Went back up to Vermont to pick up our daughter, who was working there for the summer. We’re in “move mode,” meaning, we’re not long for New England. So I had to get some more lake swims in. Which I did!
That was Friday, my second day in that reservoir (Westbury Center Reservoir).
And this was the first day up there.
I had forgotten my Garmin on this trip to Vermont, and didn’t want to miss out on mapping a lake swim. This Runkeeper app is really nice, it actually has a swimming function. I was concerned if I just pressed Start, it would know that I couldn’t be running in a lake and wouldn’t record. Nope, swimming function to the rescue.
The interesting part is the app talks to you. At one point on Thursday I heard someone speaking to me. I stopped and looked around, assuming a paddle-boarder was near me. Nope, it was the app telling me how slow I was.
I’ve since used it also on a hike with the dog, and I really like it. I can certainly recommend it. Oh, and yes, I started it, then sealed my safety buoy, and the app still recorded everything. I think I’ll retire the 10+ year old Garmin.
Sorry ’bout that. I have been swimming. Some open water, too. Been enjoying it. Swam in the North East Kingdom, too!
My first foray into open water this year, and 64F was cold! Pleasure Bay, just to feel the water.
Did two more Pleasure Bay swims, too. To include a swim where I found myself in the middle of a dozen of jellyfish. Turns out, after the fact, they were “simply Lion’s Mane” jellyfish. That was supposed to make me feel better. Told to me by a man in full wetsuit. I didn’t trust him.
End of May I was in DC, and swam the opening night of WaveOne’s summer swim nights. WaveOne, run by marathon swimmer extraordinaire Denis Crean, holds OW swims Tue/Thur nights and Sun mornings in National Harbor, MD. 27 May was the opening night, and I got to swim!
Did 11 laps in the hour-plus, making that roughly 3200 meters. So. Much. Fun.
Went up to Vermont to drop our daughter off at her summer job, and got a swim in at lake Memphramagog. Home to the NEKOWSA Kingdom Swims every year.
Did a couple swim at Revere Beach. No jellies! I’ve missed swimming in open water.
Soon, the crazy-length pool near work, Mirabella, will open, and I’ll be able to swim before work. Can’t wait!
Did a half-mile or so today to get re-acclimatized to cold (and salt) water.
The water near the beach was 64F-ish. Then I started to swim toward the bridge. Oy! Tide was coming in and it was cold. Pool thermometer read 60F, and was heading down.
Been since November the last time I’ve been in open water, and salt water at that. 30 minutes was long enough. Will try again in a week or so. Who knows, maybe the water will be in the mid-60s by then?!
Tried my hand at a dip in the ocean today. Revere Beach was practically empty. The water was also very cold. 50F when I first walked in. Brrr…
I managed to get a bit deeper, waist-high, and the water was 48F. Way too cold. Two years ago I did 31 minutes in 51F at Winthrop. No way I could do that now. My seven months in Africa, and three open water swims there in 80+ water, sure didn’t help me keep my adaptation to cold(er) water!
That wave coming in? Straight punch to the cockles. Oy!
Apparently you can get faster by going slower. Never knew that.
During my entire time in Africa, I swam pretty much LSD. Every once in a while I’d “push” it a bit, but rarely. Didn’t really do anything fast except when I was doing those timed swims.
Before I deployed, whenever I did USRPT, my 100 repeats would be 1:38 on 2:00 interval. And I could do 12 or so before failing one. Most of my 100s were 1:35-1:36. And I’d fail completely by 18 or so.
Since getting back I’ve been doing USRPT once a week. Same pool as before I left. But now, my repeats are 1:24-1:28. I even did some on 1:50. But mostly on 2:00. But really, I get back to the wall and wonder Who is swimming here? Cutting 8-11 seconds per 100?
The only answer is consistency. I swam 5-6 times a week in Africa. And here so far I’ve managed 4-5 times a week, and at least 2000 to 2500 yards per 40-min reservation.
I swam 151 miles in Africa, more than most 6-month periods in my life. That has to be the reason my 100 times have gone down. All I know is, I’m happy, and will continue to try and get that 100 down even further.
Been a while, but I’ve been home since 28 Feb and have been enjoying being with family.
And I’ve managed to get swimming in! I’m still ahead of my goal for the year, by about 10 miles. Despite being limited to 40 min reservations and having to literally set an alarm on my phone every day for 0949 so that when reservations open at 0950 for two days hence’s 0750 shared lap lane…you get the picture.
I’m also doing up my sked for 2021 and I think I’ve got a couple set in stone. We’ll see and I’ll keep you, dear reader(s), up to date with what I’m doing.
And to all my friends in Djibouti, I miss you and hope your deployment/employment flies quickly!
Thought I forgot, dear reader(s)? No! Here’s the promised apres-swim post.
Immediately upon exiting, I’ve written about that already. After getting back to my room and scarffing down that ice cream, I went to the “grab-n-go” and got some hot dogs and cheese and PB and chips. I think I already spoke about this.
Then I slept. Well (for once).
I woke up and tried to sit up in bed. Holy Jehoshaphat, my abs! I guess the 1400 flip-turns (+/- 10 for the stops) I did the day prior really took their toll on my transabdominis. Shoulders? Nope. Back? Nope. Abs? Oh yes, pain!
Work followed, as it always does here. (Fun fact, till my swim on 23 Jan, I hadn’t taken a day off of work since 1 September.) I have a standing desk, but didn’t stand long. The entire abs area was painful.
People not in the know about marathon swimming were really impressed with my swim. They thought, and I believe still think, that I was being cocky or dismissive when I told them it really was like lying down for a long time. They also don’t believe that all I really wanted was a day to swim without being kicked out of the pool because my reservation was over. I didn’t want to be bugged!
But seriously, a swim like this does take some conditioning, but with the expected caveat of exiting the pool for Nature’s call, 10 hours isn’t really that much work. Every time I got out of the pool was a break. Non-crazy swimmers don’t understand how comforting it is to be vertical, and feel gravity, after hours of horizontal and sorta-weightlessness. It was so nice to exit the pool and feel the Earth’s pull.
I started doing ~90 minutes before getting out to pee (and sometimes eat). As the day went on I got out closer to every hour. Or at least stopped to get water while staying in. But this wasn’t anything like a 10-hour marathon swim. I tried to explain to folks how different it is when you’re treading water while eating, not touching anything that can give support. That’s a rough 10 hours.
But what I did was a mental test. 700 laps in a tinier-than-normal pool is taxing. I had to come up with other things to think about. Besides counting laps. I thought of stories I’d like to write. I thought of my daughter and her search for a college. At the end, it really was tough to do those last 20 laps.
The second day, Monday, I awoke with painful shoulders. “Ah! That makes sense,” I thought. Abs didn’t hurt anymore, but I most certainly could feel the swim when I raised my arms.
By Tuesday, muscle pain was gone. But I didn’t feel very good. Funky. Almost like I wanted to vomit. I had intended on going back to the pool that morning, but thought this was body telling me to take one more rest day. So I did.
And Wednesday felt great. Did a mile in the pool. Same on Thursday. Did two miles on Saturday and a mile and a half on Sunday.
And that’s been it ever since. Swimming-wise. Pool’s been closed for annual maintenance ever since. And then last night I saw this.
Water in the pool!
I was so excited. So of course this morning I had to go by again.
Almost full!
Getting there! Finally, this evening:
Full!
The MWR Director emailed me today and told me to get ready to be able to make reservations in the coming days. I am 9.5 miles away from 150 miles swum here in Africa. And I leave in two weeks. I can do it!
Oh, and what did I learn from the 10-hour pool swim? Never again!
The day of the 10-hour swim came. I woke early from a fitful sleep, like most nights here. I ran into work for about an hour, then I wanted to just get started.
The original intent was to do a 12-hour swim. I learned early that the pool was only open 10 hours on Saturdays and Sundays. Found out that if I wanted to do 12 hours, I’d have to pay for 3 lifeguards for 2 hours. Nah. 10 hours is enough.
A week before the swim, some Navy guys here on base realized they never reserved the pool for a special annual event. They requested it for 0800-1000. The MWR Director was quite upset that they thought they could just roll in last minute. She thankfully told them: the pool’s already reserved from 0900-1900, but I’ll ask the other party and see if they’d be willing to give you an hour.
Even better, the Director offered to keep the pool open till 2000 so I could still get 10 hours in. I relented, but told these sailors that my crew and I had to get in at 0945 to set up.
Come Saturday morning, and sure enough, they were gone and we had the pool. I set about getting ready. Towel on a chair, backpack with treats in the lifeguard office, along with a Igloo cooler. Angela from work brought ice. I had everything set. One last bathroom break. Somehow, all the above took 15 minutes. Shower’d off and jumped in the pool at 1000 and started.
First mile flew by; I found out later it was in the 28-min range. Not so bad, but that’s from the excitement. I put my head down and swam 3400m to make it a nice and round 5K before I got out for a bathroom break.
(c) MC2 Colin Sens
Let’s talk about that. This is a pool, so of course I’m not gonna pee in it. That’s gross. It would also be quite obvious to swim for 10 hours and never get out. So get out I did, sandals on, quick pee, quicker shower, “You got me?”, got a nod, then more swimming.
The time really did go quickly. My first fear was my muscles. On Tuesday prior to the swim, I was intent on a mile, part of my tapering. I was maybe 4-5 laps in when I felt a horrible pull from the middle of my neck through my traps to my right lats. It hurt so bad to breath right. Switched to left only, and it didn’t feel much better. Slowed down and did 20 laps (half mile), but got out. Didn’t swim anymore between then and Saturday.
Like most of my long swims, I took some meds before starting, to “get ahead”of muscle ache. Three or so hours in I finally remembered this neck pull. Nothing. Then I stopped thinking about it, and just swam.
For quite some time. Still had to get out for pee breaks, but also for food. No food is allowed by patrons of the pool, anywhere. But due to my swim, MWR allowed me to eat. As long as I did it in the lifeguard office. I ate bites of calories on almost all pee breaks from about the 4th or 5th hour on. I was getting hungry, but didn’t feel like I had hit the wall.
There was a time, somewhere between 1700-1800, where I was starting to feel it. Jay, my crew chief, mentioned that he hadn’t seen me, up to that point, out of breath. And sure enough, I was breathing heavily while eating and drinking. I don’t think the mile or so I’d just finished was particularly fast. But looking back after, there was almost three hours in there somewhere that I had hit zone 5 with my HR.
After 1800, I was ready for it to be done. I’d stop after every mile, get something to drink, then head down and swim. Slowly. Never ending.
At some point at or just after 1930, Jay said, “Ok, 20 minutes left. I’ll need 40 laps to make it an even 18 miles.” I laughed at him, then pushed off the wall.
That last 20 laps took me however many minutes were left till 1958-ish. I did backstroke down, free back. Again, very slowly. But 20 laps (half mile), because I couldn’t handle finishing and having to tell people I swam 17.34 miles or whatever.*
Distance and the time of day when I hit the distance.
At the end of those 20 laps, I looked at the clock, and it was close enough to 2000, I called it. Somewhere I found enough energy to climb out and fist bump every single person who came out and were still there. The Friends of Africa Volunteers wanted a picture immediately, but I was in my grape smugglers, so I quickly put some trunks over and a shirt on and got photos.
The wonderful FAV folks
Then my wonderful crew packed my stuff up and drove me to my room. Even more awesome was the chocolate/peanut butter ice cream they got me. The first thing I did in my room was gulp down that wonderfulness. Shower followed, then a trip to the grab-and-go for some hot dogs, cheese, bag of chips and more PB. I took more meds before bed, then slept pretty well.
Till the next morning when I found my six pack. But more on that later.
*Irony is, 40 laps in the pool, advertised everywhere here as a mile, is actually 0.99 of a mile. Multiply 700 laps by 40 meters and you actually get 17.398 miles.
Yesterday morning as I went on a walk (that’s what I’m stuck with now instead of swimming), I stopped by the pool to take a gander.
Progress?
The lane lines are just about scraped off. What was surprising, though, was who was doing the scraping: Yep, the lifeguards!
I was astounded. My buddy Upul told me that contractors do come to do all the work, but if they left it up to them, “it would be a month we’re closed.” Thankfully, Upul and two other lifeguards, at least, were there Wednesday morning at 0700-ish, mad at work.
Looks so weird w/o water
Evening came, and Djibouti is still fairly pleasant. Another walk was in my future. Of course, had to run back by. Imagine my surprise when but 12 hours later, the pool looked like this:
Them there’s new lane lines!
So much in one day! I have no idea what else is involved in this annual Navy-mandated pool maintenance, but this has got to be a good sign, no?
In between those two walks I had called the MWR reservations line to see if I could get pool times. Nope, not taking any lane reservations just yet. A quick email to Jill the MWR Director revealed that they’re waiting till they have an end in sight.
But with the last picture above, could the end be far? Fingers crossed I’ll be swimming again soon.
A 10-hour pool swim doesn’t just happen. Especially not in the age of the Wuhan Red Death. Certainly not on a Navy base. In Africa. Most assuredly not. No, a 10-hour pool swim takes a bit of organization.
I dreamed up this craziness after several months of swimming here at Camp Lemonnier. When I arrived back in August, you were allowed to sign up for up to three 30-minutes sessions a week. That’s it. And God help you if you didn’t get out of your lane at the end of your 30 minutes!
No, not that bad. But there were issues.
For one, on my second or third day swimming, we were all kicked out of the pool at the 20 minute mark. “Why?” I asked. “Swim for 20. Break for 10.” Uh, what? Thankfully, in the lane next to me was the base’s Director of Public Works. He told me he’d take care of it.
Two days later I was back, and my soon-to-be good friend Upul, the pool manager, was there. I expressed frustration at the 20 min in/10 min out thing, and he assured me that’s how MWR (Morale, Welfare & Recreation for my non-military reader(s)) planned the COVID pool rules. I insisted that all the advertisements stated “30 minute reservations.” Thankfully, Upul looked in his binder of knowledge and, “You are right sir. It says right here to call this number for 30-minute reservation. Thank you for clearing this for me.”
For some time after that, everyone got kicked out at 30 minutes. At some point I asked the lifeguard kicking me out if there was someone waiting for my lane. “No, sir, no one has come yet.” I told him I’d keep swimming but to kick me out if 3 people showed up.
That normally got me another 30 minutes or so. Before long, this became the norm, and I would end up swimming till I had to leave so I could make it to work. My average rose to 40-45 minutes/2200-2400 meters.
About two months ago or so I started trying to swim longer on weekends. I still work on weekends, but can get away with an hour or more in the pool on those days than on weekdays.
That’s when frustration began. I’d arrange work so I could spend a good 90-120 minutes in the pool, and that would be the day all 3 people who signed up for the next shift actually showed up. I began bringing my Kindle to the pool so that if I got kicked out I could at least to do reading before I jumped back in. But it was annoying. You have to understand, dear reader(s), that up to this point I was kicked out of the pool at the 30-min mark maybe twice. Normally people signed up to swim but then didn’t show up.
But no, on weekends, people tended to show up if they signed up to swim, more so than on weekdays. And that’s annoying if you’re planning a good 5-6km swim. Not that I have anything to complain about. Seriously, this is my seventh deployment but the first one I’ve ever been able to swim at. Plus, the pool is for everyone. Better that people are swimming than not. Don’t want the pool to get closed for un-use.
This did get me thinking though. Is there a way to rent a lane? Or some way to guarantee I don’t get kicked out one day so I could do a really long pool swim, like maybe 10km or something like that? Hmmm….
Then I remembered I read about people doing 12- and 24-hour pool swims. Idea time! Maybe if I try to reserve a lane for a charity, they’ll let me just swim. Honestly, I just want a lane in which I don’t get stopped.
But charity is important. I knew without asking that I’d have to raise money or something to get the base commander to sign off on this.
My first thought was to raise money for service aid societies. Each service has one, and they help cover service members who all of a sudden have a family emergency and can’t afford travel or lodging or whatever is needed to deal with their tragedy.
But soon I found that even this has its issues. I spoke with the senior enlisted leader of the command. He nodded and was impressed with what I was proposing (at that time, a 12-hour pool swim), but recommended I talk to legal. In other words, the JAG.
In a short meeting, I learned of all the ethical issues with raising money on a military base. I thought maybe my swim plan was doomed to fail until a young Air Force lawyer explained to me about Non-Federal Entities. In layman’s terms, these are organizations pre-approved to accept support (donations, money) from a federal entity, like a military base. And here on Camp we have Friends of Africa Volunteers (FAV).
FAV is established on base. The volunteers hold events where people can donate clean and usable clothing and new toiletries for donation to local Djiboutian families. These guys, while working umpteen hours deployed, spend their precious free time (normally just one day off a week for a year deployment) volunteering to support this great charity. They are rock stars.
The wonderful FAV folks
And they were my way to my swim. I contacted them, explained my crazy idea, suggested we combine a donation event with my swim (“Come see the crazy guy swim forever and donate clothing”) and they were game.
But not so fast, Iron Mike. Gotta get legal review and permission. I drafted a plan, to include my mission, background on my swimming and health, dates, plans, etc. The swim transmogrified to a 10-hour swim, due to weekend hours (0900-1900, otherwise I’d have to pay 3 lifeguards for two hours of work). I wrote a wonderful letter and submitted to the Navy lawyers at HQ in Italy, initially asking them to please review my memorandum, to see if I had all my T’s crossed and I’s dotted.
A couple weeks went by when all of a sudden I got an email from the Chief paralegal congratulated me. Apparently the memo was good: she submitted it to Camp commander who approved it. I hadn’t even signed it yet! I hadn’t even talked to the MWR Director yet to ask her if I could have a lane for an entire day!
That was the next meeting. I felt bad that I hadn’t talked to her yet. I explained my need to get legal approval first, and my surprise that it had already been approved by the Skipper. She wasn’t fazed. She was impressed I’d even want to do such a crazy thing. One problem: MWR already had a pool event planned for 30 January. Would I be willing to move my event to 23 January?
You see, dear reader(s), my initial thought was to have this event right before I left here, mid-February. When I discussed this plan with Upul, he broke it to me that the pool would be closed for two weeks starting 1 Feb. Apparently, Navy regs require a big cleaning, scraping, etc, every year for Navy pools.
I didn’t want to lose any fitness, so I moved my desired swim to end of January. So, bottom line: I’ll take 23 Jan.
Next step was getting volunteers to count laps. I was aided in this by my good friend Jay, who took the job of Volunteer Wrangler in hand. I never even had to worry. He had the lap counting covered. The FAV folks took care of the donation tables. MWR limited us to no more than 2 volunteers at the table and 2 at the lanes, but when it came down to the day, more showed up. (They all followed social distancing rules; no one wanted to ruin the event.)
All that remained was swimming the event, which is what I’ll post about tomorrow (or the next day, who knows for sure).
