10Kmarathonswim

Marathon imminent

Haven't posted for a while, sorry dear reader(s).  I've been very busy with trips to the Russian Far East and the U.S., as well as much work here in town.  That has limited my swimming time, unfortunately, but I'm just calling it a long taper. 

The Dart 10K is next Saturday.  My first marathon swim.  I am treating it like I think most first-time running marathoners treat their first, as an experience, a chance to see what it is all about.  NOT as a race.  NOT as a test of my training.  I will simply aim for finishing.

Of course, I can't just say that.  I have to choose a time, a goal time, a point at which I hope to already be imbibing something warm.  And that time is 3:40. 

Both of the 5Ks I've done so far I felt like I could have kept swimming.  Both were swum in 1:47-1:48.  I should probably give myself another two hours after that to complete the second 5K, but I'll stick to my goal. 

There will be two feeding stations, one at 4K and the other at 8K.  I plan on definitely taking something to drink.  Something with salt in it.  Not sure I'm going to eat.  I'd heard that they'll have pancakes and sausages at the feeding stations.  Not sure if that is British humour (haha) or if they really will have flapjacks.  We'll see.  Not sure I can eat at that point.

 

Magic rip-fix for my July issue of H2Open Magazine

I was the victim of postal rage recently.  My July issue of H2Open magazine arrived in my mailbox with a bit of an injury.

But I have come across this before.  I bought a cool liquid called "Rip-Fix" which will take care of my magazine problem right quick.  You have to be careful, because once you affix the glue, the pages are back to normal.  So if you misalign the pages, you'll have fun reading the articles!

So here is what the magazine looks like now after I fixed it.

Isn't that nice?  You can't even see the tears.  I can read it now!

OK, so readers who also subscribe to the magazine know what I did.  And that is the point of this post.  One of the many reasons I love this magazine, besides the wonderful content, is that every subscriber also gets access to the online version.  It is very easy to read, you can zoom in to any article, and the pictures are just as bright and brilliant as in the magazine. 

So, and I swear they're not paying me for this, GO SUBSCRIBE! 

3 Seas in 3 Days

Alert readers will have noticed in my race schedule a new entry.  In November, there will be an open water swim in Israel (!!!) that is, well, unique.

The Three Days in Three Seas swim consists of three 10K swims in three different seas: the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, and the Sea of Gallilee.  Imagine!  How incredible will that be to swim in those seas?

The event is not a race, per se.  Instead, the groups are divided based upon usual 1K open water swim time:  15-, 18-, and 24-minute averages.  The groups will each get a support boat and two kayakers and will break every 50 minutes for hydration.

I've asked for time off from work for this.  If approved, I will raise money for a charity, most probably for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.  They raise money to provide college scholarships for the children of fallen special ops folks.  I lost two colleagues whose kids are now beneficiaries of this program. 

Not much time for swimming

Since 21 July I've traveled over 18,000 miles.  The swimming was good for the first few weeks, with my two swims in North Carolina.  But I just got back from a week in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Russia.  Lovely scenery, but not good for swimming.

  Interestingly, the flight east from Moscow took longer than the one back to the states!

While out in PK, our hosts took us out on a boat for a fishing trip.  Fun was had by all, and I desperately wanted to jump into the water (Pacific Ocean, baby!), even brought my suit.  But I think the Russians would have worried about me too much.  And they would have freaked if I just jumped in without clearing it with them first.  PK also had no indoor pools, which are prolific in Moscow.  Damn!

Another half marathon done

Swam USA Swimming's Southern Zone championship 5K today in Pinehurst, NC.  Unlike Cyprus (faithful readers will remember my excellent finish in Limassol), I was not the only adult in the race.  In fact, there were two of us!  Yes, two of us in the "over-19" class.

The other guy, David, I met while waiting to walk over the sensor mats.  I found out his number so I could be on the look-out, so was glad to find him.  We commiserated.  Despite only 8 people being signed up for the race on the website, there were approximately 100 of us racing the 5K.  As it was a zone championship, oodles of 13-18's from as far away as Florida competed.  David and I used our age and guile to out-smart the youth of the South.  We set ourselves up toward the back of the pack.  

And the horn went off...and pandemonium ensued.  Those kids were off, and the evil in me hoped that half of them would get tuckered out enough that I could pass them and NOT be last in a 5K (again).  I followed some kids for a while, relying on at least a couple of them being better navigators than I am.  Soon I was on my own, at least for the first lap.

The course was 5 x one kilometer laps.  The course was triangular, isosceles specifically, with the "top" at the beach, which is where we started.  The "base" of the triangle ran parallel to the shore, making the "second" leg of each loop very long.  

My navigation, as is typical of me, sucked.  But, it only sucked the first couple laps.  At least once on each of these first two I switched to breast stroke to try and get a good look.  But starting on the third lap, I finally got sight of some landmarks that I could use instead of trying to see the tiny red buoys.  On the first and second legs, I noticed definitive breaks in the tree line, to which I could aim and get relatively close to the buoy.  On the third "going home" leg, the only thing I could sight on were two lights on the beach, which were a little to the left of the buoy.  Additionally, starting on lap 3 and to the end, I began counting my strokes.  Generally I would stroke 10, look, repeat.  If I found that I was getting off target every 10, I would cut it back to every 8.  

I got run over, yes, run over, by the kids twice.  The 3K was run 10 minutes after our start, so I had the speedy 5K kids and the speedy 3K kids to deal with.  And those kids don't care how slow you're going or where you're going.  It was good fun.  Those kids were speedy and good swimmers.  

As I've done in every OW swim I've done to date yet, I forgot to start my stop watch.  I set it up to beep every 20 minutes (my goal for each 1K), but never started it.  I'm not quite sure what my time was, but I think I did not get under my goal of 1:40:00.  I think I was closer to 1:45.  But I really felt like my 4th and 5th laps were really fast.  I wasn't last, I know that much.  I think one or two of the youngins came in after me.  David, the other "over-19" (who is actually 41), who just did an Ironman in Idaho (in 57 degree water!) last month, finished in 1:21.  He had his GPS on him and it came up exactly 5 kilometers.  So that guy swims straight!

So, two OW swims in a period of 8 days.  Much fun was had by me.  And I think my navigation got better.  Now, if I could just find a place to swim OW weekly, I might just get better at this damn hobby!