into the gale-tossed sea and the ship dispatched a rescue boat. Almost forty minutes later, he was hauled by his hair to safety only seconds from being left to his fate. The passengers on the liner took up a collection and gave him a purse of gold. The Royal Humane Society awarded him the “Stanhope Gold Medal.” Ceremonies and award dinners followed in profusion on his arrival in England which he apparently enjoyed, but he never capitalized on his fame with paid performances. In the classic manner of his acceptance speeches, he said, “I shall always look back upon being the recipient of the first gold medal given away as one of the most fortunate coincidences in what, I am bound now to admit, has been a somewhat fortunate career.”

Only eight months before this, in August of 1872, J.B. Johnson had made an attempt to swim the Channel. He employed a new, powerful, overhand style of swimming and was captain of the prestigious Serpentine Club in London. At twenty-three years old, he was a handsome physical specimen with a string of swimming medals. Known as the “Champion Swimmer of England,” Mr. Johnson hired a brass band to serenade his start in Dover. About two hours and two brandies later, he boarded the steamer that was acting as his pilot craft. He was too hypothermic to drink the proffered beef tea, but continued sailing for Calais. Just before they reached the harbor, he was revived sufficiently to re-enter the water and swim to shore. He allowed people to believe his attempt had been completely successful. When the truth emerged, he found refuge from the resulting disrepute in the distant and former Colonies.

Lacking J.B. Johnson’s speed, Captain Webb substituted exponential fortitude. Two weeks before his successful crossing, a fierce storm interrupted the first attempt midway across the Channel. According to Ms. Watson, his exit was “not a moment too soon. Fifteen minutes later, the sea was in such a rage that the [small pilot] boat would have been forced away from Webb and he would almost certainly have drowned.” Less than fourteen days later, he was back in the water for a second go. This time, he completed the journey and landed near Calais in twenty-one hours and forty-five minutes. He sustained himself with beef tea, beer, and coffee. A supplement of cod liver oil made him sick and he vowed not to take it again. When he swam into jellyfish, a dose of brandy helped to lessen the sting.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Telegraph Captain Webb said, “I went into the water determined either to reach the other side or sink. All I can say is that I kept pegging at it, and it was a terribly hard job towards the end, but I was determined not to give up as long as I had strength to move a limb.” The reporter later said, “The captain is a bad hand at spinning a yarn, and is inclined to be very brief about it.”

The hero’s reticence left plenty of room for others to fill in the blanks and they did. From Dover to London, people threw banquets and gave speeches in his honor. When he arrived in his home county of Shropshire, it took him an hour and a half to get out of the train station and into a carriage which the crowd insisted on pulling themselves. By the time they reached his birthplace in Dawley, the parade was so large that even the livestock wanted a peek. Almost 150 years later, a replica of Farmer Fletcher’s pig graces a brick fence with its trotters perched atop the barrier.

Captain Webb’s accomplishment remained unmatched for thirty-seven years. Finally in 1911, after fifteen failed attempts, Thomas Burgess crossed in 22 hours and 35 minutes. Even now, fewer people have successfully completed a solo swim of the English Channel than have climbed Mt. Everest. For some few, the crossing is a race to set a new record. For most of the rest of us, it is an opportunity to emulate the pioneer’s dogged determination.

Training Update

2009-12-23T20:05:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 12/23/09

I have around 25,000 yards of catch-up drill under my TYR now. Coach Val was absolutely right. This drill makes it impossible to backslide to my old “boogie woogie” stroke. The new style is almost starting to feel ingrained and the sense of sleek propulsion is just delightful. It’s difficult to judge whether I’m faster but in the Dolphin Club NYD Alcatraz qualifier last Saturday, I did finish ahead of people who normally beat me. More importantly, my finish earned me a shower without waiting in a long, cold, shivering line. I also nabbed a seat on the top bench of the sauna. That was a surprising treat given how many men showed up for the swim, many of them quite fast.

Coach has been assigning me all-drill workouts that start with something like ten, three hundred yard stretches punctuated by twenty second breaks between. Then, he’ll have me swim declining intervals of 500 yards, followed by 400, followed by 300, followed by 200, followed by 100. Then he’ll make a video of my stroke for a few lengths of the pool. Last week, we reviewed the first video recording together. It was painful for me to watch, but he was quite pleased. He said rather gleefully, “Your Dolphin friends ask me what I do to you. They say your stroke completely different.” Then he intoned, “This your new stroke. With this stroke, you can swim English Channel. With old stroke ….” At this he pursed his lips, looked down, and shook his head gravely as if contemplating a ship foundering on a leeward shore in a strong gale.

On Tuesday, he had me swim catch-up drills for about an hour and a half. Then he said, “You ready for next step.” He again showed me the “real freestyle” stroke which looks like “almost catch-up.” One hand stays pointed at the end of the swim lane while the other completes a full pull-through and returns forward to just past the head. Slightly before getting touched, the gliding hand begins its pull-through as the other one assumes the glide position and points toward the end of the lane. With this slight adjustment, the stroke generates all the power and glide provided by the catch-up drill while maintaining the maximum possible momentum.

Some time ago, a friend of mine taught me a phrase borrowed from his European friends, “Strong like ox—smart like tractor.” He would illustrate by flexing his biceps and then pointing fingers to each side of his head. A vivid picture of my friend runs through my head as I ply the pool lanes. The catch-up drill is “strong like ox.” The nearly catch-up is the “smart like tractor” part.

Just before I left the pool, Coach showed me a faster turn. My custom has been to grab hold of the pool gutter at the end of the lane and leverage my body around 180 degrees. Coach Val demonstrated a maneuver where the lead hand pushes vigorously against the wall, reversing the upper torso direction while the legs bend at the knees and continue sliding forward. The trailing hand remains pointing at the opposite end and is joined in a diver’s clasp by the one that pushed off the wall. The legs are naturally coiled in a position to immediately jet away from the wall. When executed properly, in one continuous and flowing motion, the swimmer maintains a streamlined profile and reverses course like a darting fish. Coach pointed out that this new turn technique provides a much shorter rest period between changes of direction and provides a better approximation of open water swimming.

He also took me through a brief equipment checklist. “What goggles you use in Channel?” I pointed to the ones on my head. “No allergy?” he asked. I shook my head. “No fogging?” I shook my head. “No leaking?” I shook my head. He said, “Good. Now swimsuit. What you use in Channel?” I pointed to what I was wearing. He asked about chafing or other discomfort. Getting no complaints, he cautioned, “Make sure not too tight. Then can’t pee. And not too loose. Then will cause drag.” The next topic was food. “What you eat?” I told him about Carbo-Pro and the brief testing I’d done. He strongly cautioned me to try it on longer swims in the Bay to ensure no adverse reaction. He also advised me to take along a backup food in case of a sudden change of metabolism mid-Channel. He was happy to hear that Lindsay was going to be the crew chief on the boat, taking charge of feeding and video documentation. He said, “Make sure you work out signals so she knows what you want—water, food, whatever.” I told him that was one of the things we planned to practice on the longer Bay training swims. He smiled and said, “I think you make it. No problem.”

Leaving Koret, I went to the Dolphin Club and swam a big cove putting another four squares up for the Polar Bear. It was a rough and windy day, but my new stroke slid forcefully through the chop. As I sliced through the waves I kept repeating to myself in a Texas two-step rhythm, “Strong like ox—smart like tractor.”

The Polar Bear Challenge

2009-12-21T20:18:00.000-08:00

Monday 12/21/09

As it has every year since 1974, the Polar Bear swim started today. Many cities boast “polar bear” swims. In Chicago and Boston, bathers wade into Lake Michigan and the Atlantic on New Year’s Day and stay for several seconds. In the arctic countries, people regularly cut holes in the ice and frolic as many as two minutes. The Dolphin Club Polar Bear lasts all winter. It runs from the Winter Solstice on December 21 until it ends on March 21 with the arrival of the Spring Equinox. Members keep track of their distance in quarter-mile increments on large, quadrilled charts mounted at the entrance to the club. Logically, swimmers often refer to the distance they’ve covered in a day in terms of squares. “We did four squares today—at least a mile.” Since 1984, earning a polar bear requires swimming forty miles (or 160 squares) in the San Francisco Bay or equivalent cold, open water. An official notice on the sign-up sheet some few years ago proclaimed that “the use of wetsuits and/or swim aids is viewed with scorn and contempt.”

This swim was the inspiration of Bill Powning. The original Polar Bear began in 1974 when the requirement was set at twelve miles. In those days, Bay swimming was pretty much confined to the relatively warmer summers. For both clubs at the time, handball was the predominant winter sport. It vied only with holiday bacchanalia for popularity. Mr. Powning wanted to swim in the winter, though, and he wanted company. Cleverly, he titled the event “The Polar Bear Challenge” knowing what would spur maximum participation from the all-male membership at the time. It worked. Over the years, the mileage bar rose to eighteen, then twenty, then thirty, until it reached its current mark at forty miles. In the early 1990’s some members, perhaps facetiously, agitated for a fifty mile Polar Bear. They met with stalwart resistance and the topic was soon dropped.

Since its inception, earning a “polar bear” has meant being recognized with the gift of a three-quarter inch block of white marble. For virgin recipients, these awards are mounted with a small replica of a polar bear. Perversely, this trinket is not distributed until the November awards dinner. The memento provides a timely reminder to participants of their previous winter accomplishment and tacitly encourages them to go for one more.

For many, these marble blocks stray into drawers and closets and other hidden corners; perhaps serving as a paperweight here or a doorstop there. Not so for Mr. Powning. He glued his blocks together, creating a towering trophy reflecting the glory of his consecutive string of successful polar bears. By the time he stopped swimming, Mr. Powning held the undisputed record. The current consecutive polar bear record belongs to Vincent Huang whose first polar bear dates to the 1978-1979 season. Emulating the Polar Bear Challenge founder, Mr. Huang's stack of thirty-one glued marble blocks is only a few short years from reaching a full yard long. Mimi Osborne holds the women’s record. She started swimming the polar bear in 1980, shortly after women were admitted to the Dolphin Club. Her consecutive string stands at twenty-nine.

It wasn’t until the 1984-1985 season that the custom emerged of crowning a polar bear champion. The occasion for this was the first polar bear of more than one hundred miles. Elmer Tosta swam 101.5 miles that winter. His name was the first to grace the perpetual trophy plaque that hangs in the Staib Room of the Dolphin Club today. Since then, nine people have swum 200 miles or more during the Polar Bear Challenge. Among these is Joe Illick, a four-time winner who snagged his first championship at the age of 69. George Kebbe set a record many believed unsurpassable when he swam 255 miles one winter. A few winters later, though, Suzie Dods swam 256 miles. The next year, Mr. Kebbe returned to swim 356 miles, a mark that would surely stand forever. And it did until Ralph Wenzel tied the record with his own 356 mile polar bear in 2007.

A new wrinkle in the Polar Bear Challenge is recognition for the “first to forty.” The year of its inception, the competition was over before the New Year began. Then Peter Perez extended the idea of “double-dipping.” Most modern Polar Bear Challenge winners swim twice a day. It’s simply too cold to swim four miles in one effort. However, a “triple dip” would inevitably evoke remark. Mr. Perez had a theory, though. He hypothesized that a person could repeatedly swim a distance to the point of becoming only slightly uncomfortable; warm up; and immediately return to the water. He considered sleep deprivation the only barrier to doing this indefinitely. Putting his theory to the initial test in 2006, he successfully swam all forty miles in slightly more than four days. Copying his method, faster swimmers have shaved that record to about three and a half days.

Mr. Perez’ goal this year is to swim forty miles in less than two days. He started his first dip at 12:01a this morning. By 9:00a, he was working on his eighth mile. He is scheduled to attempt the English Channel in August, 2010 and believes that this effort is good physical and mental preparation. Although the swimming itself is interrupted, it has many of the same elements of discipline, pain, and constant exertion over a long period.

I’m sorry that Bill Powning can’t bear witness to these extraordinary endeavors. He was a wonderful sauna companion and would surely have some entertaining remarks regarding the evolution of his original notion.

The Mendoza Line

2009-12-16T20:51:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 12/16/09

Lou Marcelli is the grizzled eminence grise of the Dolphin Club. Actor, chef, and club commodore, Mr. Marcelli maintains a disciplined year-round swimming schedule. As an avid baseball fan and keen observer of Bay water temperatures, he was the first to appropriate the phrase “Mendoza Line.”

Shortstop Mario Mendoza has long been known for setting the major league standard for beggarly batting average. Baseball players who strike the ball successfully one out of three times enjoy outsize acclaim and riches. A lifetime batting average of .333 is among the performance statistics that will trigger candidacy for the Baseball Hall of Fame. In fact, anything at or near the .300 mark qualifies as a remarkable hitting career.

George Brett, with a lifetime batting average of .305, is apocryphally credited with saddling Mr. Mendoza with his unfortunate distinction. The term applies to a player who fails to safely strike the ball in two out of ten plate appearances. As such, anyone failing to hit at least .200 is “below the Mendoza Line.” As with other colloquial phrases the origins of this one are in some dispute. Some historians theorize that years ago, when the Sunday papers didn’t report all batting averages, Mario Mendoza provided the demarcation below which this statistic was absent. Others suggest that this is a reference to failing to “hit your weight,” when a ballplayer’s batting average is less than his body weight in pounds. In this case, the Mendoza line fluctuates.

As it relates to the Bay, the Mendoza line doesn’t fluctuate. When the water chills to below 50 degrees, the line is breached. For Dolphins who are aware of this boundary, it takes a spectral form. As the temperature nears 50, Mendoza is sighted descending from Mt. Tamalpais. At 50, Mendoza is knocking on the door. When the temperature cracks the south side of 50, Mendoza takes up residence at the Oprah buoy. When the temperature remains below 50 for several days or weeks, Mendoza and his extended family are camped in a freezing caravan at the Oprah, toasting marshmallows, and singing “Let it Snow.”

Most Dolphins will agree to four general categories of Bay water temperature. Above 60 degrees is “balmy.” Between 55 and 60 is “brisk.” Between 50 and 55 is “cold.” Below the Mendoza line, it’s “f***ing freezing.”

Regarding the latter category, the betting usually revolves around whether Mendoza will arrive in time for the New Year’s Day Alcatraz swim. This year, the plunging thermometer has the smart money riding on his appearance before the Polar Bear starts on December 21st. Odds are currently at 5:1 and my money’s on Mendoza.

South End Qualifier

2009-12-14T20:47:00.000-08:00

Saturday 12/12/09

Both Bay swimming clubs conduct numerous organized swims each year. Of the pure swim events, though, the New Year’s Day Alcatraz is hard to beat. It is easily the most adrenaline-fueled swim of the year. On one end of the scale, the greyhounds of both clubs show up in force. The vibe that emanates from Olympic class and near-Olympic class athletes is palpable. And this isn’t just sitting in the stands, admiring phenomenal performances. This is checking in, riding the boat to the island, and jumping in the water shoulder to shoulder with swimmers among the top two percent of the world. This is total immersion in a bath of fast-twitch fibers.

On the other end of the scale are the folks for whom finishing is an uncertain goal. The water temperature is often below fifty degrees as it will be this year. At close to one and a half miles, the swim is longish for slower swimmers. The currents on New Year’s Day are typically quite strong. Anxiety adds spice to the competitive pheromones circulating in the air, creating an intoxicating mixture.

Gaiety is the third contribution to this emotional soup. For a large portion of the swimmers and pilots, this is not a race; it’s a celebration and a lark. What better way to start the New Year? What fun it is to bob around in the icy Bay in the early morning while most other people are sleeping off their New Year’s Eve excesses. Silly hats, costumes, and body paint contribute to the celebratory atmosphere. If CNN or other news agencies show up, all the more giddiness.

The South End is the annual host for this dual-club extravaganza. Volunteers plan the jump time, arrange for swimmer transportation to the rock, conduct the briefing, provide timing and recording, and ensure adequate pilot coverage. The South End swim commissioner is responsible for making the final determination to start the swim or not. Dense fog or lightning can jeopardize the safety of all.

Among other safety measures in place is the requirement for participants to complete a qualifying swim. Qualifying swims approximate the chill and distance that will be encountered on NYD and provide a reliable indication of a candidate’s ability to finish. Each club operates its own qualifier and Saturday was the occasion for the South End.

Chris Blakeslee, usually referred to by his nickname, El Sharko, successfully swam the Channel in 2004. He piloted the South End qualifier and took pictures. One of my favorites is his close-up of the digital thermometer at the Kebbe showing 50.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

The South End course was an “inside/outside.” This is code for swimming to the east end of the breakwater on the shore side, or “inside.” The next leg consists of turning around and swimming back to the Opening on the Bay side, or “outside” the breakwater. From the Opening, we closely hugged Muni Pier (no shortcuts under the Roundhouse), looped around the Goal Posts and the Flag, and ended at the club beach. It was a blast! I’m eagerly anticipating the big day.

Stroke Breakthrough

2009-12-10T19:34:00.000-08:00

Thursday 12/10/09

Coach Val has been giving me stroke advice and correction. He teaches the same way that Clint Eastwood reportedly directs movies—simple, direct, and succinct. Last week, at the end of two hours, he stood at the end of my lane and said, “Larry!” Once he had my attention, he said, “Stroke getting better.” Then he held his arms over his head with his hands about three feet apart and said, “Was like this.” Then he moved his hands two feet apart and said, “Now like this.” Then he moved his hands six inches apart and said, “Make like this.” Then he walked away.

Tuesday, I did another two hour swim at Koret. Coach started me off with a 500 yard freestyle warm-up. Then he had me do eight iterations of 800 yard intervals with a 50 second rest between each. He ended this with kicking four short lengths. This workout put me well ahead of schedule for two hour swims. It was still early morning when I got back to my office. I updated the planning calendar with a more aggressive schedule, including a five hour swim in the pool in March. Writing these numbers on the laminate immediately boosted my confidence for meeting or exceeding my Bay goals when the water starts warming up in April.

During one of the rest periods between the 800’s, Coach said, “Stroke is better. Keep practicing.” I was thrilled. I like to think of myself as a quick study and have been disappointed that I can’t seem to immediately implement the stroke guidance he’s been volunteering. This morsel of praise was delectable.

At the end of the session, though, Coach said, “Larry! Listen to me—very important. When you get tired, you go back old way swimming. It will take you 14 or 15 hours to swim Channel. Concentrate when tired. Practice all the time—at home—in Bay.” Discouraging as it was to hear, the criticism goaded me to redouble my attention to stroke mechanics.

Back in the pool on Thursday, Coach started me with 250 yards of freestyle in a lane by myself. He came over after a few laps; smiled; and said, “Very good. Making progress.” It was fortunate that I was wearing only a standard swimming costume as my swelling chest encountered no buttons to bust.

Then he had me do 2,500 yards of catch-up drill. “You know catch-up?” he asked. He pantomimed a freestyle stroke where both hands are raised straight above the head and touching one another. Then the left starts its downward motion, tracing as much of the centerline of the body as it can reach. All the while, the right hand stays extended high above the head until the left catches up and plays “tag, you’re it.” Triggered by this touch, the right hand begins its own downward descent and dissection of the body’s centerline until it returns high above the head to greet the patiently waiting left. He repeated this motion a couple of cycles and then grinned wolfishly at me. “Will make it impossible to do this.” At which point he rotated both arms wildly away from his body in a frenzied imitation of the stroke I’d originally brought to his pool.

Executing the first couple of hundred of yards of this drill, my stroke rate was about half of normal. In order to get adequate air, I had to breathe on every stroke. This led to the exhilarating discovery that breathing on the left didn’t feel nearly as awkward doing the catch-up stroke. My entire body was rotating a full 180 degrees with each stroke, making getting a breath on either side more natural. I then concentrated on increasing my stroke rate to near-normal while diligently touching each hand to the other. It felt like I was jetting forward at the end of each stroke, much like the feeling of a jet turn on snow skis in hip-deep powder. And the improved bi-lateral breathing comfort came with no additional charge.

Coach cruised by from time to time with a huge smile on his face, giving me two enthusiastic thumbs up. At one point he stopped and showed me a dry land version of front-quadrant swimming. He demonstrated a stroke that was “nearly catch-up.” The hands never actually touched, but both arms were well above shoulder level before the stroke was initiated. As his arms swung gracefully over his head, he began to bounce his torso up and down in rhythm, giving a dry land illustration of the jetting effect. Then he started chanting, “one … two … one … two” and stepping lightly from side to side as if doing the Texas two-step. With a big grin he said, “This is real freestyle.”

I was in the pool for less than an hour and a half, but was becoming absolutely pooped. In order to rest, I’d periodically slow my rotation rate back down to half-normal and still focus on touching one hand to the other and cleaving the body’s centerline with each stroke. As I tired, I felt an increasing urge to jettison the straightjacket of the graceful, balletic style and return to my wanton, boogie-woogie roots. This was plenty for one day as far as I was concerned.

Coach asked me to bring a video recorder to the next session. He said, “You’re ready for next step.” I was too tired to ask what the next step might be. There was a single predominant thought coursing through my brain. I probably needed another 50,000 yards of catch-up drill if I'm going to build the requisite “real freestyle” muscles and permanently excise the last vestige of the boogie-woogie stroke from my mind. After all, it’s a long way across that ditch.

Virgin Sunriser (Almost)

2009-12-09T17:55:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 12/09/09

Ralph Wenzel and I are getting into a flow of Monday and Wednesday morning swims in the Bay. It’s just delightful to have a steady swim companion. Besides the camaraderie, there’s the spur to extra effort. Now that the water temperature is around 52 degrees and dropping, it’s reassuring to have the company of a fellow frigid soul. There’s also the added creativity regarding course selection.

Ralph taught me the “Maylander” course on Monday. We did a clockwise Cove, looping around the Flag and Goal Posts, hugging Muni Pier, under the Roundhouse and out to the Bad Becky. Then we reversed course and unwound the previous route in the counter-clockwise direction until we reached the Oprah. Then we swam under the Hyde Street Pier, up the fairway on the other side, around the Bad Becky and over to the Kebbe to check the thermometer there. From the Kebbe, it’s a short sprint back to the beach and hot showers and sauna. I’m not sure who Maylander is, but the swim was exhilarating. I’ll have to remember to ask Ralph about the course architect next Monday.

Ralph and I planned to swim with the Sunrisers this morning. They have been advertising a Pier 7 swim on the SERC chat group and that’s right up my alley for training purposes. It’s about a two mile swim, but should only take about forty-five minutes with the strong anticipated ebb at seven a.m. That’s a little shorter than what I’ve been doing lately, but it’s not as sheltered as Aquatic Park and has more than a modicum of “open ocean” ambience.

South End customs and common courtesy require the swimmers to help put the pilot boats away after the swim. I’m more nervous about that than I am about the swim itself. These Sunrisers are decidedly much tougher than I. The water’s cold. The air is colder. When a swim is completed, I’m ready to hightail it to the sauna. Nevertheless, I had brought my swim coat and was determined to do my part.

Ralph and I showed up at six a.m. We were there in plenty of time to help prepare and launch the “Zods,” the inflatable, motorized craft the Sunrisers use for piloting and transportation to the start. In the process, I overheard someone say that they were calling “an Alcatraz audible.” Pricking up my ears, I heard one swimmer ask if perhaps the building ebb might be a deterrent to making it to the Aquatic Park opening from Alcatraz. The reply was, “Oh, we’ll probably end up at Coughlan Beach or Fort Mason.” Well, that put a new twist on things.

I was worried before about postponing a hot shower and sauna to help pull boats. Now, I was facing scrambling into a Zodiac in the forty degree air after the swim, possibly waiting for slower swimmers, and then whizzing through the chilling breeze for another ten or fifteen minutes to get to the dock where I could help pull the boats. These Sunrisers are WAY tougher than I!

Ralph asked someone what happened to the Pier 7 plan. The answer involved a second Sunriser group (who knew there was more than one?) that swims from Alcatraz every Wednesday. The decision was to combine the two swims and increase the merriment.

I was really looking forward to getting to know these people a little better. I’d been following some of them on the SERC and Channel chat groups and knew they were on the wild and crazy side. That held more than a little appeal. This turn of events, however, shorted my circuits. Suddenly a nice, boring, two mile swim in the Cove wasn’t looking so bad. Ralph and I consulted briefly. He was still willing to go for it, but he said, “I’ve done this before. Getting into the Zodiac after a really cold swim is just miserable!” Getting to know the members of the other club was just going to have to wait.

I scratched our names off the sign-up list and we made our adieus. A few minutes later, we were on the club beach in our standard swim costumes and sporting our blinking lights. The Sunrisers were piling into the Zodiacs at the end of the dark dock and heading out for their jump at Alcatraz.

Ralph suggested we swim the Kebbe course today. I was still muddled from the hectic scene next door, so I needed to ask what that was. “Oprah, Flag, Oprah, Flag, Oprah, Flag, Oprah, Flag, Oprah.” Of course. Mr. Kebbe is still famous for his undeviating route to a 356 mile Polar Bear. We wound up doing a Modified Kebbe with a Maylander Flourish. That’s a mile and a half of back and forth followed by a trip under Hyde Street Pier, around the end, and back. We had a blast.

Standing under a hot shower afterwards, we agreed that we’d made the right choice. It’s still a long time until September and I’ll have plenty of chances to become more familiar with the folks next door. Today was a fascinating introduction, though.

My Blog Made Me Do It

2009-12-06T13:56:00.000-08:00

Sunday 12/06/09

Holy Mackerel! A torrent of response to this blog has burst forth in the last couple of days. Nancy Friedman, Chief Wordworker at Wordworking.com, publicized the blog in a couple of places and my email in-basket swelled with well-wishes. Responding to this outpouring causes me to realize a couple of things.

One discovery is that I very much enjoy writing about this mission ... quest ... thing. The writing compliments and inspires the physical training. Among the ideas that drift through my head during a long training swim are potential topics for a new blog entry. I’ll write and rewrite a sentence in my head for a half mile or more until a phrase erupts that makes me chuckle. Susan S, a professional writer of renown and member of the Dophin Club recently told me she believed that writing about the doing is mutually reinforcing. That's certainly been my experience.

The second thought that emerges is, “I can’t quit now.” It has gotten to the point that I feel I would be letting a lot of people down not to pursue this project to its logical denouement. What is perhaps more compelling is that I, too, want to find out what happens next and how the story ends. This evokes the image of a Hollywood script with plenty of room left for the actors’ improvisations. It’s a road trip, quest, and buddy story all rolled into one and chock full of drama, comedy, and mystery. Sometimes I feel as if I’m merely the chronicler.

I also like learning this new stuff. Researching various topics for blog entries gratifies my dormant inner student. Sharks in the English Channel. Nuances of tidal diamond interpretation. Hypothermia treatment protocols. All of these topics provide opportunities to put the vast resources of the internet to use. I intend to visit the library for the first time in thirty-five years to gain access to expensive scientific journals not available for free on the internet. This will give me source material for an informed essay on topics such as brown fat vs. white fat and swim-specific weight training. I hope not to find reason to research topics such as injuries to the shoulder due to repetitive use.

Anne Lamott penned a hysterically funny book about writing called, “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.” The humor embodies an ardent love letter to truth and beauty and the writing process. Lindsay gave me this book many years ago. Reading it kindled a desire to wrestle with words, paint pictures for the mind, and tell stories. In Ms. Lamott's book, she relentlessly advises the aspiring writer to simply sit down and write. Come to think of it, that’s a whole lot like the admonition to just shut up and swim. The writing and the doing are truly fraternal twins.

How's the Training Going?

2009-12-01T21:13:00.000-08:00

Tuesday 12/01/09

I finally bit the bullet and joined the USF Masters Swim Team. Channel swimmer, Duke Dahlin, took me under his wing and ushered me through the somewhat intimidating process of applying, registering, and orientation. Mr. Dahlin introduced me to Coach Valeriy Boreyko who kindly admitted me to the program. Coach Val excused several of my Masters shortcomings. 1: I’m hopeless at any stroke but freestyle. 2: I’m not competent at flip turns. 3: I’m not very interested in pool competition. Ignoring these deficiencies, Coach has agreed to concoct a personalized program to help improve my chances for a successful crossing. My pool goals are to get in some additional mileage during the winter, work on stroke technique, and increase my sprint capacity with interval training.

In the Bay, I’m swimming a little over two miles five days a week. The temperature is closing in on 53 degrees and I’m uncomfortably cold after an hour. Ralph Wenzel and I have begun swimming together and he graciously adjusts his pace to mine. It’s simply terrific having a companion in the cove and Ralph has impeccable credentials. From December 21, 2006 through March 21, 2007, he swam 365 miles in San Francisco Bay. In those 90 days of winter, he went to work, swam two miles in the morning, went back to work, and then swam two more miles that evening. It was not a warm winter and he took nearly no days off. He’s quite an inspiration.

Lindsay found a laminated yearly planner for me online. The calendar is two feet by three feet and occupies a prominent place on my office wall. I’ve made several entries with dry-erase markers. The start and end of my Channel window are in red. Our airline travel days are in green. For the long Bay swims, I’ve used big blue numbers to indicate my intended hours in the water. During the winter, I’ve marked long pool swims with black numbers. A laminated surface and dry-erase markers were a good idea. We’ve already made multiple modifications of our own. When I told Coach that I intended to do a ten or twelve hour swim a month before my window, he pursed his lips and shook his head and said, “I don’t think that’s enough recovery time. I will check.”

Lindsay bought me a green swim cap that says, “Eat, Swim, Sleep.” That pretty much sums up the current phase of preparation. Gazing at the planner on the wall, more swimming looms.

Don't You Get Cold?

2009-11-22T16:37:00.000-08:00

Sunday 11/22/09

The water temperature has begun to descend on its annual glide path to a landing somewhere in the low 50’s or high 40’s Fahrenheit. There are a couple of signs the temperature is dropping aside from the wall gauge at the Dolphin Club and the digital thermometer at the Kebbe buoy. As the water becomes more frigid, the chirping increases. Some of the swimmers have thermometers on their watches. A common refrain arises as one individual encounters another known to carry this equipment. “What did you get on your watch today?” Each winter, members from both clubs interpolate these assorted measures to establish a consensus calibration.

Another sure sign of increasing cold is the disappearance of people who swim in wetsuits. During the summer months, as many as two hundred neoprene-encased swimmers ply up and down the buoy line of Aquatic Park. They often form groups of fifty or more to engage in jogs on the beach and sand-based calisthenics before venturing into the brine. Come Thanksgiving, perhaps half a dozen wetsuit wearers remain. By January, there will be more swimmers wearing birthday suits than wetsuits.

The body’s mewling provides a reliable scale of cold for most winter swimmers. Lindsay C says, “I know it’s getting colder. I can feel it in my hips. I can feel it in my knees.” When the water is at or below fifty degrees, most people complain that walking on the sand after a swim feels like shuffling through a bed of hot coals. In the water, fingers splay open and on the beach, mouths refuse to elicit even simple words of greeting.

Of course, tolerance to the cold varies widely. Mike R was renowned for his imperviousness. A slow swimmer, he needed an hour and fifty minutes to finish a New Years Day Alcatraz swim. A dark-room thermometer recorded the temperature at 49.3 that day. When Mike finished his swim, he calmly retrieved the stick noting his last place finish and then strolled down the dock in his dripping swimsuit to help pull the heavy wooden pilot boats out of the water. Scott H, another English Channel crosser regularly stays in the sauna for less than ten minutes even after long swims on the coldest days. I suspect that he is actually seeking the warmth of camaraderie rather than the warmth of the heated enclosure.

The severest case of hypothermia of which I am aware happened in 1987. The water was below fifty and the cove was turbulent with a winter tempest. Susan Cobb-Frederick and Bill H were swimming to the Flag when they spotted what they thought was an orange buoy broken loose from its ground tackle. Getting closer, they recognized a friend of theirs from the South End bobbing face down in the heaving water. Susan and Bill flipped him over and towed him to the nearest shore in front of the Maritime Museum building. His mouth frothed with pulses of air bubbles. Susan jogged down the beach to summon help from the Dolphin Club.

A party of four or five men snared the closest available sedan and drove down the road in front of the Maritime Museum to meet Bill. The unconscious gentleman was locked in rigid attention as if in a state of rigor mortis or perfect military bearing. The men had to carry him like a plank board to the waiting car and slide him into the back seat with his legs sticking out the side. One man jogged beside the rescue vehicle, holding the door to keep it from smacking into the limbs of the victim. They shuttled the stiff carcass up the stairs to the relatively closer and more commodious Dolphin Club sauna.

Apparently, the stricken swimmer had jumped with the Sunrisers that morning from pier 41 ½ to ride the strong ebb back to Aquatic Park. Overcome by hypothermia and overlooked by his companions, he was drifting in a state of mammalian diving reflex. A paramedic squad arrived shortly and began ministrations. Some while later, the swimmer regained consciousness. An ambulance took him to the hospital where he fully recovered. At the hospital, the medical staff dried out his lungs and advised him that, while not always fatal, nearly drowning was something to avoid. Undeterred, he has continued to swim in the ocean for many years.

Another person that survived dampened lungs was an aspirant to swim the English Channel. She was training for her first attempt. She was swimming around the Bay accompanied by a motor craft. In the fifth hour of her eight hour practice swim, she was near Angel Island in fifty-three degree water. The attendant crew were feeding her on thirty minute intervals and checking regularly on her well-being. Although she didn’t reply to repeated questions at feeding time, she was notorious for being remarkably taciturn. A pace swimmer leaped into the water to provide tempo and shortly had to stop saying, “I can’t swim this slow. I’m getting cold.”

Since both swimmers were quite fast and nearly equal speed, this prompted intense, renewed scrutiny. Closer inspection of the channel aspirant revealed grey skin, slowed stroke rate, and a sunken profile in the water. Saltwater inhalation had severely damaged her swimming ability, but she was still stroking away like a metronome. The crew pulled the swimmer into the watercraft and rushed her to shore. Alerted by radio, emergency medical technicians were waiting to administer to the nearly drowned swimmer and ferry her to the hospital. She also recovered completely from her escapade and successfully swam the English Channel the following year.

The coldest person I ever saw was first discovered in difficulty at the shoreline between the piers of the Dolphin and South End clubs. Unable to speak and unable to swim, two men dragged him from the bay. With a man at each elbow, they steered him up the twenty-four stairs of the Dolphin club in a Frankenstein-like lurch. By the time they reached the sauna, the sufferer had become as rigid as one of the Chinese terracotta warriors. His supporters had to rock and twist him from side to side like a piece of plywood to march him into the heated room.

He seized onto the upper sauna bench and became rooted. His assistants couldn’t persuade him to sit or move and physical attempts to help him bend his extremities met with a low ghoulish howl. His mouth was frozen in a rictus grin and his eyes were wide and unblinking like those of a linebacker in mid play. Drool dangled from his chin, swinging slimily from side to side as various people jostled to administer aid.

By now, a half dozen people were engaged in a cacophonous discussion as to the best course of action. There are as many theories regarding hypothermia treatment as there have been hypothermia victims at the club. Some recommend a lukewarm shower. Some recommend a hot shower. Some recommend hot sauna and no shower. Some recommend a seat on the lower bench of the sauna. Some recommend hot packs placed under the arms and at the femoral artery sites. Some recommend hot or warm drinks. A comparative consensus involves wrapping the patient in blankets. One person took the practical course of wiping the drool away.

The paramedic team arrived, strapped the still-not-lucid man into a gurney, and carted him to a waiting ambulance. He hadn’t swum a remarkable distance and the fifty-three degree water was not exceptionally cold. As a year-round Bay swimmer for over twenty years, he had never had a problem with hypothermia. The culprit turned out to be a faulty mitral valve in his heart. The valve had been steadily deteriorating and leaking away his circulatory supply of oxygen. The condition eroded so gradually that he was unaware of the adverse effect on his swimming. As the water chilled that year, trouble finally made its surprise attack. With a surgically repaired mitral valve, he now braves the waters as he did before.

My most hypothermic moment happened in 1999. I was competing to become the Polar Bear champion that year and had become somewhat obsessive. At the end of that winter, I had begun swimming three miles in the morning and two miles in the evening on Saturday and Sunday. Monday through Friday, I would swim two miles in the morning and one mile in the evening. The water temperature had been below fifty all but three days during that Polar Bear season and that particular Saturday, it was forty-seven degrees.

A friend convinced me to swim with him on the east side of the Hyde street pier, which added a quarter mile to the first large loop around the Park. My companions went back to the club as I continued on to complete my two additional loops. I was wearing two caps which ameliorate the cold considerably. Still, as I plowed under the Roundhouse the third time, I was getting a bit nervous and had another quarter mile back to the beach. I knew that hypothermia sneaks up on a person much like bleeding to death. Just before the onset of catalepsy, a warm sense of well-being envelopes the swimmer.

I was certainly not having a warm sense of well-being. I was uncomfortably cold and having supreme difficulty touching my thumb to my little finger, a simple test for hypothermia. I made a concentrated effort to maintain an even stroke rate and tried to do simple arithmetic puzzles in my head. Arithmetic has always been a needs-improvement area for me and no one was around to check my results but it did keep me occupied.

I rounded the Bad Becky, scooted down the side of the Balclutha and behind the Eppleton Hall, and skirted past the Oprah to complete the last hundred yards. It had taken me an hour and forty minutes to swim the three and a quarter miles. Reaching shore, I locked attention onto the stairs at the foot of the back deck. Seizing hold of the grab bar, I carefully dipped my feet into the foot bath to wash off the sand. From there, I lurched to the handrail at the bottom of the staircase leading to the men’s locker room. I stumped my way up and made a beeline for the closest showerhead.

Standing under the hot water I was shaking uncontrollably, but this was not uncommon. This winter had been the coldest in recent club memory and everyone shook from time to time. Also, everyone knew my Polar Bear aspiration and was accustomed to seeing me in a violent shiver.

As the shower sluiced off the back of my neck and shoulders, I concentrated on maintaining focus, knowing that a delicate stage of hypothermia comes with the after-drop. After-drop occurs when the cold blood from the limbs is forced back into the body, further lowering the core temperature. This is the reason many people eschew hot showers for those afflicted with hypothermia, but I’ve found it the most comfortable way to get back to normal.

While I was under the shower, a young, fit man whom I hadn’t seen before strolled into the foyer between the showers and the sauna and promptly fainted dead away. He toppled like a Douglas fir to the tile floor and bounced twice on his back before lying inert. His posture was so perfect that his back and shoulders absorbed the fall, protecting his head from the hard tile floor.

When short-term attempts to reanimate him failed, someone called 911. Within a couple of minutes, though, the young man revived on his own and bounced up, seemingly none the worse for wear. Apparently, his prospective father-in-law had challenged him to a swim in the icy Bay. They only swam a couple of hundred yards, but they decided to chase the chills away with some manly portions of brandy. Thus, the sudden syncope and equally sudden recovery.

About ten minutes later, I was sitting on the top bench of the sauna shaking and bouncing like a ball bearing in the back of a pickup truck on a bumpy road. The son-in-law and his new relative were devising strategy for dealing with the rescue squad. The city of San Francisco assesses a hefty fee for delivery of pre-hospital emergency medical care. The in-laws' conclusion was to refuse all medical assistance.

Still shaking violently, I was worried that the paramedics’ attention might center on me. When they burst into the sauna asking, “Who’s hypothermic?” I immediately pointed a convulsing arm toward the young man and exclaimed, “Hee-hee-hee HE IS!” The medical technicians focused on him and never gave me another glance.

The politics of liability generated a lively debate between the rescue team and the potential family of the recently fainted. Eventually, the EMT’s asked the young man to sign a waiver, acknowledging his refusal of care. When he demurred, the squad leader was summoned to act as a third party witness. As she arrived, the technicians advised us to cover up. My motor coordination was still absent enough that I fumbled clumsily to reposition my towel from my butt to my lap.

It took about forty-five minutes from the time I left the water to return to normal. It was a distinctly disagreeable experience. Although I still get hypothermic from time to time, I’ve managed to not approach this intensity since.

How Far Is It?

2009-11-18T18:48:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 11/18/09

For someone with sufficient curiosity, the best English Channel visual aid available is the “Dover Straits Western” Admiralty chart number 1892. The chart provides a mariner’s view of what the French call Le Manche or “the sleeve.” It’s absolutely packed with maritime information including the location of firing practice areas. With some difficulty, Lindsay ordered a copy and we now have it mounted to a cork board in our dining room. We use different colored pins to mark significant spots. This gives us a handy way to familiarize ourselves with the challenge and train mentally for the undertaking.

The shortest distance between England and Europe is across the Dover Strait. This is a narrow band of water that forms an hourglass pinch in the English Channel. The bulk of cross-channel swims start at Shakespeare beach, just southwest of Dover Harbor. The most favorable landfall would then be at Cap Gris Nez in France, a rocky promontory south of Calais, which pokes its grey nose towards England. A straight line from Shakespeare Beach to Cap Gris Nez is 18.15 nautical miles. As with most measures, international standards bodies have been tweaking the various definitions but, as of 1929, a nautical mile is the equivalent of 1.15 statute miles, making it 20.89 miles or 33,123.75 meters across for us landlubbers.

Captain Matthew Webb was the first English Channel swimmer. He succeeded using breaststroke in 1875 with a time of twenty-one hours and forty-five minutes. The fastest verified swim crossing is just under seven hours in 2007, a record held by a Bulgarian, Petar Stoychev. Michael Phelps set a world record in the 200 meter freestyle at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 with a time of slightly less than one minute and forty-three seconds. If Mr. Phelps could string one hundred sixty-six of these performances together in open water, he could cross the English Channel in about four and three-quarter hours.

In addition to a swimmer’s speed, wind and tide contribute considerably to the crossing time. Le Manche is subject to semidiurnal tide flows. As in San Francisco Bay, there are two high tides and two low tides each day. This produces an oscillating current known as a tidal stream. Each day, the current flows north on the two flood tides and south on the two ebb tides. Since the swim is west to east (starts in France no longer being sanctioned), the tidal current is mostly perpendicular to the swimmer. If all goes well, the current will push the swimmer one direction for about half the swim. Then, the current changes direction and pushes the swimmer the other direction for half the swim, resulting in a safe landing at the closest point, Cap Gris Nez. The land recedes east on either side of the cape and with the complicating factor of tides, a swimmer missing the preferred landfall may take some extra hours to complete the journey. This is why it is so critical for the pilot to have a reliable account of the swimmer’s speed in order to calculate the proper jump time.

In addition to twice daily variations, the average amplitude of the tides also modulates roughly twice a month. When the moon and the sun are on opposite sides of the earth, the full moon appears in its entire splendor. With the sun tugging on one side of the earth and the moon tugging on the other, the Channel and San Francisco Bay experience the highest high tides and the lowest low tides. The phenomenon repeats itself when the moon and the sun occupy the same side of the earth and tug in unison. From the earth’s perspective, the moon is at its “new” or “dark” stage. Mariners call the extra large swings during these two phases of the moon spring tides. In between the full and new moons are the two half moons. The relatively smaller swings during this period are the neap tides. Most swims are launched during the neap tide windows in order to minimize the potential for miscalculation or mishap. However, strong (or desperate) swimmers and experienced pilots will happily tackle a spring tide crossing.

Viewed from above, a swimmer’s track across the face of the earth will be more or less serpentine depending on the strength of the tide and the speed of the swimmer. As witnessed from a global positioning satellite, this course is the “ground track.” The ground track may cover far more than the strict twenty-one statute miles across the ditch. That doesn’t mean that the swimmer is swimming any farther, though.

Imagine a river one mile wide with perfectly straight sides running exactly north and south. If the river is completely still and a swimmer crosses on a due east trajectory, the “water track” will be precisely one mile and the “ground track” will be identical to the water track. With a strong current flowing south, the swimmer will still swim one mile through the water by maintaining a 90 degree angle to the current. The difference is that the landing will happen farther south, making the ground track and water track diverge. If the swimmer completes a mile in thirty minutes, the crossing will take thirty minutes regardless of whether a current is flowing or not. If the current happened to flow the same speed south for fifteen minutes and then suddenly reverse and flow north at the opposite speed for fifteen minutes, the swimmer would wind up on the shore at the same place as if there were no current. In this case, the water track would be straight and the ground track would be convex or peaked.

Based on this trigonometry, pilot’s will generally try to “T the tide,” keeping the swimmer perpendicular to the current. This is not a simple matter of maintaining an east-west heading. Undersea ridges such as Le Colbart and The Varne will subtly alter the current direction. Also, depending on the time before or after high water, the current will shift as it fills or exits bays and rounds promontories. Mike Oram has posted a brilliant introductory exposition of the vagaries that shape a pilot’s decisions throughout the crossing in the Channel Swimmers Google group. He is especially lucid on the topic of tidal diamonds.

Wind is arguably the most important dynamic in a successful swim. It affects water movement and can make the surface rough and choppy. It takes some practice to maintain a smooth and powerful stroke when the water is bouncing around like a wash load set to “agitate.” Wind is also whimsical and capricious. As anyone who follows the local weather report knows, experts can often fail in their predictions.

Knowing these few details doesn’t alter the fundamental admonition to the aspiring channel crosser to “shut up and swim.” Even with the array of electronic navigation equipment available, it is the pilot’s instinct and experience that provide the reckoning to meld the myriad ingredients. Mr. Oram shrewdly suggests that the swimmer concentrate on being the engine that the pilot is steering to success.

Back on Track

2009-11-12T21:39:00.000-08:00

Thursday 11/12/09

If a successful English Channel crossing were an incredibly complex and sophisticated bank vault time lock, then several tumblers have clicked into place for me in the last week. Swim window set? Click. Pilot booked? Click. Registered with CSA? Click. Air travel booked? Click. Joined South End Club? Click. Stroke clinic? Click. Sample crossing food? Click. Just another hundred or so tumblers need to click into place and next autumn I’ll be standing on the western side of the English Channel in goggles, one standard swimming cap, and one standard swimming costume. The vault doors will swing open and the time will have arrived to shut up and swim.

Even with work-related travel interruptions, I’m managing to swim more each week than I have in ten years. I still worry about the gargantuan difference between a three mile swim and a twenty mile swim, but I’m betting that adhering to a disciplined training program will address that hurdle.

I profited from stroke instruction last week at the Golden Gateway Tennis and Swim Club. This counts as my fourth lesson since Moose Lodge fifty-two years ago. It was yet another humbling experience in what promises to be a staggering series of exercises in humility. The instructor has successfully swum the English Channel and she had incisive suggestions. It feels like my stroke is generating more power and leverage than before. It’s also making me sore in new places.

Swimming in open water that is influenced by large tidal swings, it’s pretty difficult to gauge improvements in speed. At some point, it’ll be helpful to develop an accurate determination of how fast I actually swim. That will be crucial information to allow my pilot to do the best job possible to guide me to a successful crossing. I’m sure that experienced pilots can judge a swimmer’s speed precisely within the first thousand meters. Having a reliable indicator ahead of time, though, might allow the pilot to take advantage of an alternative starting point or capitalize on great weather outside of a neap tide window.

My swim window is set for September 28 through October 9. We are scheduled to leave for England on September 21 and return October 6. As with so many of the choices presented in this quest, Lindsay and I discussed the options at length. Many of these discussions are critically assisted with the medicinal use of martini.

One of the considerations for this schedule was the availability of award travel. We have accumulated a pile of points and miles in various programs and this is an excellent way to defray the not inconsiderable expense of the expedition. Another consideration was the amount of time I could reasonably spare from work. The window falls at the end of a calendar quarter which already presents a quandary in the business world. A pivotal consideration was the time required to recover from jet lag.

I have easily flown over a million miles. This includes many flights across the Atlantic (usually by way of the Arctic). Many years ago, I even flew red eye flights as common occurrence. That was then. Now, I feel like hammered dog effluvium after a cross-country trip. With this schedule, I should be fully recovered and raring to go by the 28th. It was a little unnerving to book a return before the end of the swim window. In this matter, we’re relying on the charm of the 1-slot. If the gods laugh at our plans and I haven’t swum by October 5th, we’ll just have to adapt, adjust, and overcome. This is nominally an infantry incantation while I’ll be swimming, not marching–but the sentiment seems apt.

Nutrition Cornucopia

2009-11-10T18:35:00.000-08:00

Tuesday 11/10/09

I ran on the high school cross-country team in Midland, Texas in 1968. I was the fifth person on a four-man team. That was probably because there was no sixth person in the school interested in running cross-country. Nutrition consisted of a half-pound bottle of 500 mg salt tablets (assuming someone remembered to bring the bottle from the locker room to the track). Temperatures regularly reached the triple digits in Fahrenheit. Common wisdom dictated that with all the resultant sweat, our body salt could use some reinforcement. We also had some belief that water was a good idea, too. The coach propped a five gallon water jug on a football blocking sled. If the salt bottle was there, we had the complete hydration and electrolyte recovery system for anyone who felt the need. There was plenty of adolescent discussion regarding the performance-enhancement properties of salt tablets. Were three enough? Was one too many? A sports performance researcher might describe it as an early clinical study without a control group.

Like Rip van Winkle, it’s been forty years since I paid attention to evolutions in the sports nutrition field. Unlike the awakened Rip, I did have some clue that changes were taking place. In the 1970’s, playing hours of freestyle Frisbee in the brutally hot and humid summers in College Station, Texas, we gulped many jars of newly introduced Gatorade. When I swam from Sausalito to San Francisco with Pat M, we ate GU every thirty minutes chased with water. Since we misjudged our tide and wound up swimming three and a half hours to reach the opposite shore, we had plenty of time to get into a GU rhythm. On our English Channel relay, Cliff Bars kindly donated product for our crossing. However, nothing really prepared me for the state of the modern nutrition marketplace.

Lindsay and I visited the Sports Basement store in the Presidio on Saturday. They had set aside what was probably twelve hundred square feet for sports nutrition products. There were bars, chews, gels, and powders. There were multiple products in each category from vendors such as Crank Sports, Amino Vital, LaraBar, Pacific Health Laboratories, Sharkies, Hammer, Nuun-Active, Jelly Belly, and 18 Rabbits. And, of course, there were flavors—chocolate, vanilla bean, banana, strawberry, raspberry, espresso, mocha. I didn’t check closely for every choice, but there may have been a kumquat flavor as well. The only brands that were familiar were Cliff, Cytomax, Gu, and Carbo-Pro. Surprisingly, with this myriad of options, they didn’t carry Maxim. We discovered later that Maxim is marketed almost exclusively in Europe.

But wait! There’s more! With this many nutrition choices, it’s only logical that there should be myriad choices for delivery vehicle. There were a staggering number of water bottles from which to choose and these were the simple kind not counting the Fuel Belts, CamelBaks and handhelds. They had various lids, logos, and labels. Some had handy built-in rings to attach a line so that the bottle can be flung to the swimmer from the boat with confidence of retrieval. I was even able to determine how to open some of them. One thing they all had in common is that they were guaranteed to be TOTALLY FREE of BPA! I checked with WIKI later and discovered that Bisphenol A is abbreviated to BPA and is something a prudent person should well avoid.

We left with a small bucket of Carbo-Pro powder and a BPA-free, flip-top bottle. This choice was driven more by desperation than by discernment. I wanted to try a powder since gels tend to stick in my mouth and I knew that Si Bunting had used Carbo-Pro successfully. Lindsay also recommended alternating feedings with Ensure as a protein boost to complement the pure-carbohydrate product. Given the geriatric character of the aspirant, this is probably appropriate.

What About Sharks?

2009-11-06T09:11:00.000-08:00

Friday 11/6/09

Sharks do cruise in San Francisco Bay. A couple of times, in moments of stark irony, I’ve seen a sea lion slinging a three and a half foot leopard shark from side to side like a dog with a rag toy. They would flip the shark in the air, catch it back in their mouths, and continue to shake vigorously. Once, on a Gas House Cove swim, a fisherman at the Roundhouse on Muni Pier hauled a small shark directly over the head of the swimmer I was piloting. The shark disappeared quickly over the concrete railing and no one other than the fisherman and I (and the shark) saw what happened. There are at least eleven species of shark in the Bay, but none are hazardous to humans.

At least, that was the popular theory until recently. In the San Francisco Chronicle this week, Peter Fimrite reports on a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The study is purported to be the most detailed analysis to date of the great white sharks of North America. The researchers recorded multiple visits within the confines of the Bay. Apparently, due to migratory habits, these visits typically happen between August and December. According to Barbara Block, a professor of Marine Sciences at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station and co-author of the study, "What we see on our acoustic monitoring devices is that the sharks stay pretty close to pinnipeds.” Whoops!

Most swimmers don’t worry about sharks in the English Channel. The NYC Swim web site offers answers to frequently asked questions regarding a swim across the “ditch.” They emphatically state, “There are no self-respecting sharks in the English Channel. It’s too far north and too cold.” This sentiment is echoed on other sites. On the other hand, Philip Vas from the South-East Fisheries Center, Miami Laboratory, reports in the Environmental Biology of Fishes journal that the shark catch of 1978 in the western English Channel included 118 blue sharks from the fishery at Looe in Cornwall, UK. In fact, the website for Looe proudly proclaims the town is, “the headquarters for British shark fishing.”

According to Wiki, “blue sharks are considered dangerous and have attacked humans. While they are one of the 20 or so species of shark considered dangerous, they rate on the low end of that spectrum.” Wiki then drily remarks that a citation is needed. They do have a citation for the claim that, “As of 2008, there are only four records of blue shark related human fatalities.”

Sharks don’t rate high on my list of concerns. I’m much more concerned about jellyfish, weather, shipping traffic, training schedule, feeding regimen, and jet lag. If I can get these things right (and have luck with the jellyfish, weather and shipping traffic), I’ll take my chances with the sharks.

The Thrill is Gone

2009-11-04T16:03:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 11/4/09

It is another strong flood today and the critters are really out in force. Packs of four and five young sea lions roam through the water snout-to-snout like a gang of adolescent boys. Pelicans are more numerous than any of us can remember. A pack of sea lions enveloped a swimmer at the Goal Posts. They didn’t harass him, but they certainly gave him a start. Until the last couple of years, no one paid much attention to the Bay pinnipeds. After all, we’re the interlopers on their turf. For many years, the sea lions congregated at Pier 39 and cruised through Aquatic Park only infrequently. Now, there are an increasing number that seem to have made the cove their stomping ground. In the last couple of years, people have been bumped and even bitten from time to time. One woman required 14 stitches for multiple bites and a comprehensive antibiotic regimen. Other than a seal, hopefully playful, nudging my feet insistently ten years ago, I’ve been pretty much left alone and hope to keep it that way.

The temperature is dropping a little each day, now. It’s around 56 degrees and should be about 53 by Thanksgiving. I’ve been swimming two miles a day since Sunday with a day off on Monday. What a slog! The second mile seemed interminable and I had mild, stage-one hypothermia when I got out of the water. I’m definitely going to have to start pulling my swim hat down over my ears.

The initial buzz has worn off and fourteen or so hours of swimming is looking quite daunting. In the beginning, the sheer excitement of committing to the swim provided ample exhilaration. Then there was the drama of booking a pilot and procuring a slot and the warmth and encouragement of fellow Dolphins. Starting a blog and a web site for the first time contributed to the euphoria of new conquests with periodic adrenaline bursts. Now, the prospect of almost eleven months of training stretches before me like one of those endless, straight, desert roads we traveled on vacation in Nevada.

Katherine Briggs and Isabel Myers developed a psychological testing instrument known as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). It measures the behavior preferences of individuals along four dichotomies. One of the dichotomies is a person’s preference for “closure” or for “process.” A person who prefers closure is most comfortable when a decision is taken, when a milestone is achieved, when a journey is completed. A person who prefers process loves having options and keeping them open. This psychometric questionnaire is very popular in the business world. I’ve taken the test three times in the last fifteen years and, every time, the results have shown me to be decidedly closure-oriented. The whole Channel attempt is an opportunity for me to practice embracing process.

I saw Peter Perez in the sauna today. Peter’s training for a Channel attempt in August and he had a delightful helpful hint for embracing process. He said that while he is swimming, he is working on thinking, “there’s nowhere I’d rather be than right here.” Face down in the cool, clear, salty water; completely isolated from phone calls and worldly demands; this is the best place in the world.

Being closure-oriented, I know I’ll feel much better once I’ve made a training schedule. In the meantime, I’ll just keep swimming two and three miles most days, get a stroke consultation, and see about doing some interval training in the pool. This is starting to seem like quite a process.

Back from Las Vegas

2009-10-31T21:05:00.000-07:00

Friday 10/30/09

I returned from Las Vegas yesterday having swum zero strokes. The Mandalay Bay, where I stayed, boasts an eleven-acre beach and pool area, but it’s only open from 9a until 6p. It simply wasn’t possible to slip away from the conference and snatch a swim. A fifty mile-per-hour windstorm crashing down from Alaska shut down the swimming complex for two days anyway.

The worldwide recession is hitting Las Vegas hard. The cabbie who picked me up at the airport immediately asked if the terminal was busy. Not visiting Vegas that often, I couldn’t offer any real comparison other than to say, “It seemed pretty busy to me.” All of the taxi drivers were quite eager to discuss the local economy. “Unemployment is already 13.9% and, with City Center due for completion soon, another 10,000 construction workers will be coming off payroll.” "We had 500,000 fewer vistors than last month." "See that unfinished skyscraper over there? It’s was supposed to be the Fontainebleau casino. A guy blew through 2.9 billion dollars of his dad’s inheritance and went bankrupt when he couldn’t get a loan to finish it. Now they’re going to use it for international firefighting training.” “I was the banquet finance manager for MGM Grand for sixteen years. Now I’m driving this cab and feel lucky to have a job at all.”

I finally got back in the water at 7a on Friday morning. Apparently, the windstorm that hit Las Vegas came tearing through San Francisco earlier in the week and churned the waters. Today was another picture postcard day, though. I did a single large clockwise tour of all the permanent landmarks, my favorite route. It wasn’t a strenuous distance or pace, but my elbow began to express a sharp, intermittent pain. Yet again, I began wondering if the Channel was a realistic goal. I slept fitfully, wondering whether this was something debilitating or something to disregard. I’m planning to swim three miles tomorrow. That should give a good indication.

Saturday 10/31/09

Duke D is in the Staib Room of the Dolphin Club. He’s another English Channel swimmer and renowned for his monstrous training regimens. I asked him about the elbow pain and he immediately and sagely intoned, “bad stroke mechanics.” He suggested a coaching session and interval training. He’s not been the first to mention both.

At the beach, I met Suzie and Melissa K for a group swim. Suzie agreed that stroke mechanics were the probable culprit of the elbow pain and also suggested that someone take a look at my form in the pool. We made the familiar clockwise loop and I focused on finding a groove for my left arm that avoided the pain. After the loop, I continued to the Opening, the Flag, the Bad Becky, and the Clubs’ Beach. Not seeing anyone there to swim with, I went on to the Flag, the Opening, the Goal Posts and back.

I was a little spent, but concentrating on stroke kept the pain to a twinge. The dream is still alive! I’ll make an appointment to get my form analyzed.

Lindsay and I went to Rose Pistola for brunch. It is one of our three favorite places to eat in San Francisco other than home and it’s a short ride from the Club down Columbus Avenue to the heart of North Beach. It’s actually brunch and theater. We sit at the counter and watch the line cooks work their culinary sorcery. At one end of the line is a huge mesquite-fired grill where they flame savory octopus and hand-toast house-made bread. The crackling, blazing mesquite coals proffer a toasty welcome to chilled swimmers, especially in the winter. The chefs are continually chopping, slicing, or peeling something and it’s quite an education to have the opportunity to observe their technique closely. Persimmon, orange, radish, jalapeño, beets, as well as the perfectly minced onion, are among the delights that succumb to their master cutlery.

We started with a glass of Billecart-Salmon champagne and shared the bruschetta with grilled pear, crescenza, prosciutto, and truffle oil. Lindsay had the wild mushroom scramble with arugula & stracchino. I had the egg pizza from the wood-fired oven with wild mushrooms, pancetta, thyme, and truffle oil. The egg is served sunny-side up in the middle of the pizza and spreads over the hot center, cooking to perfection as it disperses. The best ham and eggs breakfast in the City! I think I'll put a couple in the food processor and use it as a Channel food instead of Maxim.

This meal will last us until dinner and the third game of the World Series. In the last eighteen years, the volume of Halloween urchins has dwindled from torrent to trickle. We will answer the door if an errant trick-or-treater cares to climb the stairs, but we won’t be mounting our annual costumed production and sitting on the front landing. Between brunch and World Series, though, I may need a nap.

Aquatic Park Geography

2009-10-28T17:46:00.000-07:00

Thursday 10/29/09

Like any geographic boundary that humans share, Aquatic Park Cove has named landmarks. (Clicking on the picture of Aquatic Park in the sidebar of this blog will link to a larger map). Of course, depending on the humans consulted, the names vary. In particular, a South Ender will give different names for buoys than will a Dolphin. Different Dolphins will give different names depending on when they joined the club and what time of day they swim. The main reason for having names at all is to allow two or more swimmers to quickly chart a course around the cove without pointing, squinting, confusion and repetition. Having shared names doesn’t necessarily cut down on the repetition, but it does quell the pointing, squinting and confusion.

One landmark that almost everyone knows by the same name is the Flag. It rests near the shoreline at the Van Ness end of Aquatic Park. The Flag is the artistic creation of Colin Gift. It has been in the cove for more than twenty years and, conveniently, has a swiveling fiberglass flag on top of a quadrilateral, fiberglass-coated piece of marine Styrofoam. The flag itself was once a vibrant red and yellow replica of the international maritime signal flag representing the letter “O” and indicates, in solitude, “Man Overboard”. This is the flag that both clubs use on pilot craft during an out-of-cove swim to warn ship traffic away from the swimmers in the water. The color has faded, but not the iconography of the buoy. When, as happens around every five years, the Flag breaks loose from its ground tackle, both clubs raise the hue and cry.

It is just a little less than four hundred yards from the clubs’ beach to the Flag. In the colder parts of the winter, some swimmers count this as a quarter mile. The more competitive and obsessive will insist that it is closer to a quarter mile from the Oprah to the Flag.

The Oprah is the buoy that keeps the bow of the sailing ship Thayer from banging into the Hyde Street Pier. The Oprah got its name from the eponymous talk-show host when she was filming a segment in San Francisco and pointed toward the buoy to make some theatrical point. Not many people call it the Oprah any more, but most of the people I swim with do and I like it that there’s a story and a short name for, “the buoy at the bow of the Thayer”.

Driving to the extreme north of Van Ness brings one to the San Francisco Municipal Pier which curves around and defines Aquatic Park. Only emergency vehicles drive on the pier now and it bears the trauma of age and ocean. Where the pier attaches to land at the foot of Van Ness, three creosote poles stick out of the water up to twelve feet depending on the tide. Because they resemble American football field goal posts, they are cleverly known as the Goal Posts. It is definitely more than a quarter mile from the Oprah to the Goal Posts.

The Muni Pier has been structurally reinforced a number of times. One of the larger repairs is easily spotted from the water about three quarters of the way around. My friends call this the Repair and, while it doesn’t currently have a buoy marking, it is still a common swimming destination. Because it doesn’t have a buoy, people of various swimming speeds can go to the Repair and arrive at the same time. For those that are afraid to swim close to the pier and the fishing and crabbing lines, the Repair is more of a notion than an exact spot.

Muni Pier ends in a bulbous plaza that we call the Roundhouse. It is possible to swim under the Roundhouse. There are broken, barnacle-encrusted pilings to negotiate at the perimeter, but it’s not terribly difficult. When it’s very dark and the water is clear, a swim stroke produces a sparkling luminescence that is beautiful and magical. The quality of light under the Roundhouse is also remarkable at dawn and dusk.

A cigarette buoy resides just beyond the confines of the Roundhouse. It sits between the Muni Pier and the Breakwater. In the 1980’s, a string of used tires provided scant protection for the cove. Storm surge and wakes from passing ships rolled freely into Aquatic Park making it a much wilder place to swim than it is today. With the construction of the concrete breakwater extending from Hyde Street Pier to Pier 41, our swimming hole experienced a major upgrade. The cigarette buoy marks the Opening. The Opening, like the Flag, is common terminology among all swimmers.

At the Hyde Street end of the Breakwater is a structure with concrete piers radiating from a circular capstone. When the current is flowing strongly in San Francisco Bay, this area is subject to incredibly forceful swirls of moving water. Owing to the water jet effect, many swimmers refer to this structure as the Jacuzzi. As it turns out, the capstone of the Jacuzzi is flat on top but has a pronounced recess underneath. When the highest tides bring sufficient water to seal off the outside of the capstone, 2 to 2 ½ feet of air remain trapped in the underside nook.

In order to enter this space and breathe the trapped air, the swimmer must dive beneath the surrounding capstone and surface in the center chamber. The radiating cement piers create a bit of an obstacle course so the prudent aqua-spelunker will feel around under the capstone for an opening before diving. Since this part of the structure is very rarely in contact with the ocean, it’s completely free of barnacles, starfish or other abrasive critters. The concrete is still quite hard, though, so a more experienced and chastened diver will advise a hands-first-not-head-first approach.

East of the Jacuzzi is a large red buoy to which the hay scow, the Alma, is moored. This buoy was a favorite target for one of the faster Dolphins, Becky F. When she was training for her Channel swim, she cruised around this landmark many times. Another Dolphin was concerned about the propriety of this and alerted the local authorities to the potential of an unauthorized “out-of-cove” swim. Since then, the National Park Service has installed a cigarette buoy slightly beyond the mooring buoy, clearly designating this as protected swimming area. Nevertheless, the buoy is today known as the Bad Becky. The origin of this name has faded into history and many people now wonder what it was that Becky did here that was so bad.

Moored at the north end of Hyde Street Pier is the Balclutha. It is a steel-hulled, three-masted sailing ship built in 1886 and had a starring role in the film “Mutiny on the Bounty.” At her stern is a mooring buoy called the Kebbe. Mr. Kebbe is one of two people to have swum 356 miles during a Polar Bear. This amounts to almost four miles every day for 90 days. When Peter Drino was crafting a series of fifty courses around the cove for a Polar Bear challenge event, he needed names for buoys that had none. He decided to honor Kebbe for his Polar Bear achievements.

The mooring buoy at the bow of the Balclutha has many names among Dolphins. Some people call it the S’more because its rusted white crust makes it look like the camper’s toasted marshmallow treat. Peter D called it the Luigi in honor of the Dolphin Club commodore. Lately, a number of people have begun calling it the Wenzel in honor of the second person to swim 356 miles during the Polar Bear. I’ve been going with the Wenzel lately as most people have forgotten Peter’s naming system and I don’t think Luigi will mind.

The next boat south from the Balclutha is the Eppleton Hall, a 1914 steam-powered, paddlewheel tugboat. It is moored end-on to Hyde Street Pier, so it’s possible to swim behind it. It’s not so easy to swim behind the Balclutha or the Thayer as they have numerous pipes and cables snaking through the water to the pier. Also, debris tends to collect in these back eddies, so it’s rare to venture there. Behind the Eppleton Hall, however, is relatively unencumbered and adds a modicum of distance to help round out a full mile around the cove.

Just south of the bow of the Eppleton Hall is a buoy mooring the stern of the Thayer. Peter D named this buoy the Moon in honor of a long-time Dolphin who devoted extraordinary hours to maintaining the club. Very few people remember this appellation and I’m trying to keep the commemoration alive.

That brings us back to the Oprah. All of these landmarks encompass about one mile. It takes a different amount of time to swim this course depending on the current. At the end of an ebb, there can be a “spin cycle” effect where the current is moving west at the shore and east at the Opening, helping a clockwise swimmer along. Other times, there is nothing but resistance the entire way.

There are other transient landmarks in the cove, but this describes the more permanent ones. Taken together, they populate one of the best swimming holes in the world.

Birthdays and birthday suits

2009-10-26T14:01:00.000-07:00

Sunday 10/25/09

The South Enders swam in this morning from Alcatraz in the nude. It is a custom at the South End Rowing Club to swim on your birthday in your birthday suit and about a dozen people of both genders honored the custom. The South End and Dolphin clubs share a large, partitioned building at the foot of Hyde Street and their respective piers create a semi-private beach from which both club members launch their cove swims. Given the shared quarters, the shared beach, and the shared aquatic inclinations, it’s easy to think that the clubs would be indistinguishable.

That thinking would be wrong. Most people agree that the South End membership is more freewheeling than the Dolphin membership. Swimming naked is one example. Dolphins are not inclined to do that. The South Enders also have a club-within-a-club known as the Sunrisers. The Sunrisers hike to nearby starting points around San Francisco, depending on the direction of the tide, and swim back to Aquatic Park at the crack of most dawns. Sometimes they wear swimsuits and sometimes they have pilots. The Dolphin Club requires strict adherence to a set of rules that govern a safe swim outside the confines of Aquatic Park Cove and absolutely forbids use of Club facilities after an activity of the Sunriser sort. It’s pretty funny how different the two clubs can be and still be the same. Like wildly different siblings in a close nuclear family, they are a curious mixture of intimacy and distance; compassion and competition.

Wearing a swimsuit, I started my Sunday swim. The weather was straight out of a tourist postcard for San Francisco--bright skies, clear water, and nearly glassy calm. It was a pretty strong ebb tide, so the critters were quiet as well. It should have been a great day for a swim.

For some reason, it was a big struggle instead. I went to the Bad Becky, the Flag, the Wenzel, the Goal Posts, the Opening, the Flag, the Kebbe, and in behind the Eppleton Hall and around the Oprah. It felt like I was swimming uphill for the last mile. It was probably the culmination of a strenuous business trip and trying to keep pace with Suzie the day before. At any rate, it was a little more than an hour of huffing and puffing.

The literature mentions a number of times that there is a “wall” for marathon swimmers at six hours. This is much like the runners “wall” at about twenty miles. Once an athlete has consumed the body’s stored glycogen, he starts burning fat for energy. This is reportedly a painful and fatiguing experience. I don’t know if that is what was happening for me, but the second mile was a real slog. I decided to pretend that this was what it might feel like in the Channel after several hours and gritted it out. The problem was that I hadn't been swimming for several hours in the Channel and I was still gritting it out. Oh well, put those thoughts aside and see how it goes. There’s still a lot of time before September.

I’m off to Las Vegas, so will be out of the water until Friday. This isn’t the way I had hoped to build a foundation.

Training resumes

2009-10-24T11:54:00.000-07:00

Saturday 10/24/09

The business trip was reasonably successful, but grueling. The flight to St. Louis was as good as air travel can be given today's realities. However, it started raining steadily on Thursday morning, delayed our flight that evening, and dealt us a downpour on arrival in Chicago Thursday night. The meeting in Chicago went well, but the surrounding political theatrics were emotionally fraught. By the time we got back to O'Hare, I was damp, muggy, and fried. Then came the ride home on Friday night.

I had choices. The flight on which I was confirmed was scheduled to arrive at SFO at 9:15p. The equipment was at the gate early. The gate agent said that the crew was already on-site and ready to go. Weather had delayed earlier flights, but air traffic control was saying this flight was good-to-go on schedule. What else could there be? I chose to skip waiting standby for the earlier flight to San Francisco that had been delayed. It was completely packed and I would have had to take a center seat to arrive only 30 minutes earlier. I stayed with my confirmed flight.

We boarded on time. We settled in. We waited. And waited. Eventually, the captain came on the PA system to announce that we were waiting for passengers to arrive from connecting flights that had been delayed by weather. Since this was the last flight to SF that night and many people were going on to international destinations, the decision was to wait. An hour and a half after scheduled departure time, the delayed folks had embarked and we were wheels up.

At this point, I was determined to make my 8a date with Suzie to do a longish swim Saturday morning. Not only has she completed the English Channel multiple times as a solo and a relay swimmer, she has an impressive resume of many marathon swims. By email, she is organizing a group to make an extended tour of The Parky. I don't want to miss out and figure I'll just nap on the plane.

As the metamorphosed Yiddish proverb states, "Man plans and the gods laugh". The woman directly behind me sinks into a state of catatonia while her husband fusses about her with escalating urgency. One of the flight attendants notices the commotion and remarks on the woman's "weak state". The call goes out for someone on-board who is an M.D. to provide assistance and half a dozen people cascade down the aisle of the aircraft. Several of them congregate at my aisle seat and press forward, all trying to render advice.

There happens to be an opthalmology conference in San Francisco and the plane is packed with people who know a great deal about eyes. The first opthalmologist on the scene is a perky woman who takes over the hands-on tasks of taking blood pressure and pulse. As more M.D.s arrive there starts a negotiation as to who is most qualified to be the primary care physician. "I'm an anesthesiologist, but I'm not licensed to practice in the U.S." "Well, anesthesiology trumps opthalmology, regardless of the license in this case."

Meanwhile, the perky opthalmologist has taken the 1-slot and is making the most of the window. By now, she has determined that the stricken woman's pulse is thready and the initial blood pressure reading is 90 over 60. After some consultation, the loosely constructed physician team determines that orange juice is ok and caffeine is not. A second blood pressure reading comes out 120 over 70. Seeking a second opinion, another opthalmologist checks again and concurs. 120 over 70 it is. At this point, consensus reigns that the woman is stabilized. The throng diminishes, but does not disperse. So much for a nap.

The captain has arranged for a paramedic team to meet the plane at the gate. Deplaning is delayed as the emergency medical technicians administer to the patient, put her in a wheelchair, and remove her from the plane. Thirty minutes later, I pass by the paramedics as they are advising the woman and her husband that catching the connecting plane for Taipei in her condition is inadvisable given that it is a fourteen hour flight and the Taipei authorities are quite qualmish regarding medical matters.

I was in bed by midnight.

I did manage to make it to the Aquatic Park beach at the appointed time. Suzie was there along with another swimmer and we decided to swim a mile and a half. We charted the first part of our course as Opening, Flag, Oprah. From there, we swam to the Goalposts, Bad Becky and back to the Oprah. Suzie went in to prepare for another mile and a half swim. I went on to the Kebbe, Flag, and in. That was about an hour and ten minutes for me. Certainly over two miles--probably not quite two and a half. It felt great! I was glad to have been able to put the business and travel turmoil aside and just swim. It seemed like more practice for the "shut up and swim" requirements of the Channel.

Jon Ennis was coming down the stairs as I headed for the showers. I asked him what he ate in the Channel. He said he took GU and Maxim. Later on, he advised against foods with electrolytes such as Cytomax. This coincided with the admonition by Mike Read in his wonderful article, "Nutrition: Don't Swallow the Seawater". Mike's basic point is that the inadvertent swallowing of salt water on the crossing provides all the necessary electrolytes and then some. Jon's most emphatic advice was to try not to get sick as "that will slow you down".

Jon was yet another successful Channel swimmer to offer encouragement and assistance. My most galvanic response occurred when he commented that simply deciding to swim the Channel "expands your whole world". That struck home.

Peter Perez was in the shower. He's has a 2-slot with Allison Streeter in August. We compared notes and agreed to coordinate some of our training efforts. As we talked about our ambitions, I experienced another burst of ebullience in connecting with a kindred soul. This undertaking has indeed expanded my world already.

Prologue

2009-10-20T16:38:00.000-07:00

Friday 9/18/09

Lindsay Casablanca, my wife, and I are having our kitchen countertop replaced and the sink is disconnected. Lindsay is a great cook and we rarely eat out, so we decide to take advantage of the situation and go to Foreign Cinema, a terrific San Francisco restaurant cooking in the California style with a touch of middle-eastern influence and spice. We are celebrating and start with a glass of Billecart-Salmon brut rosé, a rare treat for us. Perhaps this contributed to the flights of fancy that followed.

By coincidence it’s the twelfth anniversary of our English Channel swim as members of a relay team. In a relay crossing, six people take turns swimming one hour apiece until they either give up or reach France. Lindsay was an alternate swimmer in case of a dropout and didn’t get to swim, but she filmed the event and contributed tirelessly to the logistics and coordination.

The Channel relay was a memorable event for both of us and, as the evening wore on, it took on almost mythical proportions. In the ensuing frivolity, Lindsay proposed again that I tackle a solo crossing. For the first time, I didn’t automatically reject the notion. We talked frankly about the year-long obsession required to train for a successful swim. As long-time members of the San Francisco Dolphin Swimming Club, we both knew close to twenty people who had completed the event and we were exceptionally aware of how staggering the commitment was.

For whatever reason—age, circumstances, or possibly champagne—I agreed to seriously consider the possibility. I had been swimming one mile in the San Francisco bay four or five times a week to prepare for the coming New Year’s Day Alcatraz swim. I decided to increase my weekly mileage significantly and try to wrap my mind around a heretofore unimaginable potential.

Friday 10/2/09

Lindsay and I talked about the Channel again tonight during cocktail hour. I had done another one and a half mile swim that morning and was really starting to consider the idea of a solo swim. She once again provided encouragement for the project and offered to take the lead in organizing the swim. She told me about a friend of hers who, upon learning what we were contemplating said, “Why in the world would he want to do that?” Lindsay told her about the epic nature of the English Channel as the pinnacle of open water swimming. She told her friend that she would absolutely attempt it herself if she felt she was fast enough. In fact, Lindsay had started taking swim lessons when we got back from the Channel relay in 1998 in order to try and build the requisite speed. I thought about how I would reply to her friend and decided that I would probably cleave to the trope of “building memories.”

At any rate, we agreed that it was already late to be booking a pilot for the coming year. We also agreed that the amount of economic and work flexibility I currently enjoyed was not destined to last. And, of course, there was the ticking biological clock. Between the giddiness of sharing a wildly exhilarating project and the fear of having the opportunity pass us by, we committed to the attempt and toasted our endeavor.

Saturday 10/3/09

By sheer coincidence, we threw a party at our home Saturday night. We had planned to have a party a year earlier to celebrate the installation of about four tons of Arizona river rock in our back yard. We had replaced a side fence and the subsequent destruction of plants and vegetation had left the back yard looking like a brand-new suburban tract development—just a stark wooden fence and a few forlorn survivors. With two fifty-five pound hunting dogs eager to do “puppy wheelies” in the bare dirt, we despaired of having any new planting that could weather the canine onslaught. Placing the thirty to sixty-pound rocks throughout the garden and leaving space for plants, we were able to guard against the thundering horde.

When we originally scheduled the party for 2008, we planned to invite all the Dolphins we could. Unfortunately, we picked a day that coincided with a big Dolphin swim event (maybe Golden Gate) and so we had to cancel. We just happened to reschedule for the day after our momentous Channel decision and that was incredibly serendipitous.

Sixty or seventy Dolphins attended the party and they were heartwarmingly supportive. This was the perfect antidote to the “what have I done” reverberation as the scale of the task began sinking in the following day. Many, many people offered pilot help, swim help, and information on their own successful crossings. The sense of community was as invigorating as a warm, enveloping hug. Someone said a few days later that the Dolphin club and San Francisco Bay are almost tailor-made to train for a solo English Channel swim. This is in part due to the environmental factors. In equal measure, it’s due to the emotional and logistical support of so many people.

Monday, 10/5/09

I spent a few sleepless moments thinking about a course around the cove for the morning, but the key idea in my brain was an early start. I was in the water around 6:30a and started the route designed between dreams the night before. Oprah, Goal Posts, Bad Becky, Flag, Opening, Oprah, Goal Posts, Opening, In. {Dark start, calm, clear water, early sunrise, lighted cruise ship, no critters that I saw, unbelievable morning} It took a little over an hour in a full moon-charged flood tide. I felt good. It was the second stage early crowd and there was no channel talk in the sauna, but we did solve a couple of the world's problems.

At the party, Laura Z told us that an important contributor to a successful crossing was procuring a "1-slot". Huh? Laura patiently explained that for each neap-tide crossing window, a pilot will book as many as five potential attempts. The first in line occupies the 1-slot. The first time that conditions are suitable during the window, off goes the 1-slot holder. For the 5-slot holder, it can mean days and days of waiting in the gastronomically-challenged environs of Dover while the earlier swimmers seize the favorable conditions. It is possible for people to miss swimming at all if a fourth (or even second) set of favorable conditions fails to materialize during their neap-tide window. On top of this, the 1-slot holder has much greater potential to swim early and then enjoy some vaction time in Merry Olde England. Laura added ominously that we had "waited awfully late to book" but should at least try for a 3-slot.

Lindsay started the search for pilots yesterday. She sent out emails to all the pilots she could find on the CSA and CS&PF websites. She started getting email replies this morning and the initial reports were a little dismal. “You’ve waited a long time to schedule”. “We only have a 5-slot in July or a 4-slot in September”. Lindsay came upstairs to my office to let me know the status. I was disappointed, but I did have thoughts of getting off the hook at an early date.

Later that morning, Lindsay called Reg Brickell. He and his wife had recently changed their internet provider and her emails had not gone through. Reg had come extremely highly recommended by Suzie D and Laura. When Reg’s wife answered the phone, she said that he was sitting at dinner. It was 7pm in England. Lindsay offered profuse apologies, but it turned out that the Brickells were as sweet and good-natured as their admirers had portrayed. Of course, Reg was booked solidly through the season.

At this point, Lindsay had determined from her research that there was a neap tide at the end of September 2010 that wasn’t on the 2009 pilot lists. She asked if they were booked for 9/28 and Reg said, “I hadn’t thought of that. Let me check.” Once he realized there was another slot available at the end of the season, he let us have the 1-slot for that date. Since the tide calendars for then had not been released yet, he said he’d have to get back to us with the exact window. GAME ON!

Tuesday, 10/06/09

No swimming today. The major excuse was an 8a business conference call. From a training point of view, I’ve been swimming increasing distances from 1 mile to 2 miles every day for the last month. I’m getting a little tired. Also, Laura Z just offered some incredibly hard-earned Channel swimming advice last night and that included, “days off can be good!”

So, I lifted weights instead and found myself wanting to be in the water. The “zoning out” that the longer distances produce is becoming a little bit both obsessive and alluring. The business meeting was unsatisfactory and my “swim now!” gene started kicking in. Resisting that urge, I’m looking forward to a nice long “post taper” swim tomorrow. The plan is three miles.

Wednesday, 10/7/09

I did the three miles and probably a little more. Twice around the cove clockwise, including the Bad Becky makes a healthy two. Then from the Oprah to the Goal Posts to the Bad Becky to the Flag and in is probably more than one. I was in the water about an hour and a half. I got in just after sunrise and the weather was glorious once again. The water was very calm and both the sky and sea were clear. It was a little strange watching the sun move from the horizon near Coit Tower and climb in the south. I thought about how it might be in the English Channel, moving through a complete arc before I finished. Once again, this is a sobering thought.

Ralph Wenzel very kindly volunteered to swim with me. He’s much faster than I, but I’d love to have his company. He proposed next Monday morning, but we’ll be on vacation, so he gave me his email address and we agreed to try and do it some other time.

We’re packing up the RV to go through the deserts in Nevada to southeastern Utah. There won’t be much water there. I will get a chance to swim in Lake Tahoe on the way back. Then, I’ll be travelling for business for the two weeks after we get back.

I’m nervous about being out of the water that long. When we get back, I’m sure I’ll have to start wearing a swim hat. It was already below 60 degrees this morning and I was a little hypothermic climbing the stairs to the shower and sauna. The morning crowd is starting to chirp about the coming plunge in temperature. I’m thinking that getting in two or three miles each day through the winter will lay a good foundation for starting longer swims in March.

Until I talk some more with Laura and Suzie and the others, my tentative plan is do a progression of longer swims starting in March: Two hours in March, three hours in April, four hours in May, six hours in June, eight hours in July, and ten hours in August.

Thursday, 10/8/09

The sky was overcast this morning, so the cove was pretty dark just before sunrise. The water temperature is continuing its slow, but inexorable decline into the high 50’s. I swam two big loops around Aquatic Park, including the Bad Becky. I will have to get some light sticks for the dark mornings. This will make it easier to avoid other swimmers and rowing craft, especially the racing shells that go zipping through the swimming zone.

I finally saw critters on this swim. A pelican made its spectacular splash dive nearby and a sea lion breached completely out of the water (probably chasing a fish) about 10 yards from me when I was out at the repair. A rower was practicing in one of the wooden boats about another 10 yards on the other side of the breaching sea lion. Both the rower and I were pretty amazed. The sea lion never bothered me, but I was happy to have the coincidence of the presence of the Whitehall in case I needed protection. In the end, it was just another “shut up and swim” moment.

Si Bunting and John Ottersberg were in the sauna this morning shortly after I finished my swim. What a delightful circumstance! Margaret K had told John on Tuesday that I was making the Channel attempt. Both John and Si have successfully swum the English Channel and were very supportive, encouraging and, of course, wildly informative. The first order of business was the training schedule. I told them my idea of 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and they both nodded sagely and blessed the notion as good and proper.

Si offered what was a bit of a revelation for me when he said that he had swum the Trans Tahoe race as a solo for one of his longer swims. I had done the Trans Tahoe as a relay a couple of times, but had completely dismissed the idea of an 11.5 mile swim as a solo effort. Well, shazam! That’s barely a six hour swim for me, probably less. Si noted that training for the Channel gives you a whole different perspective on what constitutes a reasonable distance.

He and John told me about the course they took around the Bay for their 10 hour preparatory swim. Of course, they rattled it off and I forgot the particulars, but I’m sure they made mention of Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito, Angel Island, Oakland, and the Bay Bridge. They also recommended training in the pool to build speed. Si said that Candace K tortured him in the pool on a regular basis and that he thought it was very helpful for the cause.

We talked about food. Si used CarboPro after the manufacturer for his first choice went out of business. John used Maxim. The solo swimmer from Croatia making the crossing at the same time as John used chocolate all the way. Si’s team threw his food and water to him at the end of a line. John’s team used a pole. They both said that the training swims were the time to find out what worked best for each individual.

Si is naturally a bilateral breather and proclaimed that an important factor in his successful crossing. John said he had to work at it to develop the skill and that he thought it might have made the difference between reaching France or not. He agreed with me that it’s an awkward skill to develop, but suggested that I would have plenty of time to work on it. He expressed confidence that I could put this tool in my bag.

Lindsay and I leave tomorrow for our vacation in the desert, so there will probably be no entries until the 18th when we get to Lake Tahoe. I’m getting a little addicted to these longer distances and will certainly miss it. I’m also a bit nervous about coming back and having the water temperature in the low to mid 50’s. Still, I feel pretty good about having laid the beginning of a foundation and it’s impossible to express how vital the support from everyone has been.

Monday, 10/19/09

We got back from Utah and Nevada yesterday. We were blown away! We had been to Monument Valley, but had no idea how extensive and varied the landscape became as it stretched from there to south and central Utah. We visited parks and monuments including Cedar Breaks, Kodachrome, Bryce Canyon, Natural Bridges, Petrified Forest, Capitol Reef, Arches, Dead Horse, Great Basin, Cave Lake, and the ever popular Ichthyosaur State Park.

We had swims that amounted to little more than dips in the 40 degree water at Panguitch and Cave Lakes. I brought a couple of ten-pound weights for shoulder exercises and hiking at the 7,000 feet elevations provided aerobic exercise. At Arches, the signs were confusingly marked and an apparent two-mile hike turned into almost eight miles of climbing and scrambling that came within hailing distance of technical. This offered a chance to imagine the seemingly endless swim as the French shore starts to be snatched away by a relentless tide.

I had to start work early to catch up from the vacation, so swimming must wait until Tuesday.

Tuesday, 10/20/09

This is the first day back in the water since vacation. Keith W says the water is probably down to 56 degrees, so I wear a hat for the first time since July. It’s my old, old water polo hat that I got shortly after I joined the Dolphin Club when it was the veritable standard. I know from experience that it’ll have to go into retirement for the coming training because it starts to chafe after a couple of miles. Lindsay has agreed to get me a few modern swim hats to try out. The Channel Swimming Association allows for “goggles, one swim cap, and one swim costume.” I’ll need to find a swim hat that is comfortable for hours on end and, surprisingly enough, all swim hats are not made alike. I’m happy with my goggles for now, but want to make sure that I’m not part way across the Channel with a debilitating, equipment-induced migraine.

It’s just before sunrise and the critters are out in force. Even in the dark, it’s easy to see tens of pelicans dive-bombing the bay and the violent surface disturbance from the many sea lions. They’re all over the Cove, but tend to concentrate in the middle and out by the Balclutha on strong flood tides, so I decide to swim mostly in the western part of Aquatic Park. I start my normal clockwise trip to Flag, Goalposts, and Opening. Then I return to the flag, back to the opening, back to the flag and back to the club by a somewhat circuitous route.

When I’m out near the Repair, I feel what seems like a rogue wave jostling me around. Glancing up, I see a roiling effervescence directly ahead and swim through something akin to a tide race. I peek to my left and the person fishing on the pier seems stoically entranced, but that’s not unusual. I figure that a large sea lion must have breached while chasing a fish a few feet in front of me. I keep swimming and no creature pesters me further. I’m reminded of when Suzanne Heim-Bowen was intentionally t-boned by a sea lion while she was swimming a leg of the relay from Sacramento to Aquatic Park. She said she wasn’t scared—just pissed that something was interfering with her mission. Suzanne is a multiple time English Channel crosser and her attitude strikes me as a good attitude for swimming the English Channel and I try to employ it as an object lesson.