Cold - Taking the Leap of Faith

Not too long along ago (30 years give or take) I remember being chased around the pool deck as a youngster by my coach Bryan Rathke at Goshen High School telling me to get in swimming pool for practice. I thought it was cold, in the 70's! We would run around the deck avoiding him and avoiding jumping in the water until our minds were so distracted we finally took 'The leap of Faith'. Of course the reaction was overblown, filled with screams, shortness of breath and lots of camaraderie building chest pounding but in the end we survived.

Like the 'Little Train that could' fast forward many years, I find myself comfortable in water most consider unbearable. Now my coach Marcia Cleveland has replaced Bryan Rathke but deep down inside I reflect on the annual ritual of the 'first dunk' in the lake the same way. Only now its a bit more subdued  introspective and quite. 

This really has nothing to do with being tough (depending on your perspective), but everything to do with training ones mind and body to let go and accept the condition. Anyone can do this, if you stay focused and take 'One Stroke At a Time'.

This week my training partner, Doug McConnell and I officially opened the outdoor training season at our favorite 'pool' Lake Zurich. Friday we hoped in and the water was below 60f, while swimming around the perimeter of the lake (about 2.5 miles), it took us about an hour. We stopped a few times to confer with each other that we are alive and not having trouble with the cold, turning hypothermic. Of course if we were not sure what we would or could do about this since were now on the other side of the lake. Getting out and walking back in a speedo in 53f air is probably worse. So we keep going, stroke after stroke.

Listening to your Body Part Two, Swimming and Neck Nerve Impingements

Listening to your body - Part Two

Continuing my aggressive efforts to learn, resolve and work through my recent set back, I have discovered what I already suspected. An old neck injury from an auto accident 25 years ago coupled with age and the tremendous pounding my body is taking on repetitive arm movements daily in training result in nerve irritation. We are now focused on managing this nerve irritation and the resulting sub-councious favoring of certain stroke techniques to compensate for this that may be leading to things like my recent pulled muscle.

Whether you are young or old, experienced or new at this sport of open water swimming, listening to you body and responding properly is very important in training or races. 

All too many times today we see ourselves (i.e. our ego as my coach likes to remind me), coaches, parents and kids push (our) themselves knowingly into physically and mentally stressing the body to point of injury all in the name of achievement. Pushing to test ones endurance is part of the effort, training and planning however this sometimes this results in injury. Dealing with the injury is just one part of the issue. Getting back to health and learning why it happened and hopefully to prevent a repeat is what I (we) are really after. We learn from our mistakes.

In my case, here is a little bit about what I am learning from looking deeper into what is happening to my body and why perhaps I had this set back. 

In this case, it was one of my own doing (step one, take full responsibility for your own actions). I needed to do a long training swim, well actually I will be doing many in the coming months, but this time it was the Tampa Bay (24 miler) to gear up for the English Channel later this summer. This was all about testing the body, mind and nutrition. 

I have for some time known that an old auto injury created damage to my upper spine area (C-4,5,6,7) and I had simply learned to live with the dull pain most of the time and move my neck around to relieve this pain as needed so just like many of you.

As a follow up to my intercostal muscle (strain, pull, slight tear) I had a Neck MRI read as many times nerve damage, inflammations and impingement's I am learning can present themselves as muscle weakness and your body response with favoring certain muscle groups, sometimes, sub-consciously to you while exercising.

Taking up swimming again several years ago helped as it strengthened neck and upper back muscles. As I progressed in my training over the past two years it also became obvious that balancing muscles front to back and left and left to right for proper body alignment and positioning when swimming these many long hours was critical. I continue to work on this every day in the water. I do not have the best above water recovery arm technique, never had, so its been a constant effort in my train.

After having my arm injury evaluated we looked deeper and made the likely connection to the neck nerves radiating out into my shoulders and arms. For Doc's you'll see this and know right away. For me it took my newly found Ortho Pod. neck specialist (Dr. Brebach here in Barrington) one glance and "whoops there it is" came right out. 

In my layman terms, the long light grey vertical tube running in the middle of the neck inside the white area is the spinal column nerves or cord, etc. Due to my accident, I have curvature of the neck to begin with plus the vertebra are close to and create a very narrow space or touching the vertical spine nerves / cord). Normally this is not a big problem but when you add in thousands and thousands of arm cycles and turning the neck to breath it slowly irritates nerves that go out to muscles in the shoulders, arms, etc. As you get more tired, your form naturally suffers and bingo...an injury like what happened to me at Tampa Bay.

Good news is I am on the mend, intense PT, supervised medication to reduce swelling and nerve irritation are helping plus a well deserved 5 days without being in the water seem to be the right medicine. 

I have been back in the water now since last week slowly progressing mileage up to about half of where I should be. Sunday I swam in Morse Reservoir in Carmel, IN where the water was 59-61f. This cold water felt wonderful on my body since the cold (like an ice pack you use) works to subdue the inflammation. I swam a nice 5k lap around the lake (2.4) miles in a comfortable hour or so and was very pleased with how I felt.

This morning still in Indianapolis, i stopped the local YMCA for my morning swim hoping to continue to build on my apparent good feelings. About 3000 yards into the workout it became clear that the 84-86f water (very warm) was not my friend like the cold water. The under arm 'rubbing / like strumming a guitar' sensation in the intercostals along my ribs under the Pecs and Scapula was irritated. I listened to my body and changed strokes swimming a relaxed cool down and stopped. I added some Advil's later and took a cold shower.

Its pretty clear in the absence of working through the muscle / nerve injury the colder the better for me is the plan. So I have decided to embrace my inner 'polar bear' and really focus on training in the cold water.

This will help me later as the English Channel's biggest challenge is the cold, period!

This is a good example of turning one challenge into what I plan (hope) will be a success.

EC Qualifying Swim Experience

'Behind every success, there are multitude of failures, false starts, unplanned circumstances, unexpected situations and unsuccessful attempts'

Doc would be proud of the form, Elbows Up!

I 'retired' from my swim at 4 hours and 45 minutes yesterday short of the 6 hour minimum objective for this trial effort. Good news is I fought the good fight in pretty cold conditions and mentally had more than enough in the tank to keep going. Today I believe a combination of factors treated me to a lesson. On the bright side, I have plenty of time to "punch my ticket" as Doug likes to say. next time I will be relaxed and even more confident.

When I began this journey it was with the intent to share publicly just that, my personal journey, to cross the English Channel. My intent to share openly (despite the council of some very accomplished coaches and fellow swimmers) the successes, failures, challenges and lessons learned along the way both physically and mentally is not without its caution. A point well taken, however I am not deterred in revealing these sides of this wonderful sport in the hopes that through my experience a few might take a dip, take a chance and explore there own dreams wherever they lead.

As mentioned before, my effort ended at 4 hours and 45 minutes. The combined water temp and air temp early that morning started at around 56f-ish water and 45f-ish air.  Ultimately this proved too big a hill to overcome combined with what I believe was an equally important nutrition/feeding challenge of not being able to consume enough calories and electrolytes per hour necessary to fuel the huge energy requirement of my body to both stay warm and swim. I'll explain a bit the overall physiological impacts and others feel free to add in replies.

The up side is my conditioning was not in question nor my mental state. Not sure which came first but not being able to pee early perhaps due to feeling full or simply the cold shutting down my muscle usage in "that area" what ever the reason, just wasn't happening easily. Anyway feeling dreadfully full made me not want to consume additional feeds easily after the first hour or so. This is probably the underlying reason for cramping in my legs and then the onset of shivering much later that followed and I will describe as the day progressed. My high carbo feed source is made up from (maxim 100 mg/hour (4 scoops) rate) with protein (25 mg/hour rate) and Gatorade pro electrolytes powder (two scoops equal to one 8 12 oz. standard bottle by volume). I take in 8-10 ounces of this mixture every 30 minutes. I had previously used this mix ratio successfully in my Boston Light House Race where I ran the 8 plus miles in 3 hours, partially tide assisted. Thus, I do not believe the nutrition itself was a problem. I believe the inability to feed fully created a calorie deficit and it's a slippery slope going forward to make this up whiling expending these huge amounts of energy. One addition to my feeding scheduling new was drinking warm tea in tandem during my feed stops. In retrospect this probably took up valuable stomach space displacing very important calories and the desire to drink other foods. This is an important lesson, in the future warming my carbohydrate mix kills two birds with one stone, getting food plus warmth. I really do not believe the cramping was related to anything other than depletion of food sources and electrolytes in my body. My god I have swum almost 600 miles this year alone preparing for what lies ahead?



It was not easy stopping. But in the end I knew it was the smart and safe thing to do. Swimming back out and having things get worse was not something for myself nor my wonderful crew of volunteers to wrestle with in deep water. Hauling my big ass into a canoe, as Red correctly pointed out earlier in the day during or safety talk was not a task for the faint of heart!

I typically swim around 2-2.5 miles per hour so give or take 10 miles for 4:45 time is probably fair. But the experience swimming for such a long period of time in that cold of water is priceless and I consider a huge success. In retrospect, I feel the combined water/air temperature experience has made me a much stronger athlete. Learning to listen to my safety crew, would perhaps have made a difference starting later? The experience with feedings while seemingly a small thing turned out to be huge thing. Stopping completely for feedings does not work for me. It was a necessary failure to learn now as this marathon swimming is more than just the English Channel for me…yes I am hooked

To my safety crew and volunteers. I cannot thank you enough. You give me hope, encouragement, counsel and kept me safe doing something that probably most folks consider nuts anyhow. But this is what I do, these are the people I like who do this. Am I addicted to open water swimming, you bet, there is nothing like bobbing in the middle of a lake watching the sun rise with not another living sole around (except for who is swimming with you or crewing near by). Bill and Red, thank you very much for supporting me, what a wonderful surprise. The rest of the McConnell clan thank you for kayaking and feed stops, next time I will eat a bit more. Eric and Lex as fellow triathletes and swimmers I hope you enjoyed this experience and your kayaking workout, I'll swim with you two anytime. Lindo, thanks again for the wonderful access to Lake Zurich and your hospitality. Being awarded an official hat certainly was a nice touch. Marcia the coaching is what got me to this point and its been a great experience, I have learned so much and appreciate your time and effort. Lots more to come. Laura, Marita and everyone else thanks for the warm wishes. Doug what you said to me on the pier privately meant the world and Jennifer thanks for supporting my crazy dreams.

I am already thinking of where I can go a get another one in, anybody care to join?

Oh, one more thing. I read recently that my former teammate from Goshen Craig Kercher got in some good distance swims in the recent indoor 5 and 10k swim, congrats. Lake Travis would be a fun one to do together?

Qualifying for the English Channel - So how does one go about this?

"If you set your goals ridiculously high and fail, you will failed above everyone else's success"...

Catching Up on the Past Few Weeks:


Its been a couple weeks since I posted anything and until this past week the mileage has been about half of the normal but I am back in full swing now logging 25k yards per week and will soon be scaling up to 30 plus. Boston was a great swim but taking a bit of break was well deserved.

Met with my coach, Marcia Cleveland and co-heart training buddy Doug McConnell this week to layout the next years training plan. Looks like once we complete the 6 plus hour cold water qualifying swim in the next few weeks (60f or below water temp is required?) we'll be back to normal training until April when we will do the Tampa Bay marathon swim (24 miles, ocean but warm water - purpose to check distance and ocean affects on body, mind and foods to eat, etc. without the cold so training can be adjusted). Will plan to be back in cold Lake Michigan early April as much as possible and then do another 8-10 hour swim late spring/early summer. August 2011 is the Channel so everything will build to this. I can't believe I have already put over a year into this! I remember when I started I could barely finish 2000 yards without being tired, go figure. I couldn't handle cold water, waking up at 5 am, eating really funky foods, etc. I have everyone to thank for tolerating me and this dream, the crazy schedule, time away, standing in the cold watching me swim or just sending wonderful email notes. Thank you very much.


English Channel Qualifying Swim:


Echoing my thoughts on how I got to this point, I now look forward to the next several weeks with a bit of trepidation knowing that lurking out there is the biggest test yet of my mental preparations but also physical. 6 hours minimum in water 60f or colder. I have previously written about other cold training swims and races but wrapping my head around swimming for 6 plus hours AND 60f is really tough. Today I was in Lake Michigan for an hour in 54f - 56f water, grey skies and air temps. hovering around 65f. It was bone chilling, burned like I can't even describe getting in but was able to calm down and focus on swimming as the time went on. Will do this again Sunday and as much as possible in the next days leading up to the fateful phone call from the coach...tomorrow is the day...

The basic plan is to start at 4am (yes, your reading correctly 4am, pitch black darkness and cold). Swimming the EC starts 24/7 so swimming in pitch black cold wavy water is part of the gig. Well I am about to be baptised in a big, big way.

At these water temperatures, hypothermia is a very real safety concern. We take great care to monitor each other. Also strangely enough what you eat as your fuel is critical. Your body is effectively consuming food to produce energy for two things, the swimming strokes themselves and the to generate heat! So this will be a very important part of our qualifying swim planning.

We are also having to plan for kayaks and safety people to be with us the entire time. They will have the authority to stop the entire swim if they fell we are in danger. They typically test you during a feeding stop by asking simple questions. Not being able to speak clearly and answer the specific question asked is a hallmark early sign of hypothermia. We can increase food intake quickly or stroke rates to compensate this but its a slippery slope once it begins. all of this is the purpose of doing this now, to test where I am, what needs more work. there is plenty of time to make mid course corrections.

From a mental standpoint, the deprivation of staring into blue green water for what seems to be an eternity is something I am not sure how to imagine? How do train for this? I think the best I can do is to layout a plan of swimming "x" times back and forth from the peer to the beach or something that can give me a mental goal that can be attached to the physical demands on my body. I suspect the emotional aspect of this "test" will become very evident and at some point I will simply have to buckle down and say to myself this it, its now or never, if you give up now what will you do next summer in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean!

So as plans progress I will keep everyone abreast of plans. I hope to have some video and pictures of this and if I can find someone with great IT skills will maybe even try to to a live GPS plot so those of you interested can watch live or I guess while your drinking coffee.