Day 1: 10K swim
Goal: 4 hours
Actual: 4:15. Why? I think there were currents in there!
I did 14 swims in training of 8,000 or more yards. The first one of those I did was on 12/7/2009. I did one full 10K swim on New Year’s Day 2010, too. All my training was in a pool, and on race day, other than the short (:25) practice swim with the kayak on Thursday before the race, I had not done an open water swim since Ironman Lake Placid 2009. I would usually pull for several thousand yards of these swims, including paddles, thinking it would make me stronger and more fatigue resistant. I think it worked! I’m no great swimmer and didn’t get any faster (I averaged about 11,500 yards per week for the entire season), but I didn’t get any slower, either. Just as I structure my run and bike workouts to get progressively faster (harder), I would model my long swims in the same way. When I initially made my training plan in September, 2009, I had all these grandiose ideas about these mega-interval sets for the long swims, but I ended up just swimming 1000, 1500, 2000 or sometimes more straight free and then do a little kicking while I drank some Infinit, whatever I could do to make the time go by quickly, then do pulling, then pulling with paddles, and even some swimming with the fins on. I also found that I needed to replace all the calories I’d burned immediately after these swims if I had any hopes of remaining upright and living to train the next day. I could only get this much lap swim time starting at 5AM, and I did these beasts on Fridays before work. I learned pretty quickly that I needed to have my glycogen stores loaded the night before, eat about 250 calories right when I woke up, drink the requisite amount of calories from Infinit per hour while swimming, and then eat an entire meal as soon as I got home. The first few 8,000+ swims beat the shit out of me. My rationale was that a 3-hour ride doesn’t trash me very much, and that a 2-3 hour swim should be much easier, and should tire me out less than a 2-hour run, right? Wrong. Initially, at least. Again, learning and practicing the proper night before, morning of, during swim and post-swim nutrition was critical. Plus I had read race reports (thanks, Vince!) of others who really screwed themselves in Ultraman by not ingesting sufficient fluid and/or calories during the swim.
Come race day, I knew I had the endurance and strength to swim 10K not exactly “comfortably,” but I wouldn’t be gassed. And I’d practiced the nutrition thing for many months. My only source of fear was chop in the water. When I did the practice swim with my ace kayaker, Steve, on Thursday evening, we did it in Lake Okanagan, and it was windy and choppy and I freaked out a bit, but I KNEW I was freaking out, so I just let it happen and then I calmed back down. However, if Skaha Lake had been as choppy as that on race day, I am sure I would have had some problems. Or not. Who knows?
Let me back up. On Friday, I drank only Gatorade (no plain water) to super-load my body with sodium in case it got hot. I also ate two Lava Salts right before going to bed. I always do the nighttime salt tabs before an Ironman or really long training day (7+ hours) as a “just in case.” On race morning, I choked down 600 calories of Ultrafuel and ate a Power Bar Triple Threat for a total of about 830 calories plus 1 or 2 small cups of coffee, and then I sipped maybe another 50 calories of Gatorade while setting up at the swim start. I usually take in 400 calories of Ultrafuel plus eat about 200 calories something else on training days where I am going 5+ hours, and for 3-5 hours I might just do 200-300 calories of Ultrafuel. I have been using that stuff ever since I began training for my first ½ Ironman at the advice of my first coach. The stuff is not very expensive and works. It is great on a race day because even for say, just an Ironman, you don’t get any calories while you swim, but you burn a bunch, and it tides you over until you can start taking in calories again on the bike. When I drink it though, it puts me into an insulin coma, and I get chills, my nose runs, I might even gag a few times, and I want to lie down. In training I can drink it just an hour before go time, but on race day I like 2-3 hours ahead. The insulin coma only lasts about 15 minutes anyway. For Ultraman, I decided that 600 calories of Ultrafuel would be better since I would be running a high caloric deficit by the end of each day, so I may as well start with a super-loaded tank. It was the right thing to do.
I started with a brand new pair of Tyr junior whatever goggles. I had tried an Aquasphere mask that worked for me ONCE in training then thereafter leaked, and I’d tried countless goggles with silicone gaskets that just didn’t work for me. But I was OK coming out after long swims with raccoon face (or as I liked to call it, “accident victim”), and same on race day. I wore my 1-piece sushi suit that was faded. I was on my second one of these suits, and I always wore it for the long swims because the straps didn’t dig into my shoulders. I have many nice Splish suits, including custom suits, but I would only wear those during my Monday/Wednesday shorter swims.
Here is a short video that gives you perspective on just how far a 10K swim in Skaha Lake is:
Anyway, after I talked to Steve and everything was loaded into the kayak, they made us all pose for a group picture. I about broke down and cried, which was to be a regular occurrence during the event. Not so much out of fear, but out of actually being there, actually doing the race that I’d worked so hard to train for for so long. Tears of joy, mostly! And also acknowledging the magnitude of what we were all doing.
Steve Brown told us all to get in the water, and the kayakers were already out a little ways, and that our paddlers would have to find us or vice versa, so I spied where Steve was and walked in. I did not do a warm-up swim, are you kidding me??? Plenty of time to warm up while doing the swim! Then we all counted down from either 10 or 5—I can’t remember—and we were officially on our way. Skaha Lake was nice and calm, although earlier Steve Brown had warned the kayakers about some chop and hearing that frightened me a little, but then I forgot about it.
After the countdown, I just bent over, put my face in and started swimming! The cool water felt so good; since my pool was usually around 85 degrees (my guess is the lake was 70-72). I could tell this water was clean, too. I just started swimming and felt completely relaxed, much like my training swims. I had so many people ask me during training how I could swim that long, and my response always was that it is a form of meditation to me. NOBODY can get to you while you are swimming, and besides, I really like to count ;) I found Steve pretty easily, and we settled into our route, with him leading the way. I think that he picked a perfect line down that lake, and if he happens to be able to get to Kona in 2011, I’d be honored to have him paddle for me in the Ultraman there.
The plan was for Steve to stop me every 40 minutes to drink some Infinit, which he had on ice in the boat. He had this floaty thing he would put on the end of the paddle to make it, well, FLOAT, and stick it out and that made it easy for me to grab on and hold while I drank. The first time he signaled me, I sort of got indignant and yelled, “THAT CAN’T BE FORTY MINUTES!” And then he asked how I was feeling, and I said, “This is all very surreal.” For, in fact, the 40 minutes had gone by in the blink of an eye. It felt to me like I had finally succeeded in not thinking at all, even though I was somehow commanding my body to swim. If I could bottle that feeling, I’d be a rich woman! I felt like serenity personified. The Infinit was ice cold, so cold; in fact, I’d get a chill from drinking it. But I knew that I needed those calories.
The second 40 minutes also went by quickly and once again Steve asked me how I was feeling and once again I said, “This is still all so surreal.” I was still in a meditative state and feeling really great. I’m figuring I am about 4K into the swim, and I think I was right, but how could we tell? The first buoy is at the 8K mark, and you couldn’t see it from shore, and you couldn’t see it 4K in, either. I just focused on swimming relaxed and turning to breathe and look at the kayak. Steve said to me, “You are doing FUCKING awesome.” And I looked behind me and saw other kayaks a ways back and was shocked that I would be ahead of anyone.
Sometime after this, I’m not sure how far in, we hit this area of totally calm, glassy water. It was calmer than my pool! This made me laugh, which is tough to do while swimming, but you can sort of do it as you exhale underwater, and finally I had to stop and tell Steve that, “This is like a swimming pool!” He probably thought I was nuts, but we soldiered on. It was at this point that I actually began kicking, which I usually don’t do in a wetsuit, and sometimes my calves would cramp up a little bit, but I know how to work those out, and I was shocked not only that I could kick—I could stroke, kick, breathe AND PEE all at once! In my wetsuit! I think I ended up peeing 7 or 8 times during the swim—the combination of the cool water, the ice-cold Infinit (with caffeine!!!) and the Ultrafuel helped that. Anyway, once I started on the kicking, I kept doing it the rest of the time. It was such a new thing to me kicking in a wetsuit, and I’m glad I am now comfortable doing it!
I don’t know how far in we were when this motorboat came by with our head photographer, Rick Kent, on board. I did not know they would take photos of us during the swim! It turns out there were a lot of things that surprised me during the 3 days, and that was a good thing. Anyway, he tells Steve to go off a bit so he can snap just me swimming. I don’t remember if Steve did, but then I decided to just stand up and try and jump up out of the water with a huge smile on my face. Some yards after this, Steve tells me I’m quite the poser for the camera. We had a good laugh about that.
The glass didn’t last too long, but I was pretty good through about 7K. That is the point even in my practice swims where I would start to realize I was swimming a lot. Nothing really hurt, though—my deltoids got a tad sore only from wearing the wetsuit. The longest swim I had done with the wetsuit on was 6700 yards, so it made sense to me that my delts would tell me they weren’t happy. But the rest of me was just fine—I had applied copious amounts of Body Glide under my swimsuit straps and seams and on my neck. For awhile, I thought I might be chafing on the neck, but it turned out to be Lee’s expert closure of my wetsuit, and I didn’t experience any chafing from the swim! Also, in case no other athlete’s race report points this out, we do not wear chips, nor does anyone write numbers on you for Ultraman! With only 39 people starting, why would we need body numbers or chips? So why was my race number 103 with only 39 starters???
In training, I always spend equal amounts of time breathing on my left and right sides. I enjoy playing around with breathing patterns—it gives me something to do, you know? Helps make the yards go by quickly. But in races I typically go with right side only. I was concerned that I would jack up my neck muscles by doing this, but I was just fine breathing only to the right. There were a few times I would go bilateral, and it was just to have a change of pace.
When we finally got to that 8K turn buoy, the water had picked up a little chop, but nothing that made me nervous, but man that last 2K seemed to take FOREVER! Now you can see the shore, and I’m like hell bent on getting the fuck out of this lake! Not that I hadn’t enjoyed the swim, but I wanted poor Steve to be able to get on with his day and I still had some biking to do! It was a tough last 2K, but finally I got into shallow water, and again surprised myself by just standing up and not falling over! After my pool swims, I would feel a little woozy getting out after several hours, but I was fine today. But I realized my stomach was a bit jumbled. The other thing is that my resting heart rate has gone in the dumpster from this training, so sometimes when I stand up after lying down I feel a bit dizzy because my heart can’t catch up. I am just happy that someone told me that it’s normal for my low resting HR.
So I get out, and now the fun begins. I see the clock and I’m like WHAT THE FUCK WHERE DID THOSE EXTRA :15 COME FROM? But I was chill with it because I knew I wouldn’t have trouble with the first ride. My crew came and got me and supported me, and for some reason I felt compelled to RUN to the changing tent where all my crap had been stashed. Once again, I was surprised, I did not even think that the swim started in one place and ended someplace completely different, and that my crew had to travel there and get all this crap ready for me to come out of the water. They stripped my wetsuit, and I began changing, not in a total hurry, but not lollygagging either. They put sunscreen on me (Lee and Mona were in the tent with me and all my naked glory), got me dressed, and then Richard was standing by with my bike, which somehow had gotten to the new location as well (I was amazed by all this), and now I have to mount my bike and get riding.
Please note that at Ultraman they don’t time your transitions, so as soon as you finish swimming, the time becomes part of your bike time. I am hoping I didn’t spend more than :10 in transition, and I know I can do this a bit faster at Ultraman Hawaii.
What I Did Well
I swam steadily and did not slow down too much except for the currents. I executed my nutrition perfectly and did not chafe. I enjoyed myself, sucking in all the wonder of what I was doing. I learned how to pee without stopping my stroke, and I learned how to kick while wearing my wetsuit.
What I Can Improve On
I plan on either getting some swim coaching or swimming with my local Masters team once a week this fall or both, depending on what the Masters coach thinks will be best for me. I would like to be fast enough to complete a 10K swim in 3:30, and I think that is a reasonable goal. That would give me a nice cushion for Hawaii in case of swells and currents. For Hawaii, since it is guaranteed to be hot, I will wear part of my biking kit so there is less changing for me to do. Or maybe not, because it's good to get the salt water all off you once you come out of the ocean.
What Concerns me About Hawaii
I've swum in decent swells, but not sure about currents. My biggest concern though, is jellyfish. I've had allergic reactions to bee and wasp stings, and heard the sea lice are a bit troublesome. I already know what it's like to swim and see 50-75 feet down into the fish bowl. I may try some other goggles again, since while I did not get a headache this time, I wouldn't mind a bit more comfort.
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