Something I am learning about this sport of open water swimming is that I can plan and train and decide when something is going to happen, but at the end of the day you are not in control. If the elements are against you, if the water isn't warm enough, if the waves are too big or too strong in the wrong direction, then you change your plans.
Not only can I not control the weather, I also can't control my own body! This week I had tapered in preparation for my big official 10km trial swim in the canal. But on Wednesday morning I woke up and started to get dressed at which point my neck seized. Really painfully I might add. I couldn't move. I called both Christine and my chiropractor in tears. I went in to see Rebecca 3 times this week plus a massage. I had electro-pusle therapy on my neck. One of the more bizarre things I've experienced. Its this machine that forces your muscles to tense up and then release. By the third treatment I was doing much better, but not to the point where I was going to do a 10km. I was worried about the breathing aspect where I have to rotate my neck a thousand times. I have to stretch like crazy and I still don't have the full range of motion back. I guess I'm glad this happened now and not any closer to my swim. My mileage this week was 18km because I took 3 days off for recovery. Today I did 5km in the canal which was pretty ambitious considering my week but no issues. Christine wants me to do another good canal workout tomorrow, but then I still need to do my trial swim next weekend so hopefully I'm back to normal by then.
All my Masters programs finished this week. It was actually pretty sad, I really felt like part of a team by the end of it. It was a good end though. My last workout with them was 20x100m and I held 1:25 the whole time. It was exactly what I wanted :) I even beat Dave!!
Started from the bottom now we here. ;)
I feel like I might consider doing Brock Masters again in future....probably not in the fall, I'm gonna take a break from swimming after all this. Its not that I'm sick of swimming, but sometimes I'm just over being wet all the time.
5 weeks out. A lot more planning has been happening about the actual swim. Miguel will be joining us as Swim Master (the person who makes it official and enforces all the rules). We're going to take our boat, and we need another one, preferably bigger, so we're working on that. Christine will be in a kayak beside me. We've been practicing that. I'm not supposed to look forward while I'm swimming, as tempting as that's going to be. I'm just supposed to look at the kayak when I breathe and make sure I'm staying the same distance away from it, and if the kayak changes course then I need to adjust my direction also. At first I only liked sighting to the right, but now it doesn't really matter. There are all sorts of other rules I've learned about too. The kayak thing isn't a rule, but I'll wreck my neck and probably mess with my own head if I'm constantly looking to see how far I've gone/how far I have left to go. But outside of that, for a swim to be recognized:
-- I can't touch a boat at all during my crossing
-- I can't touch a person at all during my crossing
-- I can't wear a watch, or use a waterproof ipod or anything else that I might use to pace myself
-- I can't have anybody in the water with me for the first 5 hours. After that I'm allowed a pacer.
-- The pacer cannot be ahead of me at any point
-- The pacer cannot be in the water for longer than an hour
-- If there are multiple pacers they must be an hour apart (an hour gap between them where I'm by myself again)
-- I cannot wear a wetsuit
-- My bathing suit cannot be one of those speed suits they wear in the olympics, no material past the shoulder or groin
Most of this stuff isn't a surprise to me anymore, but knowing about pacers is important. I might ask Dave to be my pacer, its really nice to see a familiar face beside you when you're pushing yourself. There are obviously points where I want to be by myself, like for most of it. But especially at the end I think.
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