Open Water Swimming - Once bitten, twice shy: our exaggerated fear of shark attacks

Something humor to think about as you wade into the calm, lovely morning swim . . .

Ok, Now that your adrenaline is pumping, here are the facts...

With open water swimming and beach season in full swing, the question inevitably arises: what are the chances of getting attacked by a shark? In a phrase: extraordinarily low – though not nonexistent. It is higher in certain parts of the US (Florida tops the list) than in others, and in some places (off Cape Cod) legendary great whites are making a comeback that can be frightening to beach goers. But is it really worth worrying about a shark strike or considering forgoing an ocean swim as an act of self-preservation?

Let's consider the numbers, courtesy of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Last year, 80 unprovoked shark strikes took place worldwide: seven resulted in deaths, including one in California. Fifty-three strikes took place in US waters, nearly half of them off Florida.

According to the file's analysis of data from 2000, beach goers faced a one in 2m chance of dying from drowning and other causes based on visits to east and west coast beaches. By contrast, they faced a one in 11.5m chance of being attacked by a shark, and less than a one in 264m chance of dying from a shark bite, since just one person died that year in US waters from an attack.

Put another way, more Americans were killed by collapsing sinkholes (16) than sharks (11) between 1990 and 2006, and more by tornadoes (125) than sharks (6) in Florida between 1985 and 2010. (And for all youSharknado fans, those were shark-free tornadoes.)

"Tides and currents kill more people [at the beach] than sharks that kill people," said Gregory Skomal, a shark biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.

But in some parts of the US, the number of shark spotting's has risen in recent years. Last year, there were more than 20 confirmed shark sightings at Cape Cod beaches, in areas including its outer beaches and off the mainland, and a 50-year-old man was bitten by a shark that scientists believe was a great white. (The swimmer, a Colorado native, was scarred but survived with limbs intact.)

This summer, eight great whites already have been spotted off various Cape Cod beaches, though some of the sightings may involve the same shark. The National Park Service just issued precautionary guidelines for Cape Cod swimmers.

Skomal has been tracking great whites off Cape Cod for years: he and his colleagues tagged five in 2009 and 17 in 2012. The probable reason for the increase is a resurgence in the seal population, which has been recovering over the past four decades since enactment of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which outlawed a kind of hunting that caused the seals' precipitous decline. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that the seal population in the western north Atlantic has increased by tens of thousands over the past few decades.

"I fully anticipate that the white sharks will continue to take advantage of this resource," Skomal said, noting that half of the sharks tagged in 2011 came back to the areas where they were tagged the following year. (Researchers use a few different tags, including acoustic ones that rely on radio transmitters and satellite tags.)"Everything is clicking for [the sharks] and the cafe is open for them. They will continue to take advantage of that."

A spate of shark strikes in 2001 that claimed the lives of swimmers – including two in the mid-Atlantic, 10-year-old David Peltier off Virginia Beach and 28-year-old Sergei Zaloukaev off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina – earned the season the nickname "Summer of the Shark". Zaloukaev was the last person to die from a shark bite in the mid-Atlantic. (His girlfriend was bitten also but survived.)

Still, there have been nonlethal events. Last month, 63-year-old surf instructor Barbara Corey was bitten off Holden Beach in Brunswick County, North Carolina, the first mid-Atlantic shark strike this year. Last year there were two, both in North Carolina, where six-year-old Brooklyn Daniel was struck off Brunswick and 33-year-old Megan Konkler was bitten off Nags Head Beach.

Florida's Brevard and Volusia counties, including tourist hot spots such as New Smyrna Beach, routinely lead the US in the annual number of shark strikes because they have a a huge number of surfers and swimmers and are in the migration routes of black tip and sandbarsharks. Together they made up 15 of the 53 recorded US attacks last year, though most of these tend to be minor scrapes since the species there are less dangerous than those found in other areas.

Commonsense precautions – avoiding areas where seals congregate, staying close to shore and staying out of the water around dawn and dusk, when sharks tend to be feeding and water visibility is low – are the best ways to avoid coming into a contact with a shark, experts say.

The shark species that pose the greatest risks to humans are great white, tiger, bull and oceanic whitetip sharks. So the regions of the world where some of these sharks swim – including Australia, South Africa and California, where great whites regularly migrate – tend to have more fatalities. Of the seven fatalities last year, according to the International Shark Attack File, three were off South Africa, two off Australia, one off California and one off the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean.

Despite its small size, Réunion has emerged as one of the world's deadliest shark sites: a 15-year-old was killed last month off a beach where swimming was prohibited, the second Réunion death this year and the fifth since 2011. Scientists do not know why this number is so high, but George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File, said he suspects that human factors are playing a role. Island residents have cut back on shark fishing because of concerns over the toxins in shark meat; Burgess said an increase in global tourism means more people who are not familiar with the island are visiting and swimming there. "Now you've got a great rush of people in the water who don't know the area, and don't know the risks," he said.

Christopher Neff, a doctoral candidate at the University of Sydney who researches the human-shark relationship, said that humans are becoming more open to protecting sharks in the open ocean even as they're growing more hostile to those near shore. In March, theConvention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) agreed to impose new rules on the trade inhammerhead, oceanic white tip and porbeagle sharks under which countries would have to prove their catch was sustainable before exporting it.

In December, French Polynesia and the Cook Islands joined together to create the world's largest shark sanctuary, emulating small island nations such as Palau and the Maldives in banning all shark fishing in their waters.

But both western Australia and Réunion have authorised shark hunts in the wake of deadly strikes there. Neff noted that researchers have become better at tracking sharks' swimming patterns with the use of satellite and radio tagging, but sharing this sort of information "can arouse public anxiety", and it can't prevent some of the inevitable human-shark interactions that arise.

"Anywhere we have a beach, we likely have sharks," he said. "The difference is that until now, we didn't know it."

This article appeared in Guardian Weekly, which incorporates material from the Washington Post

Paying "The Man" - Success just doesn't happen, its earned!

Just a reminder to get off the couch!

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

Accomplished swimmers, youth, older parents and even pets drown, on average, in water you can stand up in, while people look past not focused on the early warning signs. 

As a former life guard, accomplished ocean and fresh water marathon swimmer, kayaker, and rafter I have saved a few souls and later reflected to my family astonished the risks people take without knowing their own capability, the power of water and lack of training or practice. 

Safety in pools is well under-estimated. A lifeguard keeps watch on opening day of the newly renovated McCarren Park Pool on June 28, 2012, in Brooklyn, New York. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

The new captain jumped from the deck, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the couple swimming between their anchored sport fisher and the beach. “I think he thinks you’re drowning,” the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. “We’re fine; what is he doing?” she asked, a little annoyed. “We’re fine!” the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. ”Move!” he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not 10 feet away, their 9-year-old daughter was drowning. Safely above the surface in the arms of the captain, she burst into tears, “Daddy!”

Whether rafting, tubing or just floating along water is very powerful.

How did this captain know—from 50 feet away—what the father couldn’t recognize from just 10? Drowning is not the violent, splashing call for help that most people expect. The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that’s all of us) then you should make sure that you and your crew know what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, “Daddy,” she hadn’t made a sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn’t surprised at all by this story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for is rarely seen in real life.


The Instinctive Drowning Response—so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water. And it does not look like most people expect. There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind. To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the No. 2 cause of accidental death in children, ages 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents)—of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult. In some of those drownings, the adult will actually watch the child do it, having no idea it is happening.* 

Drowning does not look like drowning—Dr. Pia, in an article in the Coast Guard’s On Scene magazine, described the Instinctive Drowning Response like this:

1. “Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled before speech occurs.
2. Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.
3. Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.
4. Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.
5. From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.”

This doesn’t mean that a person that is yelling for help and thrashing isn’t in real trouble—they are experiencing aquatic distress. Not always present before the Instinctive Drowning Response, aquatic distress doesn’t last long—but unlike true drowning, these victims can still assist in their own rescue. They can grab lifelines, throw rings, etc.

Early warning signs:

• Head low in the water, mouth at water level

• Head tilted back with mouth open

• Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus

• Eyes closed

• Hair over forehead or eyes

• Not using legs—vertical

• Hyperventilating or gasping

• Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway

• Trying to roll over on the back

• Appear to be climbing an invisible ladder

So if a crew member falls overboard and everything looks OK—don’t be too sure. Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don’t look like they’re drowning. They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck. One way to be sure? Ask them, “Are you all right?” If they can answer at all—they probably are. If they return a blank stare, you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them. And parents—children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.

Reprinted Credit - By Mario Vittone

Junk in equals Junk out, sports drinks, carbo loading and marketing traps

Final in the series on nutritionally sound alternatives to Gu's, energy drinks and junk food for endurance athletes and open water swimmers.

Fuel correctly post-exercise EVERY SINGLE TIME

As an athlete, recovery is an integral part of your program. Make it your goal to eat in the 30-minute window post-exercise, when your body is primed for nutrient uptake and carbohydrates consumed can be used to begin the recovery process. 

The right kind pf Carbohydrates are essential post-exercise to replace muscle glycogen and ensure you begin your next session with maximal stores.

If fat loss is your goal, start with 30g and assess your recovery and subsequent performance.  If you didn’t feel well fueled or found you did not recover as well as usual, simply increase by 10g following your next session. A little trial and error goes a long way.

Otherwise, aim to consume your body weight in grams (i.e. 1g/kg BW) of carbohydrate in your post-exercise meal. A quick example is a banana and a glass of coconut water or a fruit based smoothie.

What can I eat?
Sweet potato is the perfect post-exercise carbohydrate. Full of relatively fast-acting carbohydrates, plus vitamin A, B and C, one cup contains approximately 50 grams of carbohydrate.

If bread is your thing, eat it post-exercise. I prefer to eat gluten-free, but that’s a another topic. Two pieces of bread contains on average, 20-25g of carbohydrate.

Fruit fits in nicely post-exercise too. A medium banana contains 30g of carbohydrate, so pop one in your training bag or car, so you never miss the “window”! It is important to note however, that fructose alone takes longer to resynthesize muscle and liver glycogen than does glucose or sucrose. The solution is to combine carbohydrate sources; so accelerated synthesis can take place. Eat a banana and a muesli bar, both of which are perfect portable snacks. These are ideal if you have an hour or so between races and/or travel time to take into consideration.

If you are finding it hard to quit sugar, choose starchy vegetables that do not provide the sweet craving you are trying so hard to avoid. You can even eat white potato post-exercise! Remember it’s all about nutrient timing.

 
What about sports drinks?The short answer is no. They are full of artificial sugar, preservatives and colours, and there are much better options:

1. Coconut water: the natural sugars and electrolytes are great during, or after, an intense exercise session. One serve contains 15g of carbohydrates, so it is not to be treated like water. A couple of times a week is sufficient.
2. Juice: yes, if you like, you can drink juice. It’s far cheaper than expensive sports drinks and all natural, but please save it for during exercise and in the “window” only. Ideally, make it fresh and keep it to two pieces of fruit, with the rest vegetables.
3. Make your own: 750ml of water, 1 tablespoon of rice malt syrup, the juice of one lemon and a pinch of sea salt. This is perfect for on the bike or recovery from your longer sessions. Lemon is the highest electrolyte containing citrus fruit, so why not also had some to your juice.

What about carbohydrate loading?To put it simply, increasing and maximizing muscle glycogen stores takes weeks of consistent training and focused post-training nutrition. Carbohydrate loading only acts to increase your weight in race week and/or your potential for GI upset on race morning or even during the race. No thank you! It is your post-exercise recovery that is essential for optimal glycogen stores.

In summary, base your carbohydrate intake on exercise duration and personal goals. Make your post-exercise nutrition as important as the training session it follows. Fuel naturally and your performance will speak for itself. You really are what you eat.

 Reprinted from:

THE NATURAL NUTRITIONIST

How to increase your performance and recovery with nutrient timing

Second in the series on natural food fueling, alternatives to Gu's, energy drinks and junk food.

Follow these three essential steps to extend your performance and optimise your recovery from both training and racing:

1. Fuel correctly pre-exercise when your sessions are greater than 60 minutes

Training on an empty stomach is essential to turn you into a fat burning machine, but when your duration extends beyond 60 minutes, such a strategy is likely to negate your performance. Body stores alone are insufficient to supply the energy needs during longer sessions or events.

The solution? Eat a small amount of carbohydrate prior to your session. This is the perfect time to eat fruit, as the sugars will be broken down, utilised as fuel and not shuttled off to the liver for fat storage. Which, we know, is what happens when we consume fructose in excess, or at the wrong time.

 * Race Day

On race day, our requirements differ slightly, due to the timing of the event and the increased energy requirements of the day. A pre-race meal is simply designed to top up liver glycogen, which has depleted overnight during your sleep. General guidelines are 200 to 400 calories of complex carbohydrates, consumed two to three hours prior to the start. Be flexible however, as sleep is more important than waking up at the crack of dawn for breakfast.

Here are some simple, natural, pre-race meal ideas, all of which can also be used pre-training when your duration extends towards 90 minutes and beyond.

-       Two pieces of gluten free toast with banana

-       A smoothie with one banana and a small handful of berries

-       Quinoa Porridge with rice malt syrup, chopped banana and cinnamon

-       Homemade granola with Greek yogurt and a small handful of raspberries

Your pre-race meal should always be something you practice in training. Nothing new happens on race day.

Reprinted from:

THE NATURAL NUTRITIONIST

Reprinted from

Nutrient Timing for Athletes – how the right types of sugar can help you

This will be the first of several posts from the same blog article. Offers great advice for those open water swimmers and athletes looking for alternate and healthful food energy sources beyond Gu's, maltodextrins and energy drinks.

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First things first, a carbohydrate is a sugar is a carbohydrate. The term carbohydrate refers to organic compounds with only carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms and sugar, or sucrose, is just one of many. Each has their own distinct structure, hormonal response and health impact, but for the point of this discussion it is important to remember that:

1. Refined sugar and excess fructose are highly inflammatory, which from an athletic point of view is the enemy to recovery and subsequent performance.
2. Excess carbohydrate consumption can inhibit our body’s ability to burn fat, which is the limiting factor in endurance events.

And because I know you’re now curious, to increase your fat burning ability and therefore your endurance capacity:

1. Make refined sugar free eating a priority.
2. Reduce your fructose intake.
3. Rely less on starchy processed carbohydrates. Fact. You definitely don’t need to be following our traditional (and now almost obsolete) food pyramid, or guidelines of up to ten times your body weight in grams per day (i.e. 10g/kg BW/day). I promise.
4. Train on an empty stomach a couple of times a week. More on this to come.

Carbohydrates: friend or foe?

A day-to-day intake heavily reliant on starchy carbohydrates (e.g. breads, rice, cereals, potatoes, sugary sports drinks and lollies) will not only limit your fat burning ability, but may also result in an inadequate protein intake and a diet lacking in many essential trace nutrients, vitamins and minerals. This most certainly will have a negative effect on your recovery and performance.

To increase performance and recovery however, the right types of carbohydrates can be extremely beneficial. Here’s why:

Firstly, carbohydrates are more oxygen-efficient than fat. Put simply, more energy is produced from the same amount of oxygen when carbohydrates are broken down. Why is this important? Oxygen availability is limited and determined by your own individual maximum oxygen uptake (VO2max). The consumption of carbohydrates during exercise of extended duration therefore, tops up your individual supply and acts to extend performance. Without this, your body will simply run of fuel and eventually come to a complete stop, otherwise known as “hitting the wall”.

Secondly, carbohydrates are the only macronutrient that can also be broken down rapidly without oxygen, to provide large amounts of extra energy during intense exercise. This anaerobic metabolism is vital to maximal performance for bouts between fifteen seconds and three minutes in duration. It is for this reason that athletes such as sprinters and weight lifters should consume carbohydrates prior to exercise, in order to supply adequate fuel for the following exercise effort.

Lastly, carbohydrates act to optimise muscle and liver glycogen stores (basically the carbohydrate you eat stored in your body) and enhance recovery from longer training sessions and endurance events. So the key to carbohydrate intkae is nutrient timing – when you eat them and why.

Reprinted from:
THE NATURAL NUTRITIONIST

'Swim Lessons' - Teaching Life through swimming

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