6 Hour Swim….. DONE!

Yesterday was a beautiful day for a swim… well… it was a bit windy, and there was a good amount of chop the whole way.

We had a great turnout of swimmers, kayakers and land based support to share it with. The word is out that we are having a blast in the Hudson every weekend and people are traveling from afar to be a part of it. In attendance were Danielle, Mike and Richard providing kayak escort; Rondi, Bec, John, Willie, Terry, Jordan, Jim and I swimming; and Andy providing land based support in the way of transportation and preparation of a wonderful birthday feast…. happy birthday to Rondi!

We started to assemble at Andy’s house in Chelsea at 8 AM… gear and feeds spread all over the lawn… introductions made… reunions and catching up took up nearly an hour… whats the hurry, the river isn’t going anywhere. We loaded up 3 cars and drove to the starting point. Kayaks unloaded last minute grease and sunscreen applied, we had to come up with a game plan.

We had a brief meeting. Identified which of us would be needing feeds… what, how and how often; assigned swimmer groups to kayakers; and decided to swim a circuit, north and south, and shoot for the same finish area for everyone… a bit north of the hamlet of Chelsea.

I had calculated my feeds to provide 285 calories in 27 oz. per hour. To accomplish this, I prepared a concentrated mix of fruit punch flavored EFS (1st endurance) and would have hot water added to it just before feed time… every 20 minutes. After the first feed, it became clear that this method was cumbersome for Mike… removing the spray skirt… hands off the paddle… unscrewing the cap on the giant stanley thermos and trying to get the near boiling water into my feed bottle without it landing on his crotch in the windy choppy river. For MIMS, my feeds will be prepped on my power escort, then handed off to Mike or Danielle to pass to me, so this wasn’t really an attempt to duplicate that feeding procedure, but after the first feed, I decided to change the plan to every 30 minutes rather than every 20 minutes. This gave Mike a little respite between feeds but reduced my caloric intake by 1/3.

The first group of John, Bec, Rondi and Willie were out of the water and drying/warming by the time we came to the exit beach the first time. I said my goodbyes to Terry and Jordan and started swimming south with my escort Mike to intercept Jim and Danielle. We would continue this criss-crossing, north/south pattern for the next 4 hours. Its comforting to know there is another swimmer in the water.

Jim Meier is booked for the same tide as me for English Channel this season… Aug 28 – Sept 6, so we both wanted to get this swim under our belts earlier rather than later. Jim did a 6 hour last weekend in South Jersey… but the water temp wound up being too high for the qualification swim, 63 degrees.

As I approached the finish area for the last time, I saw a bunch of people standing on this rock ledge (about 8-10 feet tall) on the south side of the “beach”. Clare and another Danielle had joined the party…. a welcome site!

I had some trouble finding my balance on the rocky bottom and though normally a drip-dry kind of guy, I graciously accepted the large towel handed to me.

Mike and Danielle, you guys rocked today! We couldn’t have done it without you.

6 hour English Channel qualifier

As per CS&PF rules:

All swimmers taking part in a solo swim must supply proof/ratification of a 6 hour swim in water 61°F / 16°C or less or proof of completion in a recognised event for a period considered by the CS&PF to be an acceptable alternative within the previous 30 months.

In truth, I have a few months to satisfy this requirement, but I would like to check this one off early (and often). It is possible that the water temps for MIMS on June 12th will qualify, it is also possible that Catalina (July 20) will qualify, but there are no guarantees. Last year, the boat I was on for MIMS took readings from 57 degrees at the Battery to 66 degrees in the Hudson near mid-town.

Willie, Rondi and I swam in the Hudson last saturday, and we took a reading of 60 degrees at the finish (near Chelsea) which was a few degrees warmer than where we started south of Beacon.

This week has brought some pretty cold weather for this time of year… (yes, the tomato plants are in the house) so I don’t expect the water to be any warmer this weekend. It might even be a few degrees colder.

I think we are going to have a half dozen swimmers and half as many kayakers hitting the Hudson this saturday morn. Most will do a 4 mile swim from this great pier at Long Dock Road in Beacon to this slight beach just north of Chelsea. My plans are to continue north another 11 miles and land somewhere between the railroad bridge in Poughkeepsie and Marist College in Hyde Park. I’m not sure that I will have swimming company the whole way, so we may have to fined another exit point in between. I have to go scout out landing spots where we could easily exit the river by foot and drive close enough to load up the kayaks without to much of a hike. I’m sure that I will be completely useless by then and will need lots of hot bevies to return to my normal happy self. I will shoot for a 20 minute feed interval, and will have a couple of thermoses and dry clothes packed in the yaks as well.

We will need to have some support crew on standby to retrieve swimmers where they exit. It will be important to have a dry bag with clothing and a cell phone for each swimmer past the 4 mile point……. it takes a village!

The Mighty Hudson

Its been very exciting to hear of hoards of swimmers hitting the open water this past week from Dover to Chicago and points beyond. In many areas, the temperatures are squeaking above 50 degrees, and the swimming is rather short. My first “local” OW swim of the season was last saturday in the Hudson River a couple of miles north of Beacon….. just north of a little town called Chelsea. We (Rondi, Willie and I) crossed the Metro North tracks and entered the river at a small rocky beach where there were a couple of men fishing. We swam north for 30 minutes, turned around, and swam back to our entry point. The trip back took 30 minutes as well but the pace was faster as we were now against a bit of current…. the Hudson flows both ways. The water temp was between 56 and 60, with few spots of the latter and many more of the former.

Yesterday, we decided to do a one way swim, and shoot for 2 hours. We recruited a couple of kayakers (Danielle and Mike) to escort our group of 4… same cast as last week with Terry joining us. We started at a small north facing cove at Denning Point which is about 5 miles south of our enty/exit point of last week and exit point for this swim as well. Terry and Willie started first and Danielle paddled alongside them while Rondi and I did our final prep and hit the water a couple of minutes later. This was my first swim with Mike and Danielle. They will be my Kayak escorts for MIMS so I was excited about getting some H2O time alongside them. The water temp was about the same as last week, but the air temp was approaching 80 and the sun was shinning which made it comfortable for me, but I think Rondi was catching a chill. Our two groups merged a little bit north of the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge and then split up again…. Willie and I changing places.

Both Mike and Danielle were excellent escorts giving us a larger presence among the recreational boat traffic, and they carried our clothes and hot drinks in the boats so they were handy at our exit. Rondi and Willie finished about 5 minutes before Terry and me and we were just a couple of minutes under the 2 hour goal.

The water this far north is fresh and there were very few twigs drifting since the weather was mostly clear last week.

We started the swim around 10:30, 40 minutes after low tide which means we were swimming with an increasingly favorable current. Sometime in the next 2-3 weeks I would like to do a bridge to bridge swim (Mid-Hudson to Newburgh-Beacon). This is about 13.5 miles. I think we could swim it in 4 – 4.5 hours if we get the tides right, though we will need a power boat to get to the start and scoop us up at the finish.

I’ve got a little planning to do!

Tampa Bay Marathon Swim Recap

The day was perfect… sunny with periods of overcast; a welcome relief from the otherwise “tanning index” of >10. Water temperature; between 68 and 72 degrees, though I was hoping forecasts from earlier in the week would prove correct and the water would be closer to the mid 60’s.

I slept well Friday night but woke up rather early for the 7AM start… around 3AM. I tried to get myself sorted out without waking Clare from her slumber, as I would need her to be awake enough to handle my (what turned out to be) 32 feedings.

The Feed Program

With the guidance of Steve Munatones, I constructed a fabulous telescoping feed stick with two (one black and one white) double swiveling cup holders. I searched far and wide to find some wide mouth stainless steel, flip top containers that would hold about 12 oz each and fit nicely into said b&w cup holders… but to no avail. I had to settle for Rubbermaid plastic substitutes. Though these containers have slightly raised graduations depicting volume, I marked them off with blue electrical tape at 4 oz and white electrical tape at 9 oz. Each container holds 20 oz so having them less than half-full keeps the weight at the bottom and reduces the chance of having them tip out. I am embarrassed to say that I left my glorious feed stick in the back of my Yaris at JFK International Airport and so Clare had to resort to the old string and caribiner standby to get the feeds to yours truly. For each feed (40 minutes from the starting bell and then every 20 minutes) Clare would toss me 2 bottles tethered together… one containing my nutritional concoction and the other containing good old H2O so that I could pick and choose whichever combination my body required at that moment.

Race Day Nutrition

While back in NY, I filled all my bottles with the various powdered mixes that the days efforts would require. They included:
Pre-Race – 3 scoops of Hammer Nutrition Sustained Energy, 1 scoop of 1st Endurance Pre-Race, 4 1st Endurance Optigen Capsules, 3 1st Endurance Multi-Vitimin Tissue Rejuvenator capsules. This was mixed with 16 oz of water and consumed 2.5 hours before starting time. I drank another 12 oz of water 30 minutes to the start.

Swim Mix and Schedule

I did a long (30,000yds) pool swim in February, in part to experiment with caloric intake during a sustained effort. The results were mixed, but I did learn that having the option between high calorie and just plain water for each feed would give me the opportunity to fine tune things. I am happy to say that I successfully employed this during my TB swim:

My feed consisted of about 285 calories/hour… this was achieved with 3 scoops of 1st Endurance lemon-lime EFS in 27 oz water broken into 20 minute servings of 1 scoop in 9oz water. At each feed, Clare would toss me two bottles; one containing “the mix” (marked with blue electrical tape) and the other containing water. For most of my feeds, I drank the mix only, but when elimination seemed to take more effort, I took some water as well. Two feeds (around 7 and 8 hours) I took water only.

At hours 4, 6, and 8, I also took 1 Hammer Tissue Rejuvenator (but no NSAIDS). Three feeds were also supplemented with special treats… 2x rice pudding; mashed up and liquid to render it drinkable and 1x cinnamon brown sugar oatmeal given the same treatment. I also had 3 feeds where “the mix” was replaced by gels… 2x Hammer Gel Huckelberry and 1x 1st Endurance EFS vanilla.

Post Swim

2 scoops of 1st Endurance Optigen in 12 oz…. the most delicious thing I ever tasted in my whole life and 4 Hammer Tissue Rejuvenator capsules…

…and a Sierra Nevada draught Pale Ale.

Equipment

2 generous full-body applications of SPF 30 Banana Boat Sport.
A slathering of my very own special “channel grease” mix (consisting of 3oz anhydrous lanolin, 3oz vasaline, and 1.5oz zinc oxide),
liberally applied to any and all areas that might be subject to chaffing from the very abrasive nature of salt water including… groin, butt crack, arm pits, neck, shoulders and jaw line… every single hotel towel employed to remove the excess from my hands.

Black Finis polyester brief… size 32.

Blue 70 Vision goggles with amber lenses…. These fit perfectly and didn’t require a single adjustment the entire 10hr 49mn swim, though I must confess; I did trim my eyelashes to keep them from brushing against the lenses.
Speedo earplugs.

White silicon Total Immersion swim cap.

……. Nothing to add….. all performed well; zero wardrobe malfunctions.

Oh yeah…. THE SWIM!

I am not sure why this swim isn’t more enthusiastically attended.
-It is well organized. Ron Collins and company put on a serious event in a casual environment. All this year’s solo male entrants have EC bookings for the 2010 season and consider TB to be a good measure of training (yes… I know there are many differences between TB and the EC)

  • The male and female course records are held by world class swimmers, Chris Derks and Penny Palfrey. I would think that this would attract lots of big guns to see how they might measure up.
  • Entry is easy… no lottery, no need to book years in advance.
  • Relays can a fun way to break into marathon swimming; not sure if you want to swim the whole 24 miles? Grab a relay partner or 2 and swim as much as you want. Last year I swam +/- 18 of the 24 miles (my relay partner, Patty was generous enough to grant me the lion’s share).
  • There are worse places to be than St. Pete in April. Most of the watering holes up north just aren’t warm enough to get more than a quick dip in… so get your “brine fix” here!

I started the swim at a pace that I thought I could sustain for 10 hours… stroke rate in the mid 60’s, and by my third feed, the field was spreading out. I didn’t express any kind of “race plan” to Clare, and our communication was limited regarding the other swimmers. At about 5 hours, I looked forward, didn’t see any boats, inquired: where is everybody?…. you’re out in front. (cool) I never saw another boat until near the second bridge… I asked: Whose boat is that? Clare replied, “don’t worry about it, its a relay team”. The wind picked up and there was a pretty good chop now so I settled into a slower stroke rate of 60SPM… no reason to get sloppy now with just a couple of miles to go. As I walked up to the beach I was surprised to see Craig Lenning sitting there already… I wonder when he passed me? It would have been a welcome diversion to have someone to swim with after 7, 8, 9 hours alone out there. Perhaps we will have the opportunity during MIMS on June 12!

10hrs 49 mins