Tales of the Beer Baby

More Sea Monsters

2012-01-27T14:37:00.000-05:00

The comics are definitely home to a lot of lake and sea creatures lately!

Overboard by Chip Dunham, 1/27/2012

Yay, sea monsters! And swimmers got a mention this time, too!

Lake Monters Make the Funny Pages

2012-01-26T09:57:00.001-05:00

The Other Coast by Adrian Raeside, 1/26/2012

Loved today's The Other Coast comic referencing lake monsters. In light of last fall's In Search of Memphre and my upcoming story in H2Open magazine about lake monsters, it's a topic now close to my heart. Funny stuff indeed. Long live Memphre, Champ, Ogopogo, Nessie and the rest. We need monsters, and they fill the bill nicely.

Pebbles Down My Pants

2012-01-24T12:51:00.001-05:00

I found this video recently kicking around Facebook and the Interwebs, and it's dead on. It's all about putting pebbles down my pants, a major goal for every Channel swimmer I've ever met.

Karen Throsby, another Channel swimmer who is conducting research on motivations and swimmers, also sent out a call for images of our mementos, either in pebble or tattoo form, that she's posting on a neat website here. Mark took a couple photos of my growing pile of stones from various swims, and they came out quite arty. I pick up one stone at the start and another at the finish to mark both where I have been and where I ended up.

In the Catalina Channel, I ended up swimming with that small, white start stone down my suit for the first 45 minutes until I stopped for a feed because I was so wound up and terrified that I didn't want to stop and hand it off to Mark in the kayak.

In the Memphre swim, I failed to pick up the start stone at the beginning, and that's probably a good thing, given how rough it was. I realized this halfway to Magog, so selected the big brown rock from the bottom sometime mid-morning during the swim. My crew thought I was having a problem because I suddenly disappeared and dived down about 7 or 8 feet to retrieve the stone from the bottom.

The huge beige stone from Le Petit Blanc Nez was the biggest I could find at my feet in the dark after arriving on Wissant Beach. I couldn't see much, and this one was the biggest reflector of light in the small halo from the flashlight my pilot had pointed on me, so away it came with me. It's heavy, and that seems fitting for the stone from the end of my English Channel swim.

To keep all these various rocks and pebbles straight, Mark uses a paint pen to mark the swim, the date, the time, and whatever else he can fit on them. They're all lovely in their uniqueness and their significance. A weighty pile of mementos, most of which have been down my suit for a spell.

Clumsy Clumsy

2012-01-16T12:44:00.000-05:00

I'm not the most coordinated person, and sometimes that kind of clumsiness makes problems for me. Case in point, after doing the 100X100 with Cambridge Masters on New Year's Eve, I ended up with an unintended souvenir that is just now resolving itself.

That's the inside of my right thigh a couple days after the 100X100. I slipped while climbing out of the pool, and my leg shot over the lane line and I came crashing down on it. It's a wonder I didn't break the lane line, and at first I didn't think anything was hurt but my pride. (The 10-year-olds at diving practice, giggling at my scramble, were the only witnesses that I could see at the time, but they were clearly enjoying watching the chubby lady trying to extract herself from the high-sided pool.) But then over the course of the next 2 days or so, the bruise worsened until it looked like this lovely bit of hamburger. Yucky. But it's mostly gone now, though still a bit tender. Moral of the story is, when trying to climb out of Blodgett Pool at Harvard, which has a slippery metal coping, after a 10,000 yard swim, it's probably best to head for the ladder and get out like a civilized person.

In other news, the Nahant Knuckleheads saw out 2011 with the now-traditional New Year's Eve plunge and luncheon at the Tide Restaurant. It was a chilly day, though not nearly as chilly as it had been a couple weeks before. The following morning, Greg and Rich and I plunged at the TLC compound in Holliston. We had to chip away an inch of ice before we could get into the water, which was a gasp-inducing 32 or 33 degrees. Thankfully, they have a hot tub.

2012 has come roaring in and I've been busy with lots of writing in addition to the normal hullabaloo. I may have some announcements soon regarding the summer schedule for 2012 and 2013, but waiting for confirmation on a few things. Whee!

I'm also thrilled to announce that I will be guiding a SwimVacation trip to the British Virgin Islands March 18-24. We still have some places available on the trip, so if you're interested in coming, let me know. We're offering a 10% "Friends of SwimVacation Guides" discount for swimmers recruited by the guides. The trip promises to be a fantastic retreat from the frozen North East right when we need it most. Think 85 degree, crystal clear waters and as much swimming as you can handle. Sounds like heaven to me.

Happy January!

Jellies in Research

2011-12-20T09:18:00.002-05:00

Ray's up for a WOWSA award!

2011-12-05T10:57:00.000-05:00

Vote for Ray! His amazing performance during our 50/50 Swim Challenge in July is up for the international award. Cast your vote online. Details are below, courtesy of Openwaterswimming.com

WOWSA Performance of the Year Nominee Ray Gandy (USA) – Two Days in the Bay

Ray Gandy took a shot at swimming 50 miles in Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, USA along with his swimming partner Elaine Howley.

In a charity swim for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the duo had the best intentions, but Mother Nature decided to crash the celebration of endurance excellence early in the attempt.

Smooth conditions turned to rough, day turned into night, comfortable turned to cold.

Typical for marathon swimmers who expect the unexpected. With an aim of 50 miles, Ray made it to the 45.5-mile mark before his crew pulled him due to safety considerations. So close to his goal 28 hours after he started, Ray accepted the situation disappointed but undaunted. With the goal to raise money for others, his effort was a success. For his unselfish efforts, his understanding of the need to put safety first, and his continued positive approach in the unprecedented 45.5-mile challenge, Ray Gandy’s Two Days in the Bay is a worthy nominee for the 2011 World Open Water Swimming Performance of the Year.

For more information on Ray Gandy, visit here

VOTE HERE

WOWSA aims to promote open water swimming as a global sport for those of all ages, abilities and backgrounds. It hosts the World Open Water Swimming Awards to recognize the open water swimming's heroes and heroines.

MIT Masters

2011-11-09T13:14:00.000-05:00

So I finally took the plunge and joined up with MIT Masters. I've been kicking the idea around for a while, since I learned that West Side was shutting down this past spring. Coach Bill was wonderfully supportive this past summer in the lead up to the 50/50 swim, and I decided that the commute in the mornings would be better coming out from MIT than from many of the other pool options in the area. Besides, the Zesiger center where they swim is incredible- I've been doing very long weekend swims there for the past four years because it is such a nice facility and we can get day passes. So it just made sense to become a member and get on board. This morning was my first morning workout with the team and it was great! Everyone was so friendly and we did a mid-intensity mid-distance workout. I am feeling all those months of open water on me, though, as I am not feeling quick or smooth in the water, but a few weeks of consistent work in the pool, and it will come back. (I hope!) In the meanwhile, I think I will try to take advantage of the access to the cardio machines upstairs and try to shrink this ole Beer Baby just a touch...

Cover story!

2011-11-03T11:47:00.000-04:00

Ah! Very cool news- I got the cover story for the November/December issue of SWIMMER magazine hitting mailboxes around the country this week! I wrote a profile of the multi-talented Masters swimmer and Top Chef contestant, Marisa Churchill, who not only happens to be a talented chef and cookbook author, but also a gorgeous swimmer with a ton of charisma and ambition. (She actually reminds me a lot of my friend and fellow Channel swimmer Dori, who was here last week for a short visit from her new home in Sydney, Australia. It was nice to see her and go for a swim in a frigid Walden Pond with the Knuckleheads, but we were sad to let her leave again. Guess I'll just have to start scraping together those pennies for a plane ticket to Oz.)

Anyway, back to the magazine... Marisa was a lot of fun to interview and write about, and she had some amazing photos that went well with the story, so voila, I've got the cover story. Very exciting indeed! This is a first for me, and I am so pleased with how the story turned out. Seeing this go live online and hearing that the magazine had been delivered at home was a nice way to top off my week in New York City. I've been here since early Monday for work, and have had a ball seeing the sights in Mid-Town and pretending to be a Gritty City Girl. I also got to swim with the Baruch College Bearcat Masters in the Flat Iron district the other night. Nice facility and a fun workout. All the same, I will be glad to get home this evening. This traveling stuff can be exhausting! Glad I will have some fun reading waiting for me on the coffee table tonight when I get home.

FITNESS magazine

2011-10-25T10:35:00.004-04:00

It's out! Wicked exciting! On newstands around the country, the November/December issue of FITNESS Magazine! Flip to the last page, to their "That's the Spirit" column that celebrates women who combine fitness and charitable work and you'll find... me! Pretty cool, huh?

Cover of the November/December
2011 issue of FITNESS magazine

This was one of those rare, happy surprises. Out of the blue, the writer found mention of my 50/50 swim in the Boston Globe and contacted me in early August to do a story. It was interesting to be on the recieving end of an in-depth interview and to take part in a photo shoot. I'm definitely not a model, (Beer Baby Belly, anyone?) but it was fun to pretend for a few hours one sunny morning in Situate. It was a little unnerving to take photos in my bathing suit knowing that the pass-through readership rate for this publication is around 7.5 million, though. 7.5 MILLION people look at this thing each month. Yikes. That's a lot of eyeballs... My story will be in racks at the supermarket checkout, at the dentist's office, at the gym, in people's home mailboxes... Wow, a bit scary, but so very exciting!

In the end, the magazine used contributed photos-- one from my English Channel swim and my headshot from this blog-- and put together a lovely page about the 50/50 swim and a little insight into what happens during most of my big events. It was really flattering to be featured and I hope that it leads to some additional donations to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. That would be the ultimate reward for this kind of media attention.

At any rate, be sure to pick up your copy of the current issue of FITNESS magazine and send a message that they're on the right track by covering fitness-related events and people that make a difference. Thanks, FITNESS and L.E. for digging me up and telling my story so deftly!

2011 Ederle Swim and Season Wrap-up

2011-10-18T16:51:00.000-04:00

It's getting colder, and that's too bad, because this was an awesome summer full of big, long swims, tough challenges, great friends, and a bit of magic.

My final swim of the season was the 17.5-mile Ederle Swim hosted by NYCSwim. the event had been scheduled for October 1, but due to strong winds and a light craft advisory on the course, we got pushed back a day to Sunday, October 2.

The swim is historic, following the route that Gertrude Ederle's 1925 swim took between Sandy Hook, NJ and Manhattan. Being from New Jersey, I had been to Sandy Hook once or twice as a kid and remembered it only as a nudist beach. But as it turned out, it was a really nice place to start a swim, complete with all that famous Jersey shorebreak I loved so much on LBI.

Mark couldn't make it down for the weekend, so I conned Greg into coming along to crew for me. We drove down after work on Friday and arrived in lower Manhattan right around 10pm the night before the intended 4:30 am meeting time. I figured the sleep debt from Memphre would have trained me to handle this small problem of limited sleep, but all the same, I was not looking forward to that alarm going off at 3:45 in the morning.

As it turned out, our late arrival into town ended up being a good thing. We were still awake when we got the call that the swim had been postponed, and we were able to cancel the wake up call and reset the alarms.

That left us at loose ends on Saturday. Here we were in the coolest city in the world with no plan and no real idea of what we wanted to do. We wandered over to the site where the Twin Towers once stood and checked out the new exhibits and memorials in progress there. It was a sobering experience. After that, we headed uptown to go to the Empire State Building. But, seeing as it would cost each of us $22 to go up to the top of the building, and there was a perfectly good brewery right next door, we decided that drinking that $44 was probably the better bet. So we had a couple (delicious) pints and began a half-assed pub crawl around Midtown.

Next stop was the Triple Crown bar, a staple for every visit to Manhattan since Mark and I found it upon getting off the bus for the first MIMS swim in 2009. Then we attempted to check out another place a little further uptown, but it was closed on the weekend. This is when it started to pour buckets, so we hailed a cab and headed back towards the hotel.

Despite getting to bed early, the alarm still went off too soon on Sunday morning at about 4 am. We had to gather up our things, check out of the hotel, go claim the car from the garage, and get to North Cove for a 5 am meeting time.

Everything went smoothly and we were on the boat headed to Sandy Hook for the start of the swim by 6am. It was still remarkably windy and as we drove into the wind, I was glad that I would not have to be swimming into it. I got my fill of headwind during Memphre! I was frozen the whole way down,despite being all bundled up in a damp comforter. The sun rise beyond the Verrazanno Bridge and the lovely views of a slumbering Manhattan made up for being cold.

When we finally got the signal to jump in and swim to shore for the start, I was so glad to get off the boat. We were rolling a lot in place and I was starting to feel a bit seasick, and I was still frozen. I knew the 70 degree water would feel like heaven after that.

I got to shore, chatted with the other swimmers and before we knew it, we were off, swimming towards Manhattan. The wind stirred up the water and created rideable waves, and I felt like I body surfed pretty much the whole way back to the city. I felt great, and everything went like clockwork for the next several hours.

However, within about 2 miles of the finishline, the wind shifted out of the east, and that nice little wind assistance I'd had for 15 miles suddenly disappeared as we neared the Statue of Liberty. The last 2 miles were something of a struggle, so I was glad to finish. Because it was so windy, our boats collected us rather than having us swim into South Cove, and we motored on to North Cove to get back on dry land.

It was a great, well-run and organized swim, and even though it got delayed a day, it all went perfectly. We had a beautiful day and a straightforward swim. And it was just so much fun to be back in the thick of things in NYC.

So with that successful Ederle Swim, that brings my total of big swims this summer to three, with some milage behind them- 27 miles during the 50/50 in July, 25-miles during In Search of Memphre in September, and 17.5-miles during Ederle in October. I think I'm ready for a nap.

We are still laking it a couple days a week, but it will soon be too cold for that, and it will be time to head back to the pool for the winter. Ugh. I am not ready for it, but Mother Nature is, so I'll just have to find a way to cope. And in the meanwhile, I will start planning for next summer. Lots of big swims on my wish list, and with any luck, I'll have some sorted and scheduled for next summer soon.

For now though, it's time for a beer or three and a little nap before the hard training begins again. Good thing it's pumpkin beer season...

Welsh... a REALLY foreign language

2011-09-21T10:59:00.000-04:00

Today's Pearls Before Swine cartoon was hilarious on several levels to me. Not only was I obsessed with learning Welsh as a kid, but now I've got a very close friend who is a native speaker of Welsh. She and her bearded husband are coming to visit us this November, and I couldn't be more excited to show them America and a "real Thanksgiving." (Or as real as my tiny apartment kitchen will permit.)

Welsh is a funny looking language, and I never did get very far in learning it as a kid. Those "Teach Yourself Welsh" cassette tapes I begged my mom to get for me didn't help all that much. But it was just another fun thing for this weird kid to do...

In Search of Memphre... a swim for the ages.

2011-09-12T17:41:00.000-04:00

No idea where I am, just swimming, swimming,
swimming along...

Damn, that was hard.

The official press release is below. More details to come once I get my head around what we did this weekend...

Yes, I'm sore but ecstatic to have finished. It was an incredibly difficult swim. Conditions were nuts... but I finally set foot on Canadian soil for the first time in my life. And finishing this swim feels a lot like redemption after the 50/50 didn't go quite like I wanted. I am thrilled that it worked out for me and three others, but sad that not everyone had as great an experience. That damn wind was tough. More soon...

September 11, 2011

In Search of Memphre

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

In Search of Memphre Breaks the Border and Raises over $26,000 for IROC

Newport, Vermont and Magog, Quebec – On the weekend of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, 11 extraordinary marathon open water swimmers undertook the 25-mile cross-border swim the length of Lake Memphremegog from Newport to Magog. They were supported by 21 yackers and 12 boat pilots and crew. The expedition was organized and hosted by the Northeast Kingdom Open Water Swimming Association and IROC and was sponsored and outfitted by Newport Marine Services, Clyde River Recreation, and Great Outdoors.

The expedition known as In Search of Memphre was intended to promote a more open border with Canada and to search for the elusive lake creature Memphre. Participants, their friends, family, and employers raised over $26,000 for Indoor Recreation Orleans County, a community center in Derby, Vermont which is presently fighting for its financial survival.

Getting a little love from my main yacker, aka Hubband Mark.
Big thanks to the rest of my crew, West Siders Lynn and Jen
I could not have done this swim without these three! They
were INCREDIBLE!!

Four swimmers completed the swim: Elizabeth Fry of Westport, CT finished in a time of 13 hours and 25 minutes, with Charlotte Brynn, of Stowe Vermont close behind in 14 hours and 40 minutes. Greg O’Connor completed the 25 miles in a time of 17 hours and 23 minutes. And Elaine Kornbau Howley finished in just under 18 hours with a time of 17 hours and 58 minutes. “This was tougher than crossing the English Channel,” said Howley, who was the first to sign on,just a month ago, for this invitational swim.

Swimmers faced strong headwinds from the north, especially during the first four hours of the event, forcing five solo aspirants and the one two-person relay team to pull out. All but one participant, however, hung in for at least the first five miles in order to assure that they crossed the border.

Michel Dubois, of Canadian Customs arranged with the organizers of In Search of Memphre for pre-clearance of the participants at The Gateway. They were very helpful and very supportive of the resumption of a cross-border swim. US Customs also received the participants at The Gateway at the end of their journey.

Not constipated, just really happy to be done with that swim!

The border was ours for a brief moment in time. It felt great to watch these athletes, their yackers and the patrol boats cross past the border buoys in the middle of the night. Westmore Fire and Emergency Rescue led the way through the night with a beacon that allowed swimmers and their yackers to swim towards as they trekked northwards.

We were truly humbled and honored to support this wonderful, high-spirited group of marathon swimmers and yackers. Their fundraising prowess was awe-inspiring. Their endurance in some tough conditions was incredible to experience. And their exhuberance is contagious.

While Memphre remains elusive, we thank Barbara Malloy for her support of this swim, In Search of Memphre.

Track Jen, Track me!

2011-09-08T21:29:00.000-04:00

Just got notice that Jen Dutton will have a tracking device on her boat tomorrow, which means MY boat will have a tracking device since Jen and I are such similar speeds and planning to swim together tomorrow. Very exciting! Follow us online here: http://track.myathletelive.com/VEmap.aspx?name=051628

As of this posting, the tracker appears to be hanging out somewhere near Louisville, KY, but hopefully tomorrow at midnight it will register our starting position at Newport Gate, Vermont. Only time will tell!

Memphre Looms...

2011-09-08T10:37:00.001-04:00

So I am about to go on my first ever trip to Canada... and I'm going to get there the hard way! I'll be one of 11 "swimmer scouts" searching for Lake Memphremagog's mythical lake creature, Memphre, as we swim 26 miles from Newport, Vermont to Magoag, Quebec, Canada on Saturday. We're swimming to support IROC and to promote a more open border with Canada on the weekend of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Can't think of a better way to commemorate a difficult anniversary and remind ourselves and others that there is still wonder and beauty in this world.

Below is the press release we've put out about the swim. If you're in the area, come out and cheer us on at the start or finish! Or donate to our cause online!

“IN SEARCH OF MEMPHRÉ” SWIM REOPENS INTERNATIONAL BORDER ON 10th ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11 TRAGEDY TO SUPPORT LOCAL CHARITY

September 6, 2011, Newport, VT – Eleven marathon open water swimmers have banded together to swim the 26-mile length of Lake Memphrémagog from Newport, Vermont to Magog, Quebec, Canada on the weekend marking the tenth anniversary of September 11th, 2001. Hosted by Indoor Recreation Orleans County (IROC), an innovative health and fitness club serving the underprivileged in northeastern Vermont, and the Northeast Kingdom Open Water Swimming Association (NEKOWSA), the expedition has several goals:

To financially support IROC in a time of need;
Promote a more open border with Canada; and
Search for the legendary lake creature, Memphré, a serpent-like animal who has quietly inhabited the lake for more than two centuries, according to local legend.

IROC, built in 2004, is a 54,000 sq. ft. sports, fitness, and recreation center housing a swimming pool, a 94-foot water slide, a therapy pool, a fitness center, and a multi-purpose sports arena. IROC is located in the Northeast Kingdom, a rural area of Vermont plagued with one of the nation’s highest rates of chronic conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Through its “Healthy Changes Initiative,” IROC subsidizes memberships for local residents based on a “use-it-or-lose-it” incentivization policy intended to improve fitness and reduce the risk and impact of many health problems; the more frequently a member uses the facility, the cheaper the membership becomes. Twenty-percent of area residents are either members or regular users of the facility. IROC was built and continues to operate courtesy of funds donated by local residents and other supporters, and it has become a lifeline for local residents. But IROC is facing a budget shortfall this year and is in danger of closing.

Elaine Kornbau Howley, a 33-year-old writer from Waltham, MA and Greg O’Connor, a 42-year-old cancer researcher from Natick, MA were the first to heed IROC’s cry for fundraising assistance and collaborated to create the In Search of Memphre Tour to help IROC raise much-needed funding. Last year, Howley and O’Connor smashed the 41-year-old record for the Boston Light “Double,” a 16-mile out-and-back swim between South Boston and the Boston Lighthouse. They completed the swim as a “tandem solo” and set the standard at 7 hours 7 minutes.

Both veterans of NEKOWSA’s annual 10-Mile Kingdom swim, Howley and O’Connor have long wanted to swim the entire 26-mile beautiful length of Lake Memphrémagog. With the help of IROC Executive Director and NEKOWSA founder Phil White, 63, of Derby, VT, who runs several other swimming, running, and triathlon events in the Northeast Kingdom, they determined the start date and time for the swim and extended an invitation to several other top marathon swimmers to join the expedition.

Solo swim participants undertaking the 26-mile swim include:

Liz Fry, 52, of Westport, CT, a five-time solo crossing veteran of the English Channel who completed a 24-hour solo-double crossing of the Channel earlier this summer;
Bill Shipp, 51, of Mitchellville, MD, who will be undertaking the swim on the one-year anniversary of the date he was diagnosed with prostate cancer (now in remission);
Emma Reade Otto-Moudry, 16, of Ithaca NY, an 11th grader who recently set the course record for the 4.75-mile Lake Willoughby Swim;
John Humenick, a 36-year-old airline pilot from New York City who won the 10-mile Kingdom Swim in 2009, the event’s inaugural year;
Charlotte Brynn, a 45-year-old New Zealander now living in Stowe, VT who recently took first place among the women in the historic 8-mile Boston Light Swim;
Jennifer Dutton, 42, of Wayland, MA who hails from northern Vermont and has completed a number of long-distance swims in Lakes Champlain and Memphrémagog;
David Dammerman, 42, of Saratoga Springs, NY, the 2011 winner of the 10-mile Kingdom swim.

Relay swimmers include Alison Meehan, 39 of Elkton, MD and Shannon Keegan, 36, of Derby VT who will each swim half of the 26-mile course. All swimmers will be supported by a fleet of kayakers, boaters, and other crew volunteers who will watch for dangers on the course and feed the swimmers at pre-designated intervals. The event will take between 11 and 15 hours for each swimmer to complete. All participants have previously taken part in the annual Kingdom Swim event.

White and Howley hope to turn the “In Search of Memphré Tour” into an annual event organized by NEKOWSA. “With any luck, we will have a successful swim this weekend and be able to offer this experience to other swimmers in the coming years. It’s a wonderful way to pay tribute to one of America’s cleanest, most beautiful waterways while having fun and helping out an important local charity,” Howley says. “I hope I see the lake creature, Memphré, out there!"

In addition to raising funds for IROC, the “In Search of Memphré Tour” is intended to “reopen” the border between the U.S. and Canada. Up until about 15 years ago, FINA— the international governing body of swimming— ran an annual, professional open water race in Lake Memphrémagog that followed this same course. In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the border has only become increasingly more difficult to cross, and the La Traversée Internationale du Lac Memphrémagog swim completely died out.

“While respectful of all of the efforts at the border to detect and deter terrorist activities, the swimmers have joined together to make a simple statement that the border should remain truly open,” says race director, Phil White. “International travel should be encouraged, not discouraged, with our Canadian friends. We hope to promote peace with this swim,” he says.

The swim will begin at midnight on Saturday morning, September 10th and should conclude between 11 am and 3 pm on Saturday afternoon. Depending on conditions, swimmers will swim north from Newport to Magog and will follow English Channel rules. They will not wear wetsuits and the water temperature is expected to be between 60 and 65 degrees.

For more information about the swim or the swimmers, please visit our website. Complete bios of each participant are available on our website or as a PDF attachment.

Donations in support of the expedition and IROC can be made online at IROCs website.
In Search of Memphré is being conducted with the support of Barbara Malloy.

www.insearchofmemphre.com

Press from Rockland 2011

2011-08-30T10:02:00.002-04:00

Ok, this is just hilarious...
http://knox.villagesoup.com/sports/story/hardy-swimmers-take-pre-hurricane-dip-in-penobscot-bay/438989

Thanks for another wonderful event, Pen-Bay Masters! Rockland is by far my favorite race and I can't wait to come back up again next summer.

Back to life and swimming as summer slips away

2011-08-29T19:03:00.002-04:00

So the results posting about the 50/50 is very long overdue. And I will post info here about that swim, it's just been difficult to get to between the recovery, usual busy-ness, and the fact that the swim didn't go exactly as I had hoped. In the meanwhile, you can read about my experience in the 50-miler via an article I wrote for espnW about it. This was a tough story to write, and more will follow. Eventually. Photos and all the gory details. Perhaps on a cool fall evening when I am feeling more introspective than I am at the moment.

Right now, though, I am very excited to report the next swim is looming large. In less than two weeks, I'll be part of a group of 12 swimmers traversing the 26-mile length of Lake Memphremagog between Newport, Vermont and Magog, Quebec, Canada. We are going in search of the Lake Monster, Memphre, and hoping to reestablish an annual international swim in that amazing lake up north. More info is available on our website.

This coming Thursday, 9/1, Greg, Jen and I will be hosting a fundraising party for the In Search of Memphre Tour at the Dudley Chateau in Wayland. Festivities start at 6 and go til whenever. We'll be raffling off stuff, making merry, and generally having a good time to help suppore IROC, the amazing facility in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont that this event supports. Come join us!

This past weekend was the annual 3.2-mile Rockland Breakwater Swim. I had an amazing time up there as per usual. More details to follow. Hurricane Irene tried her best to thwart the swim this weekend, but she did not succeed, and I won the women's non-wetsuit event. The weekend prior to that was the Lake Willoughby 4.75-mile swim in Lake Willoughby, Vermont. Another awesome swim in a goregous, clean lake. Can't wait to get back up north soon.

Now, though, it's time to get the fundraising stuff done and get prepare for the Memphre swim. If you want to donate to the cause, please check us out online. Every dollar helps! Thanks for your support!

50/50 Begins Tomorrow!

2011-07-08T22:12:00.001-04:00

T-Minus 11 hours and counting...
This will be a decidedly short post. We have loaded up the boats, briefed on the feeding schedules, and learned about the technology. We are ready to swim!

I will be jumping off the dock at Chelo's Waterfront Restaurant tomorrow at 9am sharp to start my 50-mile journey to the bottom of Narragansett Bay and back. I hope to be back at Chelo's sometime between 10am and 4pm on Sunday.

My dear friend Tom from Peace Corps is in town to support me in this endeavor and he will be such an awesome crew chief. I'll be missing Mark as he's in class this weekend, but in addition to Tom, I've also got Joe, Lou and Caroline to look after me, so I will be well cared for.

It's getting late, so I should hit the hay to get some rest, as there won't be any sleep out there in the bay tomorrow night.

One last word of thanks to everyone who has donated. We are completely overwhelmed and humbled by the response. THANK YOU! I know Rachel is looking down with pride right now.

50/50 Swim Update

2011-06-28T10:33:00.001-04:00

Wow, with less than 2 weeks to go until the big day, I am thrilled to report that we have had just the most amazing response to our pleas for donations for the 50/50 Swim Challenge. All 50 of the 1-mile sponsorships have been sold, and more requests are coming in every day, so we've started doubling up sponsors and dedications on the miles. Can we hit 100, 1-mile sponsorships? That would be incredible and quite fitting; seeing that with both Ray and I will be swimming 50 miles each, 100 miles will be covered on July 9th and 10th.

THANK YOU SO MUCH TO ALL OUR SPONSORS AND DONORS!

The outpouring of support has been incredible and the stories we're recieving of the people we're swimming in memory and honor of are heart-breaking, hopeful, and truly inspirational. It will be these stories that get us through the darkest parts of the swim and those most difficult last few miles.

We've also been lucky to land a heck of an awesome start and finish location. We'll be launching and coming home to Chelo's Waterfront Restaurant in Warwick, RI. It's in Brewer's Marina (seems fitting) and is a lively, seaside restaurant that reminds me of several of the places I used to haunt when I lived on Long Beach Island at the Jersey Shore. We stopped by on Friday evening to check it out and strategize with the pilots-- Rich and Joe-- and the venue couldn't be more perfect. I am tempted to make a dinner reservation for me and my crew on Sunday evening at about 4pm so that there will be a table waiting for us! But, if I'm slow on Sunday and get back after 8pm (I hope I'm not THAT slow, but who knows what will happen to me after about 40 miles...) chances are good there will be a live band playing on the patio at the restaurant. If there is a band playing when I arrive back on terra firm and I'm at all coherent, I can guarantee that I will be headed directly up on stage to join them in my swimsuit. And that's a swimming fact. ;-)

Surveying the start and finish location with Ray, Caroline and the pilots, Joe and Rich. They are pointing to a buoy that I couldn't quite make out but is apparently vitally important to the course. I will just follow the boat and go where they tell me to go. The less I know about the markers we have to hit, the better, I think. As they say, just keep swimming!

Phillie Phanatic OK after Foul Ball Incident

2011-06-27T09:44:00.000-04:00

All great bodies of water aside, one day becoming the Phillie Phanatic is still my greatest aspiration in life.

That swoon into the lap of a bystander at the end is sheer comedy gold.

"So if this is what you want to be when you grow up, what are you doing to get there?" you might ask. Well, nothing really. I flirted with being the bulldog mascott in high school, but that conflicted with, surprisingly enough, swim practice, so was a non-starter. Same thing in college. And since then, I have set foot in a minor league ball park a sum total of two times, and not to interview for the mascot position, but rather to watch a game.

But hope springs eternal. Perhaps someday the mascot gods will smile on me and I will in fact end up as the Phillie Phanatic. Until then, whoever inhabits this costume is a hilarious master of pantomime. Nicely played Mr. Phanatic!

It's Food O'Clock!

2011-05-29T23:14:00.000-04:00

We have this cat, except she eats plastic instead of carpet fibers.

Quick update on swim things. Two ocean swims in the past two weeks. Water's been right around 54/55 and I did nearly an hour today, so the acclimation is going very well. We are making a lot of headway in our fundraising efforts for July's 50-mile 50/50 Swim Challenge. The mile sponsorships and dedications are going quickly thanks to about two dozen amazing supporters.

Thank you to all our sponsors and donors!

I'll be posting more detailed information on how you can get involved in the coming days (now that summer is officially here- forecast is for sunny and 86 tomorrow. So much for spring in Boston!). In the meanwhile, check out our website here and pass it on to friends and family who might be interested. We're really just trying to get the word out about this incredible challenge and opportunity we have before us.

More soon...

Freezing my butt off on Captain Joe's boat in Narragansett Bay last weekend. Ray's cool as a cucumber, surveying the near lake-like conditions in the lee side of Prudence island. It was so calm, two swans were paddling around us as we did laps between the boat and a rock about 500 yards away. Good times!

espnW and the 50/50 Challenge

2011-05-09T22:16:00.001-04:00

Last week was a good one. I had two articles go up on espnW, an online publication of ESPN that's geared for women. The first was one about women's Olympic swimming and the second was about polo. No, not water polo, the horse kind. I had to learn a lot for that one and had a blast getting to know Sunny Hale and the sport. Exciting and awesome stuff. I had also done a story about Iditarod back in March for them as well, which was great, too. Hopefully, there will be many more articles to come!

Update on this summer's big swim event: the 50/50 Challenge. It's a unique 50-mile swim in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island for Leukemia research. We are hoping to set four world records. No wetsuits, two solo swimmers, one great cause, and 50 long miles over which to challenge ourselves and see what we're made of. Yep, it's real and it's happening this summer!

The website is up, and we've got most of the big logistics worked out. The best tides of the summer will be on July 9th, so it looks like we'll be starting on that Saturday morning and swimming 25-30 hours into mid-day on Sunday, July 10th. We're getting started on fundraising, so look for more information soon. In the meanwhile, visit our website for more info and to donate to the cause!

Inside the Octopus' Aquarium

2011-05-07T20:25:00.002-04:00

Too bad it's just an advertisement, but it's funny all the same.

Meditation Study

2011-04-24T22:06:00.000-04:00

Mark sent me this BBC article about brain scans of Buddhist monks being conducted to ascertain what happens while they are meditating. This was the first time I've read this kind of description of what happens when someone is meditating, and it sounds a lot like what I do when I'm swimming. But only after I've been out there for a very long time and have exhausted a lot of the other topics of internal conversation such as, "when's the next feed?" or "what's my stroke count?" or "I hope Mark's not getting seasick!"

Below is the section of the piece that I found most interesting-- the concept that during meditation, the brain seemingly focuses on both internal and external stimuli at once. This says to me that something like physically trying not to drown while daydreaming about a burger and beer at the end of the swim might actually qualify as a meditative state. Who knew?

"The default network churns when people reflect on matters that involve themselves and their emotions.The extrinsic portion of the brain becomes active when individuals are focused on external tasks, like playing sports or pouring a cup of coffee.

"But the networks are rarely fully active at the same time. And like a seesaw, when one rises, the other one dips down.

"This neural set-up allows individuals to concentrate more easily on one task at any given time, without being consumed by distractions like daydreaming.

"Dr Josipovic has found that some Buddhist monks and other experienced meditators have the ability to keep both neural networks active at the same time during meditation - that is to say, they have found a way to lift both sides of the seesaw simultaneously.

"And Dr Josipovic believes this ability to churn both the internal and external networks in the brain concurrently may lead the monks to experience a harmonious feeling of oneness with their environment."

While I don't know that I'd say I feel "one" or "harmonious" with my environment when I'm in the middle of a long swim, I am focused on both internal factors-- "how am I feeling emotionally?" as well as external factors, "is that tanker going to hit us?"-- at the same time, and there is a certain whole, roundness to that state of mind where time ceases to mean much of anything. I don't know that I am meditating out there, but it is definitely a very particular state of mind. And it takes a while to get there. This is why the first couple hours of a long swim typically suck while I'm still very much focused on internal factors. But that usually subsides once I get into a rythmn and my mind relaxes. That's when long-distance open water swimming gets fun and I can dig in and get to the other side.

This stuff really is mostly mental. As am I, or so Mark tells me with some regularity!

International Women's Day

2011-03-08T17:16:00.001-05:00

Happy International Women's Day!

I first learned of this day when I was living in Ukraine, where it is actually celebrated. It seems few people know about or notice the day here in the states, but I did come across an interesting short film today starring Daniel Craig (in drag) and Dame Judi Dench that points out some of the ongoing issues facing women in the world today. Intersting stuff. If you haven't already, go hug a woman today!

The Great Vegan Experiment...

2011-03-07T23:42:00.002-05:00

...is off to a good start. I'm almost a week in, and so far, I have only had one new item I didn't care for: key lime soy yogurt. I've tried out a bunch of new recipes that have been good- very different from what I typically eat, but tasty and wholesome. (I'll post some of the better recipes when I get a chance soon.)

I'm finding the regimen relatively easy to follow and I haven't yet had any weird cravings. Unlike other diets I've followed in the past, the goal of this experiment is not to lose weight but to try it out, see how it feels, learn how it impacts my swimming performance, and decide whether or not it's a lifestyle I could take on-- all in the name of research. I think having a reason for doing it outside of myself is making it easier to stick to. When it's research, it's like work, so you just sort of do it. When it's just vanity, well, that's easier to talk oneself out of, I've found.

The early conclusion (after a mere 6 days) is that this new way of approaching food has not negatively impacted my swimming at all-- if anything I'm swimming better. I generally have felt 'lighter' and 'stronger' this week. I have not lost any weight, and it may just be psychosomatic, but I feel somewhat better in the water. It's hard to pin that just on food, but it's also hard to ignore that it might be a factor. I have another three weeks to go before the experiment is 'officially' over, but right now, I think going vegan isn't so bad. We'll reassess in another week.

As a side note, I was chuffed to learn that Clif Shot Blocks, a primary training and racing fuel for me, is in fact vegan, so I don't have to feel guilty about downing two sleeves of them during my 20,000 yard, 6-hour pool workout on Saturday or another sleeve of them during the 10-mile Black Cat run on Sunday (which I finished... slowly!). Horray. And yes, I need a weekend to recover from my weekend. I hobbled around the office something fierce today. But it was worth it. It was a good weekend and good prep for what's on the horizon.

I'm feeling confident that I'll be able to finish the Great Bay Half Marathon the first weekend of April and all this cross-training is really good for my swims this summer. More details to come soon. I'm working on the logistics now and don't want to jinx anything!

For now, I'm glad tomorrow is a day of rest. I need one! And the next issue of NEM News is now available online.

Haddie the Cat Plays Fetch!

2011-02-27T13:37:00.001-05:00

One of our cats has figured out how to play fetch.

Bear Dons a Wetsuit the Old-Fashioned Way

2011-02-26T22:10:00.000-05:00

My friend Dori and I have long been the two members of the Eastern Massachusetts Bear Grylls fan club--we both love Man vs. Wild and marvel at the loveliness of one Mr. Grylls, even as he is ripping flesh from dead animals to "survive" in various contrived circumstances. It's awesome TV on the Discovery Channel.

So when I noticed that Steven had posted a clip on the Daily News of Open Water Swimming about Bear, I just had to relink it here, fabulous Speedo shot and all.

I personally don't use or like wetsuits, but in dangerously cold water or survival situations, they might come in handy. That said, I think the last thing I'd ever want to do is skin a seal to make one for myself. Sheesh.

Which reminds me... I am starting a vegan experiment on Tuesday. Can I make it one whole month without consuming any meat or animal products of any type? It's research for an article I'm writing, and this ought to be interesting. I don't much like soy and have long thought a burger and milkshake were the pinnacle of fine dining. March could be a very long month. Stay tuned as the adventure unfolds!

Winter Swimming

2011-02-23T20:35:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, I missed the February Polar Plunge this past weekend because we were in Maine celebrating our third anniversary (time flies when you're having fun!). But I came across this tidbit of awesomeness online today that sort of makes up for missing the dip. I may be nuts, but I'm not this nuts... all the same, it's a very impressive skill!

In Roars February

2011-02-03T10:34:00.000-05:00

In light of the fact that they're calling for yet another storm on Saturday and perhaps another yet in the middle of next week, I wanted to share an editorial my mom sent to me this morning. The days are in fact getting longer, and with how quickly time flies, it will be a few blinks of an eye (and several dozen more heavy shovels-full of snow) before, slowly, the ice will melt, the lake will open, and we'll be back swimming in the ocean for more than just a quick, swear-inducing plunge.

Here's to hope, that most spring-like of emotions!

In Roars February
Published: February 2, 2011
New York Times Editorial

May is out there somewhere. We’re sure of it — tulips blooming, trees disbudding and breaking into leaf. It’s only a matter of time.

But here we are in the aftermath of a gigantic winter storm that has skidded across the country some 2,000 miles from southwest to northeast, disrupting nearly everything that weather is capable of disrupting. This has been a dangerously polymorphous storm — trailing tornadoes along its southern edge, crossing the Upper Midwest as a blizzard, and overrunning the Northeast with a wintry mix, which sounds like a snack food but is, in fact, a lethal combination of ice, snow, sleet and rain.

How many winter storms this makes so far depends on how you count them and where you’re counting. The smaller snowfalls — two or three inches at a time — feel almost parenthetical at this point, compared with the blizzard that buried Chicago on Wednesday and left record snowfalls in the southwest, closing highways and canceling nearly 20,000 flights.

The freezing rain and wind that hit New York on Wednesday was almost enough to make New Yorkers nostalgic for the relative elegance of the 19 inches of snow that fell in Central Park only a few days ago. Wednesday was as bad a day for walking as it was for driving or flying.
What February has in store no one can say. Perhaps it will test our patience and stamina yet again, and perhaps it will bring the January thaw that went missing this year. But every day that passes will erode winter little by little until spring finally comes. We know there are no just deserts in weather, but we hope the spring of 2011 turns out to be one of the glorious ones. We deserve it.

Practice Makes Perfect

2011-01-27T10:17:00.000-05:00

Perhaps sucking wind at workout is actually a good thing?

"For those on their way to greatness [in intellectual or physical endeavors], several themes regarding practice consistently come to light:
1. Practice changes your body. Researchers have recorded a constellation of physical changes (occurring in direct response to practice) in the muscles, nerves, hearts, lungs, and brains of those showing profound increases in skill level in any domain.

2. Skills are specific. Individuals becoming great at one particular skill do not serendipitously become great at other skills. Chess champions can remember hundreds of intricate chess positions in sequence but can have a perfectly ordinary memory for everything else. Physical and intellectual changes are ultraspecific responses to particular skill requirements.

3. The brain drives the brawn. Even among athletes, changes in the brain are arguably the most profound, with a vast increase in precise task knowledge, a shift from conscious analysis to intuitive thinking (saving time and energy), and elaborate self-monitoring mechanisms that allow for constant adjustments in real time.

4. Practice style is crucial. Ordinary practice, where your current skill level is simply being reinforced, is not enough to get better. It takes a special kind of practice to force your mind and body into the kind of change necessary to improve.

5. Short-term intensity cannot replace long-term commitment. Many crucial changes take place over long periods of time. Physiologically, it's impossible to become great overnight.

"Across the board, these last two variables - practice style and practice time - emerged as universal and critical. From Scrabble players to dart players to soccer players to violin players, it was observed that the uppermost achievers not only spent significantly more time in solitary study and drills, but also exhibited a consistent (and persistent) style of preparation that K. Anders Ericsson came to call 'deliberate practice.' First introduced in a 1993 Psychological Review article, the notion of deliberate practice went far beyond the simple idea of hard work. It conveyed a method of continual skill improvement. 'Deliberate practice is a very special form of activity that differs from mere experience and mindless drill,' explains Ericsson. 'Unlike playful
engagement with peers, deliberate practice is not inherently enjoyable. It... does not involve a mere execution or repetition of already attained skills but repeated attempts to reach beyond one's current level which is associated with frequent failures.'...

"In other words, it is practice that doesn't take no for an answer; practice that perseveres; the type of practice where the individual keeps raising the bar of what he or she considers success. ...

"[Take] Eleanor Maguire's 1999 brain scans of London cabbies, which revealed greatly enlarged representation in the brain region that controls spatial awareness. The same holds for any specific task being honed; the relevant brain regions adapt accordingly. ...

"[This type of practice] requires a constant self-critique, a pathological restlessness, a passion to aim consistently just beyond one's capability so that daily disappointment and failure is actually desired, and a never-ending resolve to dust oneself off and try again and again and again. ...

"The physiology of this process also requires extraordinary amounts of elapsed time - not just hours and hours of deliberate practice each day, Ericsson found, but also thousands of hours over the course of many years. Interestingly, a number of separate studies have turned up the same common number, concluding that truly outstanding skill in any domain is rarely achieved in less than ten thousand hours of practice over ten years' time (which comes to an average of three hours per day). From sublime pianists to unusually profound physicists, researchers have been very hard-pressed to find any examples of truly extraordinary performers in any field who reached the top of their game before that ten-thousand-hour mark."

Author: David Shenk
Title: The Genius in All of Us
Publisher: Doubleday
Date: Copyright 2010 by David Shenk
Pages: 53-57

January/February Issue of NEM News now available!

2011-01-11T10:51:00.003-05:00

Check out our snazzy new logo, courtesy of Jacki Hirsty!

Pearls Before Swine

2011-01-09T15:41:00.000-05:00

We've all been there at one point or another, haven't we?

Welcome 2011

2011-01-04T19:14:00.000-05:00

The polar bear plunges this past weekend were a success, though I did miss out on that much-anticipated tutu action.

On Friday, I joined some friends from Cambridge Masters Swim Club for their annual 100 X 100s New Year's Eve workout. I got thought it and managed to do them on the 1:30. That was probably my longest swim since sometime in September, so it was good to get in some yardage.

After the workout, we made our way up to Nahant for lunch at the Tides Restaurant and a quick dip in the ocean. Lots of fun. Some photos from that adventure follow.

Before...

Intrepid cold water enthusiasts line up for a dip

During...

Paul does the sexy Christmas sweater and Speedo look. It's all the rage for 2011

Death march to the sea. Next time we'll check the tide chart first. The water was so far out, it was a hike and we had to work to find water deep enough to submerge ourselves in.

After...

Not sure what was so funny, but it might have had something to do with those Speedos...

Once more with feeling!

Not so bad! Water was low 40s and the air was low 50s making for a fine end-of-year plunge. Thanks, 2010! Off to Dunkin' Donuts for a Dunkachino.

Then the following morning, we got up bright and early for the L-Street Brownies' annual plunge. Unlike last year, we actually left the house on time and got there in what should have been plenty of time to get a decent parking space, but this year since it was so warm out (air still in the low 50s and water in the 40s) thousands of "polar bears" came out of the woodwork. We parked over by Carson's Beach and walked around. It was a gorgeous morning for a plunge- no wind at all.

Trekking round the bend. I didn't even need a coat, it was so warm out.

Glassy Harbor

By the time we got to the Bathhouse, there was a line about 3 or 4 blocks long. We joined it, but feared we wouldn't be able to get in and meet up with the Tutu Team as had been the plan. It was packed. After about 30 minutes, Mark and I decided to give up, and plunged with some other renegades outside the fences.

(Not a clue how to turn this right side up, but at least you get the gist!)

Another fine plunge! Happy New Year!

Polar Bear Plunge, 2011

2010-12-28T13:59:00.000-05:00

As has become a tradition in our house, we'll be heading down to L-Street on Saturday morning bright and early for that most refreshing of all stupid things to do: Jumping into the Boston Harbor on January 1st. This year, I'm going to actually get there on time so I can plunge with my friends (missed them last year due to a hangover-induced later departure from the house that resulted in having to park about a mile away from the bath house. The plunge was all but over by the time we got there, but I went in anyway!)

This year, AMR has designed and sewn pink tulle tutus for the entire team. (This is the same AMR who when she hadn't gotten enough updates on Facebook during my English Channel swim took it upon herself to dig up the pilot's home phone number online and proceeded to call the pilot's wife to inquire as to whether or not I was OK and still out there- she's hilarious!) There are currently 12 of us slated to be on the tutu team, and we are hoping to grab the attention of one of the myriad TV cameras that will no doubt be in attendence to capture the fiasco. Below is AMR's write up of instructions for the plunge, which should give a flavor of the day and the people we're talking about here...

2011 Polar Plunge Information for the not so faint of heart…

Tom Brady models Team Tutu's 2011 Polar Bear Plunge uniform. Fetching!

Literally, your heart will skip a beat,

And then the beat goes on….on and on and on…

Grand dame of the event coordination: Hoochie P – aka Reach or Polar Biotch – just ask her anything and she will have a smart answer.

Date: New Years Day, Saturday, 1/1/11 (that’s a lot of 1’s)

Meetup/event time: Meetup is 8:00am at REI and we carpool into Boston, but are flexible in case we need to meet earlier. Hoochie P makes that call. Actual Polar Plunge event time is usually about 10am. Generally on-site registration starts at 8am and ends at 11am.

Meet up location: REI, Framingham parking lot. We will be the only nutz there, so just park by any live bodies that you see huddling around and doing the stay warm dance while imbibing on Hoochie P’s special Malibu rum and hot chocolate medicinal potion. I will have some Baileys for the Irish in us.

Carpooling: Some of us may hang at the L Street Brownie pub for a minute or two for a celebratory drink after the plunge. So think carefully about your carpooling arrangements. ;-) We leave the carpool site at exactly the time that Hoochie P says it’s time to go.

Plunge location if you miss the carpool: Boston Centers for Youth & Family's Curley Community Center, 1663 Columbia Road in South Boston, MA 02127 Go to the K Street entrance.

Parking at the event: If you don’t carpool with an experienced plunger who knows where to park, just do what everybody else does. Park somewhere down there by the ocean.

What to bring: 1) Yourself, 2) a good attitude. 3) Stuff to drink. Alcohol preferred, after all it IS New Years. 4) A $10 bill for the Brownies. (Everyone is an L Street member for the day and you have to pay a fee and sign a waiver. You’ll get an official L Street Brownie Certificate. The fee is a donation for a benefit scholarship fund). 5) A bag with clothes to change into. A lock if you have one to put your bag in the locker room. And 6) Towel, blow dryer (or not) and toiletries for showering! That’s about it.

Before plunge: Warm clothes.

For plunge: As little amount of clothes as possible so you don’t get too cold in and out of the water. Bathing suits are customary. Or tank tops and shorts. SNEAKERS OR WATER SHOES/SANDALS ARE A MUST. You don’t want to slip on ice on the beach on your way down to the water and get carried out by a stretcher before you dive. Heh, heh. A big ole towel to wrap yourself in when you get out of the water.

After plunge: Warm clothes after the shower, especially a hat to keep your wet head warm if you opt not to blow dry your hair.

Note: Be careful not to bring a lot of money and valuables as it is a public locker room and it gets pretty crazy.

How it all works:

• We carpool and meet at the community center.

• When you get there you want to put your “stuff” in the men’s/women’s locker room.

• All you need with you at this point is your $10 bill along with a big towel and what you are wearing to jump in. (They sell T-shirts for about $20 as a memento if you want to have evidence of your soon to be earned bragging rights).

• Then you go over to register. You will be directed there by the volunteers. It will be very CROWDED. It is easy to “lose” the person standing next to you. And half the fun as well.

• After registration, you go into the gymnasium which is the plunge waiting area at the community center and look for Hoochie P – she will be the tallest girl in the room and already wearing her tutu. The guys will be gaping at her wide eyed. If you don’t see her. Just ask around for a girl with a tutu. She will be noticed.

• Then you get your tutu from me provided you have made it that far! If you get a tutu, you must jump in the water and you must get our entire head wet. Or you will never hear the end of it. I mistakenly wore a tinsel wig 2 years ago and went in the water up to my nose so as not to lose the wig. Not a good idea. I have been “paying” for that error in judgment ever since!

• Then you smile for pictures and video and start with the bragging rights already.

• Just before 10am you listen for the bagpipers, get the goose bumps and suddenly you are out the door standing on the beach getting ready to DIVE.

• Don’t be afraid. We will hold your hand!

• We get onto the beach and dive in “waves” of a hundred people or so - so that 1,000 people aren’t plunging at the same time.

• Try to stick together. ANN MARIE (NOT PAULA) WANTS TO GET ON THE NEWS THIS YEAR!

Friends/non-plungers: Friends can follow you wherever you go except when you go out the doors of the gym onto the beach. It will be hard for them to get into the waiting area at the community center but they CAN find you there if they are not travelling with you. They can also stand around on the beach and wait for you. That’s what most spectators do. If you plan to communicate to the outside world by cell phone then you need a bag to store it in inside the gymnasium. I will have a bag that the tutus will be in and will keep it in the gymnasium, but of course can’t be responsible for phones while I am plunging. I won’t be able to retrieve my bag until after I shower. It’s hard to get back into the gym after you plunge because more people are waiting their turn to get wet.

Need to read/see something about it all? Here you go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbwTOqIH_6c

http://www.examiner.com/day-trips-in-boston/ring-2011-with-boston-s-l-street-brownies-polar-bear-swim

Current list of plungers:

1. AMR, Hoochie P, Lisa D., Lyn C. + friend, Rock Star + friend, Greyhound Jen, Greg, Elaine, Captain Kick-Ass + Tommy. A perfect dozen! Tom Brady will be resting.

C U there, AMR

It promises to be a great morning and a bracing welcome to the New Year! Photos/video to come...

NEM News Nov/Dec Issue now available

2010-11-16T22:04:00.002-05:00

Monopoly

2010-10-28T09:16:00.000-04:00

I just thought this comic was really funny today, so I'm sharing my tickled funny bone.

Strength USA

2010-10-25T18:35:00.000-04:00

With just a few days left in October, I thought I should hurry up and post a link to a neat thing that happened earlier this month- I was selected as the National Athlete of the Month by StrengthUSA.com, an online fitness and endurance sport site.

Thanks for the nod, StrengthUSA!

CNN International World Sport clip now online!

2010-10-22T17:16:00.001-04:00

I finally got the CNN International World Sport clip from the producer (thanks D.E.!) and have loaded it online below. Wish I'd done something else with my hair that day, but it sure was an awesome experience! Congrats to Marcos for an amazing swim and raising awareness of a very important issue.

Congrats Edition

2010-10-19T21:32:00.000-04:00

Very big Congratulations are in order for my sister-in-law for delivering her third (!) healthy baby boy. Evan was born this past Friday weighing in at 8 pounds 10 ounces. He's gorgeous, and his two older brothers seem very pleased to have him here. Not much sweeter in this world than a brand new baby, now is there?

The boys

Congratulations also to Jef for qualifying for the Boston Marathon this past weekend. Looking forward to meeting him in person finally. And I'm also glad he didn't forget any of his gear for the big day!

Well done all around, gang. So pleased for both of you!

Back on the Boat, Catalina Channel 9/29

2010-10-03T22:04:00.002-04:00

Whales in the Catalina Channel

2010-10-03T22:04:00.001-04:00

Approaching Mainland, Catalina Channel

2010-10-03T22:04:00.000-04:00

Sunrise in the Catalina Channel

2010-10-03T22:03:00.001-04:00

Starting from Catalina Island

2010-10-03T22:02:00.000-04:00

Start of Greg's Catalina Channel Swim

2010-10-03T22:01:00.001-04:00

More photos from the swim

2010-10-03T21:33:00.002-04:00

A week in Sunny California

2010-10-03T21:29:00.001-04:00

Wow, what a crazy week it's been! Finally home now after a very busy and momentous week. I went out to California last Saturday to help crew my friend Greg O'Connor as he attempted to swim the Catalina Channel.

On the plane with Lisa and Greg

So, to begin at the beginning... on Saturday evening Greg, Lisa, (a dear friend and the other crew member -- she had helped me swim the Catalina Channel two years ago, so we were a confident crew) and I landed at LAX. Lisa's brother collected us from the airport and whisked us down to his beautiful home in Huntington Beach that would become CENTCOM for Greg's swim. We had stayed there for my swim two years ago, and it was so much fun to go back, see the Brunners again, and retrace some footsteps now that I'm on the other side of the Channel, so to speak.

On Sunday, we went to the beach early in the day. They've got this great dog beach in Huntington- there were nearly as many dogs as people hanging out on the beach, and it was fun to see so many happy, sandy, wet dogs playing. I worked out with Lisa for about an hour (she's way into Cross Fit, so against my own better judgement, I decided to try one of her workouts with the intention of then going and swimming with Greg for an hour after we were done). I managed to turn an ankle, but recovered, and finished the workout- it's still a little tender. And I probably lost about 5 pounds in sweat as it was a sunny, hot day- the first of the heatwave that descended on southern California this week. Greg decided to call it a day after an hour of swimming, so I just played in the water and body surfed a bit, then we got tacos and donuts at a Sancho's- a tiny restaurant right at the beach. The owner was so impressed by Greg's impending swim, he invited us back for a free meal after the swim. But only if he was successful.

There were lots of errands to be run and supplies to be procured. Greg's swim was scheduled to begin at midnight on the 29th, so we had to be at the marina in San Pedro to meet John Pittman and his boat, the Outrider (the same boat and pilot I hired for my swim back in 2008) at about 9pm on Tuesday night to motor out to the island. I went to work in our Orange County office in Newport Beach on Monday and Tuesday, which was great. I was so glad I got to meet everyone there and that I could support Greg without using up too much valuable vacation time that I am trying to save up for future adventures.

It was so much fun to be arriving at the marina in the dark and loading the boat this time. Whereas last time I was literally shaking and panicky, this time I was totally relaxed and really enjoying everything. It was also really good to be able to see what goes into these swims from the crew's perspective. We were busy the whole time.

Greg jumped off the boat a few minutes before midnight. The boat had gotten pretty close to the shore. Closer, anyway, than we had been when I swam. There were flying fish and some kelp, but no other signs of sea life. Greg had a great local kayaker, Beth Barnes, to help guide him into shore. She did a fabulous job guiding him for most of the siwm. Greg cut through a few patches of kelp, clambered ashore, and found a rock to bring with him. When he was ready to begin the swim, he raised his arm, waded into the water, dropped his arm, and started swimming.

And from there, it was just about making sure he was well fed and watered and that he stayed with the boat. We had no issues of any kind. All the equipment worked. We had no sea life or boat interaction. The conditions could not have been any better- the water looked like black silk and the moon was out. It truly was a beautiful night out there.

Greg lucked out and had two awesome observers aboard for his swim. as the recipient of the Dottie York Scholarship, the Federation was keenly interested in seeing that his swim went well, so they sent Linda Bamford and Carol Sing to accompany us. It was such an honor to finally get to meet Carol Sing, a swimmer I've idolized for quite some time. Turns out, she's about the nicest, most down-to-earth, and friendly person you'd ever want to meet. I really enjoyed sitting out on the deck during the wee hours chatting with her about all things Channel swimming and hearing the slap, slap, slap of Greg's arms churning towards the mainland.

Lisa napped for about an hour early on and when she came back up, I napped as well. With just two crew people, we had to strategize breaks, but it worked out fine. I wasn't nearly as exhausted as I expected I would be. It was just too much fun and so beautiful- I didn't want to miss a moment.

Around 5:30, some light started to appear in the sky, and when the sun came up fully, I was astounded at how close the mainland looked. Greg had been keeping an epic pace- averaging more than 2 nautical miles per hour every hour since the start of the swim! He was on fire and simply flying over the water. Beth, the kayaker, needed a break, so one of the boat crew suggested that rather than swim, perhaps I should kayak along with Greg, since he seemend to be in a groove and working well with the kayak. I was game, so I hopped in. Beth had warned me that the kayak was a bit tippy, but the conditions were so calm, I couldn't imagine that I'd have any issue whatsoever. And for the first 10 minutes or so I was right.

I was feeling more confident in my kayaking skills than I should have, apparently. I was trying to adjust the seat back, and then, in slow motion, I felt the kayak start rolling to the left. I tried to recover, but it was too late, and then, plop, I was in the water. It had been chilly out when I got in the kayak, so I was wearing my bathing suit (thankfully), a t-shirt, a long-sleeved t-shirt, a hoodie, yoga pants, socks, running shoes, a hat, and my glasses. I had put on a life jacket before getting in. Seemed a little ridiculous to me at the time, but as it turned out, I was glad I had it. It made swimming back to the boat nearly impossible, but at least my sneakers weren't dragging me to the bottom of the sea! I managed to get myself, the kayak, the water bottles, and the paddle back to the boat in one piece. One of the boat crew helped me claber aboard and said, "You know, if you'd wanted to swim that much, you could have just said so!" It was funny, no harm was done, no equipment lost, and we learned that I'm a much better swimmer than kayaker. Ok then! Swim I shall.

At the next feed I went back into the water as a swimmer. I had a tough time keeping up with Greg because he was swimming so flipping fast. I had to really dig deep and push to just keep up with him. I swam my butt off for an hour and a half or so, and then got back on the boat panting and famished. It was about 8am at that point, I think, and I thought about getting back in at the finish, but Greg really didn't need me, so I decided to stay on the boat and take pictures of the finish instead.

Greg landed in the same spot that I had two years previously. It's such a beautiul place there on the Rancho Palos Verde coast next to a big, old cave. The kelp wasn't too bad- patchy and he had no trouble powering through it. The tide was rather high and there was a nasty bit of shorebreak coming in on those big, smooth rocks. Greg got tossed once or twice in the waves, and sustained a few scratches, but managed to get out and onto dryland without too much incident. He finished in 9 hours, 26 minutes, 38 seconds, handily beating his goal time of 9:30. What a rock star!

Once he'd found a rock to bring with him back to the boat, Greg found a relatively safe place to enter the water and he swam back out to us. He got all wrapped up, and we motored back to the marina, where we had a cooler with beers on ice waiting for us in the back of the truck. We had a great time drinking a beer at the marina while letting the success of the swim absorb into us. What a great day.

Lunch at the San Pedro Brewery with the pilot, John Pittman, and his wife, and then back to the Brunners for more beers, naps, showers, and some pool time. I got up early the next morning and caught the commuter rail into downtown LA and worked from our office there yesterday and today. Again, a great opportunity to meet more people and see how the other offices work. Last night, Alexis, the LA office marketer, and I hit the town, starting with cocktails on the rooftop of the Standard (I suspect it's a sister hotel to the Eastern Standard in Boston, but am not sure) then had a fabulous dinner at Botega Louie. There, we met a lovely Italian couple on their honeymoon and the four of us went on to an Irish pub across the way for a nightcap. They barely spoke English, and neither of us speaks Italian, but it worked out thanks to our smartphones adn Google Translation and we had a great time.

It's been a busy, eventful, and successful week, and I'm just so dang proud of Greg and what a beautiful swim he had. I was so glad I could be a part of it. I'm looking forward to crewing him at MIMS next summer, since that's what this Catalina swim was really all about- qualifying to do MIMS next year.

Congratulations, Greg, and thanks to Carol Sing, Linda Bamford, John Pittman and crew, Lisa, the Brunners, and everyone else who made the swim possible. Many wonderful memories were created this week!

Special Double Issue of NEM News (September/October 2010) Now Available

2010-10-01T15:07:00.000-04:00

Below is the current edition of NEM News. Enjoy!

Check out CNN International World Sport tonight!

2010-09-16T10:18:00.000-04:00

So here was a lucky bit of unexpected fun yesterday-- I was asked by a producer for CNN International's World Sport program to provide some perspective on a marathon swim happening today.If you haven't heard about the swim yet, it's an extraordinary undertaking by Marcos Diaz of the Dominican Republic. He's swimming on five continents, to raise awareness of poverty and hunger, and the fifth and final stage of the swim will take place today when he swims from the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor to the United Nations Building, a lovely stretch of water that I've been lucky enough to swim twice now. More info about Marcos, his swim, and his cause is available here.

I was told the piece would likely air this evening at 5:30pm on the World Sport show, which runs four times daily on CNN International (that's 105 on our Verizon box here in Waltham, MA). I reckon the piece will run a cycle, meaning that it may show up on the 11pm show tonight as well as the 6:30 and 11:00 am shows tomorrow. Wouldn't that be neat? I hope they post a clip online, too. If so, I will link to it in a future post.

Making the spot was such a nifty experience. I got to chat with Terry Baddoo via an ear bud in my left ear and a microphone pinned to my sweater, which I was trying hard not to dislodge when I got talking and started waving my hands around as I tend to do (one of the [many] perils of being from New Jersey, I suppose). It was a nice treat that Terry asked me about my swimming and why I do it, how I train, and a many other questions I often get when people find out what I spend so much time and energy doing. (I love talking about swimming and my journey to open water.) Terry also mentioned the Seven Summits, a goal I have had at the back of my mind for a while now but hadn't really come clean about openly. But there you go, might as well let the world know, swimming the "Ocean's Seven" is a goal I'd like to achieve some day. I am hoping that I can make Gibraltar happen next summer, but we've got some logistics to sort out first, and, of course, the training... always the training!

Anyway, I hope that this little windfall of exposure helps the sport of open water swimming and that I didn't sound too ridiculous on camera. It was a lot of fun and I hope to be able to contribute again sometime. (If any potential sponsors are reading this as a result of seeing the spot, thanks for stopping by and PLEASE get in touch!)

Cheers, and thanks Terry, CNN, and Dennis in Atlanta for finding me and giving me the opportunity to participate! What a thrill!

Marcos Diaz at the start of one of his Across the Continents Swims.

Lewis Pugh Gets Frazzed

2010-09-07T20:50:00.000-04:00

I love that extreme, arctic swimming is getting exposure like this in newspapers around the country. Thanks, Jef!

We've been up to some Major Mischief in the Boston Harbor... so says Phil!

2010-08-17T20:14:00.000-04:00

This past Thursday was one of the neatest days I've had in recent memory. Last year after I finished the Channel, lots of people asked me, "What's next?" and "So, how do you top that?" Well, at the time, I had no idea that a double Boston Light swim might be in the cards, but here I am just over a year later the record holder for fastest double Boston Light Swim. Well, co-holder. Greg and I did it together, going stroke for stroke out to our beloved lighthouse and back in 7 hours, 7 minutes and 48 seconds. That bests Jim Doty's record set in September 1969 of 9:30 by 2 hours and 23 minutes. WOW! We really had no idea that we'd be able to do it that quickly.

It all started out with a casual conversation. Greg mentioned that he had been reading about the history of the Boston Light Swim (he took over the race director position for the annual 8-mile swim that started my long-distance open water swimming career) and that he was interested in possibly doing a "double," an out-and-back of the annual course, a 16-mile swim that had been done just 4 times before.

So I asked him if he wanted company on the swim, and before we knew it, we were planning the first tandem solo double crossing of the Boston Harbor.

Once we'd gotten a sense of which days might be best-- we wanted to be fast, so we were looking for a spring tide in August with tidal fluctuations falling at favorable times, i.e. early morning high tide to help us out to the light and then help us back at the turn before traffic and the wind picked up too much-- we started planning. About the same time I learned that WBUR, our local NPR station (90.9) is running a summer-long series on the Boston Harbor. The series is covering the history of the harbor, how Bostonians use it, and how the clean-up and redevelopment efforts have gone over the past decade or two. So, I dug up David Boeri's email address (he's a field anchor for WBUR and did a couple of the stories this summer) and told him what we were planing, and before we knew it, we had built in press coverage of the whole swim.

We did an interview and swim session with David in the Harbor about a week before the actual swim so he could put together the feature piece. Then he decided he wanted to come along on our support boat for the fun (and live updates he could do) on the day of the double. How cool is that?! A real, live, recognizable media personality wants to spend 8+ hours on a boat following me and Greg as we assuage our compulsion for swimming long distances in cold water? We were terribly excited.

So the day came and we started at about 3:40 in the morning. Ouch. I didn't get to bed until about 10:30 on Wednesday night, so I had more of a nap than a night's sleep, but was so amped, I bounded out of bed at 1:30. Greg picked us up a little after 2 and we met our boat pilot, Chris Sweeney and his boat the Ariel, at the M-Street Beach in South Boston. In the dark. At 2:30am on a Thursday. Awesomness. Best reason I can think of to get up too early and then miss work!

It took us a little while to get sorted out, but once we did, we were off. I wore ineffectual pink glowsticks while Greg wore bight yellow ones that were easier to see. It took us about 45 minutes to get sorted out with being comfortable swimming between the boat and Mark in the kayak. We got a little too close to the tip of Thompson Island on the way out and I ended up swimming over some (barely) submerged rocks and cut my ankle, but it wasn't a major problem. Soon, the sun started coming up and as we rounded the Long Island bend, there was the most beautiful pink sunrise coming up.

A sunrise photo by David Boeri of WBUR.

It was just magic out there. I can't even describe how beautiful it was and how lucky I felt to be able to experience that. There's this unreal light coming up gradually, with this range of pinks and purples and oranges and here we are setting a little bit of Boston Harbor history.

When we got to Little Brewster Island, we stepped out briefly and said hello to Sally Snowman, the civilian lighthouse keeper. We couldn't stay long because Greg was starting to shiver and we needed to catch the tide, but we stayed long enough to pick up a rock.

Once back in the water (it was cold out there, about 59 degrees) we had just the 8-mile annual swim course left. Greg's done it twice before and I've done it three times, so we were very comfortable with the course and what came next. We dodged a few ferries on the way back, but had no major problems.

When we landed at M-Street, there was a reporter from the Boston Globe there to greet us. Pretty neat to get some much positive coverage and to have these keepsakes for the future. Below are links to the various stories online.

http://www.wbur.org/2010/08/12/harbor-swim

http://www.wbur.org/2010/08/12/boston-light-record

http://www.wbur.org/2010/08/12/light-swim-reporters-notebook

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/08/_it_started_out.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed7

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/08/13/pair_swims_boston_harbor_twice/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed5

In addition to the awesome coverage we got, David also took the video below of us swimming sometime about 2.5 or 3 hours into the swim. This might be the single coolest souvenir I've ever had from a swim. I mean, I love the rocks I've picked up on various swims, but this is the first time I've seen myself swim in open water. Nate often videos us in the pool, but it's a lot different being able to see how I swim, even just for a few seconds, after a length of time in the ocean.

So my new favorite swim? Quite possibly. What's next? I guess we'll just have to stay tuned to find out!

Record-Breaking Double Light Swim

2010-08-15T13:33:00.000-04:00

Double the fun!

2010-08-11T20:29:00.004-04:00

Tomorrow's the day! I am still up way too late packing and getting ready for tomorrow's big swim, our Boston Light Double. My friend Greg O'Connor and I are attempting to make history by smashing a 41-year-old record for the fastest 16-mile “Double” crossing of the Boston Harbor. It'll also be only the second time a woman has attempted the course and the first ever tandem solo attempt.

The course we're following is an out-and-back of the annual 8-mile Boston Light Swim race course between South Boston and the Boston Lighthouse on Little Brewster Island. We are hoping to be done in less than 8 hours.

There is a precedent for this swim. Samuel Richards was the first to complete the swim on August 18^th, 1913 in about 13 hours. On September 12^th, 1915, Charles Toth attempted to best Richards’s time but misjudged the tides, resulting in a return leg duration of more than 10 hours. Toth’s entire swim took 15 hours 48 minutes. The first woman and youngest swimmer to successfully complete the “Double” course was Charlotte Arne, a 17-year-old from Medford, MA, who successfully completed the course on September 3^rd, 1934, in a time of 13 hours 36 minutes. The current record that Greg and I would like to beat was set on September 22, 1969 by Jim Doty. Doty used to run the Boston Light Swim and is an International Swimming Hall of Fame inductee.

As with all open water swims, a lot of what happens now is out of our control. We've trained, we've planned, now we just cross our fingers and swim as hard as we can. Hopefully the weather will be good. The forecast looks perfect, but this is New England... it could change several times in the 8 or so hours we'll be out there.

The other tough part is starting in the dark. It will probably be chilly getting in at L Street at 3:15 to start the swim out to the Lighthouse. We hope to be out to Little Brewster Island by 7:15 and then back to the L-Street Bathhouse by 11:15. We're planning to get out of the water at Little Brewster but I guess that depends on where we land and how rocky it is.

The water will probably be between 58 and 65 degrees- chilly but not that bad. As the slower swimmer, I'll be setting the pace. (As a tandem solo, we will be swimming together the whole way and sharing the support boat, so we need to keep in step.) I hope I can swim fast enough that Greg doesn't have to slow down and get cold, as we definitely won't be wearing wetsuits!

Perhaps the most exciting part of this event is that it will be featured as part of WBUR’s “Looking Out on Boston Harbor” series. WBUR reporter David Boeri will be reporting live from the support boat on the morning of the swim (yes, he's getting up at stupid o'clock to accompany us on this journey!). He'll be in the boat with our crew- Fred Knight acting as official observer and   Mark who will be kayaking and feeding us. Chris Sweeney will be our pilot. We are very grateful for all the support we're getting on this swim.

Can't wait to jump in! But time for some beauty rest now...

Greg, Dori and I get in some cold water training with the L-Street

Brownies on New Year's Day 2008.

Maybe not a Round-Trip but that's a Hellova One-Way!

2010-08-09T21:12:00.003-04:00

I don't know about you, but I fully embraced the whole technologcial aspect of sports spectating this weekend. I was completely glued to my iPhone for news of my friend Dori's double English Channel crossing that got underway at about 10pm British Standard Time on Saturday night (I know, I'm terribly exciting, crashed out on the couch on a Saturday night, phone to nose...)

On the 2-year anniversary (to the day!) of her original solo crossing (completed in 10:17), Dori touched down briefly in France-- landing somewhere right near the Cap-- in 10 hours and 38 minutes. (That's REALLY fast, especially for the first leg of a double. For context, my single took just shy of 14 hours, making Dori's swim faster by an order of magnitude.) She then waded back into the water and started swimming back to England. Just 'cause it sounded like a good idea. And well, why the hell not?

Well, alas, I can't report that Dori got all the way back to England- an old shoulder injury from 2007 resurfaced about 2.5 hours into her return leg, and rather than completely destroy it, Dori and her crew made the tough decision to abort the swim and head back to port. But still, it was an incredible swim. It will likely be among the top 5 fastest swims this summer, and that's by someone who was planning to swim back to the starting line in England. Pretty amazing if you ask me.

Anyone who even attempts to make the turn on the double is truly made of something special. Hats off to Dori and her crew for an amazing swim. I am already looking forward to tracking her the next time she decides to take on the English Channel!

Dori, all sunblocked and zinced up for the start of her double English Channel swim. She started in total darkness at about 10pm and swam through 'til morning. Amazing effort and an awesome swim!

Dori's Epic Double Begins

2010-08-07T20:46:00.009-04:00

Good thing we did all that night training in the Boston Harbor!

Horray for Dori Miller! My friend and training partner (well, we trained a lot before she up and moved to Australia last year) just started her attempt at a double crossing of the English Channel. (Yes, sports fans, that's at least a 42-mile round trip swim between England and France... nuts!) She started from Dover at 10pm BST on Saturday August 7th and hopes to be back in Dover before midnight on Sunday night/Monday morning. A long, 24-hours' cold, wet slog is what she's doing today... what are you doing? Me? I'm drinking a beer and watching Shark Week while pretending I don't have 800 other things to do or that this past week was a difficult one in some ways but also incredibly awesome in others. This week was one of those weeks that, like a Channel swim, encapsulates what life is all about-- struggle, loss, uncertainty, joy, excitement, and a look to the challenges that tomorrow offers.

But this post isn't about me. I'll write about this past week at some point, but right now, I'm just so excited to be able to follow along with Dori's swim via Twitter and her blog. Her crew has already updated the news feed 4 or 5 times-- clearly Dave and Tony know that there are lots of us out here following along and waiting for all the news we can get. You can check in on her, too, by following her Twitter feed or reading her blog, Over the Bounding Main. She's swimming to raise money for the Team Fox foundation to battle Parkinson's disease, and I know she'd appreciate your support.

I should also make a special note of Dori's crew, Tony Bailey and Dave Mak, who are sacrificing lots of land-time to help her, and her pilot Chris Osmond on the Seafarer II (CS&PF). These guys are expending a lot of energy to help make Dori's dream a reality- big hats off to you, gentlemen! Dave crewed Dori on her solo one-way Channel siwm in 2008, as well as several other swims: SAS, Lake George, BLS... a whole bunch, so I know she's in very good hands. A solo swim is truly a team effort.

Go Dori! Make Massachusetts proud-- we know you will!

Me and Dori after a particularly damp Charles River swim in 2008.

After the 2008 Polar Bear Plunge with Tony B. That dip in 37 degrees couldn't have been bad training to tonight's swim.

With any luck, by this time Monday, Dori will be able to add a second entry to the wall of fame at the White Horse Inn in Dover, Kent! (Yes, she's a very fast swimmer!)

Channel-versary!

2010-08-03T19:48:00.004-04:00

Wow, how fast the time flies! I realized this morning that today is my "Channel-versary." It's been a whole year since I swam from England to France and sealed the deal on the Triple Crown. I got tired just thinking about it! I wonder where I'll be this time next year? It's been a great year, with a lot of new happenings and exciting challenges. It's nice to be able to look back with some nostalgia on that huge achievement last summer and remember all the amazing people who helped me get there and what it felt like to finally clamber ashore at Wissant.

A lot has changed over the past year. I switched jobs, I have been training really hard with an awesome pair of coaches, and my husband has been working towards the career he is so perfectly suited for it's not even funny. Yeah, things are pretty good, and it's nice to be able to sit on my laurels and pat myself on the back and think about how good I've got it. But there's still lots more to accomplish and I'm already looking forward to the next big thing and making plans for future swims all over the globe. I hope to be able to continue to have the good fortune and the strength, health, and support to take on new challenges in all areas of my life.

Along those lines, my friend Dori is getting ready to attempt a double crossing of the English Channel sometime this week. According to her blog, it's looking like it could happen on Thursday. We are all very excited for her, and perhaps a bit envious...? But mostly just so psyched for her that she's tossed her hat in the ring to become one of fewer than 25 people world-wide to accomplish this 42+ mile round trip swim between England and France that's likely to take upwards of 24 hours or more. Though she's been living in Australia for the past year, she's still a close friend (ah, technology!) and we are pulling for her to have a great swim. I know she can do it, and as with every swim she does, she'll even make it look easy. That's just how Dori does things.

As for me, patting myself on the back for my Channel-versary is all well and good, but there are in fact a few irons in the fire right now. Big news possibly breaking tomorrow. That's all I'm gonna say for now, lest I jinx anything, so those handful of you who are actually reading this, you'll just have to sit tight. But here's a clue...

Kingdom Swim 10-mile, Lake Memphremagog, Newport, VT

2010-07-27T19:58:00.006-04:00

This past weekend was the very popular 10-mile Kingdom Swim in Lake Memphremagog. I couldn't go to the race last year because it was held on the same day we were flying to England for my Channel swim, but it was definitely worth the wait.

Mark had a weekend long class that ran Friday evening, all day Saturday, and all day Sunday, so I asked my other favorite crew person-- K-Crew-- to come be my 'Yacker. It was a girl's weekend with a nice little road trip to boot.

Unfortunately, I got tied up at work on Friday afternoon and we didn't get on the road as early as we had wanted to start the nearly 4-hour drive to the most northern reaches

of Vermont. We got stuck in Friday evening rush hour traffic on 93 North, and sat in bumper to bumper traffic well into New Hampshire. We eventually stopped for dinner in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire and by the time we got back on the road, the traffic had thinned out, thankfully.

We finally rolled into town about midnight and got checked into the little motel in town. The race started at 8am the next morning, so we went directly to bed.

The race itself was so much fun. Right from the start, I felt strong and like I had a

lot of room to run, so I pushed it as hard as I could with the strategy being to go out hard and then just hang on for dear life. (It was only 10 miles, right?)

When I got to about the halfway mark, I started to pick off other swimmers left and right-- reeling in all the swimmers who went out too fast at the start and started to flag. That's always a great feeling, to cruise past other swimmers after 5 miles of hard swimming and watching them disappear behind me, becoming a little less visible with each breath.

I had a little shoulder soreness at about mile 6, but a couple Advil took care of that. And before long, we were rounding the last buoy. As is true of all my really good swims, it seemed like it was over too soon.

Khrista did an awesome job kayaking for me. She didn't have much experience, but you'd never have been able to tell. She kept me on a nice, straight line and sighted the buoys well. Feedings went very smoothly-- she's an old pro at that by now-- and everything just sort of worked. We finished in 4 hours 54 minutes and 41 seconds, a better-than 2 mph pace, and about 6 minutes under my goal time of 5 hours. I was thrilled with it.

The water could have been a few degrees cooler, but it was manageable, and the weather cooperated for the most part. It rained a little bit, but no thunder or wind, which made for a smooth, steady lake and a long, strong swim.

Hats off to the organizers of this awesome race. I do hope to get back to the Northeast Kingdom again next year for another lap around the lake.

And maybe this time I'll actually get a glimpse of the lake monster, Memphre, or maybe even just a golf ball or two.

NEM News July/August Take 2

2010-07-27T19:54:00.002-04:00

Having some difficulty posting the newest issue of NEM News. Here's trying again...

Another fine video offering from Marcy MacDonald

2010-07-20T21:06:00.001-04:00

Thanks to Marcy for putting together another awesome video of us in action in the waters around Manhattan. What a great time we had! We really enjoyed our brief stay on the police boat at the end of the race. Looking forward to our second event of the summer, the Swim Across the Sound in Bridgeport, CT on August 7th! (You can still contribute to the cause online via our Swim Across the Sound fundraising page.)

Enjoy the fabulous shots of strong swimmin' ladies and thanks for your support and generosity!

More from the Wayland 1-mile Swim

2010-07-13T20:29:00.004-04:00

A fun clipping from the Wayland Town Crier about the race last month. Me with my buddy Mark. Hope the photo is big enough to see-- I never did see the hard copy.

Spent the Weekend Underwater...

2010-07-13T19:41:00.006-04:00

This past Saturday was the first annual Nubble Light Challenge, a new 2.4 mile race out andaround Cape Needick, that runs between the mainland and the island where the Nubble Lighthouse sits. It was incredible! Heavy fog, big surf and water temperatures that couldn't have been above 50 degrees made it a really tough swim- quite possibly the hardest swim I've ever done. Yep, at just 2.4 miles, this was the race I was grateful to have survived. The awards were icing on the cake of living through it!

I managed to nab a pair of awards: a 1st in the Non-wetsuit division and a surprising 3rd place in my age group. Complete results online at CoolRunning.com.

After the race was over, I was interviewed by a local reporter about the swim. Had a great time chatting with him. The whole "wussies" comment was taken slightly out of context- I was trying to explain the two camps in Masters swimming- those who wear wetsuits and those who don't, and well, I did say it, though tongue firmly planted in cheek. I hope I didn't offend anyone- it was meant only in good fun- because anyone who even started that race, wetsuit or no, has my complete respect. It was no joke out there! Seriously, it was tough!

Congrats to all the other finishers and to the race organizers- Bob and Josh Reed- on an

excellent first outing as race directors. I was so impressed by the vast army of volunteers they had assembled and how smoothly everything went, even when the conditions wer

en't really cooperating. Is it too early to sign up again for next year?

Ok, so that was Saturday. Sunday found me swimming another 6 hour (I had done one of those last weekend up at Plum Island so that my friend Jen could get in her qualifier for the English Channel) with Greg, who's training for a Catalina Channel swim this September and Jen as well as my friend Lynn who's also doing the 10-mile Lake Memphremagog (actually, all 4 of us are doing the 10-miler in 2 weeks!). I felt fine out there at Nantasket for the first 3 hours or so, then started to get really tired and a little achy. Weirdly, my thighs had seized up a bit during the race on Saturday-- presumably form the cold-- and I was feeling that fatigue while swimming on Sunday. But we managed to get it done. Sore today, too, at workout- feeling all the crazy swimming in my left shoulder... need to keep an eye on it, but I'm pretty sure it will pass.

It was nice to be back at Plum Island and Nantasket, two of my favorite places on earth to swim.

Breaking News: Great Whites and Channel Swimmers Favor Same Water Conditions

2010-06-30T22:03:00.003-04:00

According to a story that ran in the Boston Globe yesterday, Jaws apparently favors the same water conditions as channel swimmers:

"Yesterday, Skomal said his preliminary analysis suggests that great whites spend most of their time in waters ranging from 59 to 67 degrees." (Now that sounds familiar)

“That’s a really narrow temperature range for a fish,’’ he said. “That gives us a sense of where we can expect them to hang out and how long they hang out.’’

How about 14 hours somewhere between England and France at about 62 degrees? Sounds positively delightful to the big bastard fish, I should think!

The article also explores the threat to swimmers at beaches on and near Cape Cod and finds that at the moment, there should be little cause for concern-- for most bathers. Once seal carcasses start washing up on shore, then they'll sound the alarm in earnest.

As is typical of these annual 'Shark Attack' stories, there was the standard advice to be cautious (perhaps a bit paranoid?): "Bowles encouraged beachgoers to use common sense while swimming, taking particular care to avoid splashing in waters near seal colonies."

How about an even more practical suggestion such as trying to look less like food by leaving the wetsuit at home? I'm just sayin'...

Of course, no shark post would ever really be complete without the Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus clip that leaves me in stitches every time I see it. Can't remember if I've posted it here before or not, but it's a classic...

Mind over Matter

2010-06-29T20:38:00.005-04:00

“We tend to think that we have limits that are wired-in, which we may or may not have, and we’ve reached them in some sense and as we get older we become less and less on those dimensions,” Langer said.

Interesting piece on NPR this morning about the power of positive thinking-- dubbed "mindfulness" by Harvard Psychology Professor Ellen Langer who was profiled in the piece. Her take on "mindfulness," which, based on the brief story this morning sounds like it's really just a healthy dose of doubt, fresh observation, a positive mindset, and not taking anything for granted in equal measure, rang true for me. She talked about her theories of what's essentially the power of positive thinking to reverse aging in something of a less-magical sense than what you might find in, say, The Secret. Langdon has some interesting theories that I think I agree with, even if she is going to be portrayed by Jennifer Aniston on the big screen. Who's got a little light reading ahead of her?

Article links here.

This interview made me think about my own journey over the past couple years through self-doubt, uncertainty and trying to accomplish what so many think is impossible. People often ask me how I can stand the cold water or how I can manage to not get bored during the course of a 14 hour swim, and as flip and simplistic as it may sound, the answer generally is little more than "mind over matter." Not easy to master, but a good motto to keep in mind. And while I may have had a fair bit of practice over the past two-years, I still have a lot to learn in keeping the right perspective and keeping my mind squarely in charge of my matter.

Summer Shark Sightings

2010-06-28T20:26:00.004-04:00

Apparently, MA got its first Great White sighing this past weekend. No summer would be complete without one!

It sure wasn't me, even though I did get mistaken for a shark one night while training in the Boston Harbor. Someone asked Mark, who was shadowing me along the shoreline as I swam up and back from the L-Street fence to the curve at Carson's Beach, whether that was a shark he was following. I guess sharks wear green glowsticks? Funny for him to be able to say, "No, that's my wife. She's a swimmer."

At any rate, I'm not going to let a mere 6-to-7-foot Great White keep me out of the water; I am heading up to Plum Island this weekend for a long ocean swim. My friend Jen is training for her Channel swim in August and is ready for her 6-hour qualifier. I don't know how long it's been since I was there last, but it's one of my favorite places to train.

In other news, last weekend brought the Wayland 1-Mile Swim in Lake Cochituate. Jen is also the race director for this fun event and did a great job with it. I took first in my division-- 30-39 year-old women-- and was 15th overall. Results are here. A great race in a goregeous freshwater setting if you get the chance to come out next year.

This coming weekend is also my friend Ray's 20-hour Jamestown swim. Starting at 5pm on July 2, Ray plans to circumnavigate Conacicut Island (in Rhode Island) two times and cover some 40 miles in an estimated 20-hour swim for Leukemia and Lymphoma research. He'll start at Potter's Cove and head south towards Beaver Tail and around up to the north. He's looking for a 1pm finish time on Saturday, July 3rd at Potter's Cove. If you live on the island, leave your light on to support Ray as he swims through the night. If you want to know more about the swim and Ray, check out his website.

I don't have a 20-hour swim on the docket this year, but up next is the The Nubble Light Challenge on July 10th, a brisk 2.4 mile swim around the Nubble Lighthouse in York, Maine. I can't wait! Check out the cool race video here.

MIMS 2010 Wrap up!

2010-06-15T21:26:00.006-04:00

What a whirlwind weekend- hard to believe it's over all ready! We had an awesome time swimming around the island this year. We won the 6-person relay team division, (and have I got some serious bling to prove it) and we came in 5th overall. Complete results can be found online at the MIMS site.

Thanks again to everyone who donated to the cause. We are about halfway to our summer time goal of raising $17,000 for St. Vincent's. We'll be swimming again in August at the Swim Across the Sound event in Connecticut. Hopefully we'll do just as well there!

Meet the ladies of the ChannelingCare relay

2010-06-08T21:14:00.001-04:00

Awesome video created by Marcy! Just a few more days 'til we hit the waters around the Big Apple! There's still time to donate! http://give.stvincents.org/ChannelingCARE

Swimmers hit water in July's Nubble Light Challenge | SeacoastOnline.com

2010-06-06T21:31:00.000-04:00

Swimmers hit water in July's Nubble Light Challenge | SeacoastOnline.com

Cool little article about one of my upcoming swims this summer. Can't wait for it! Mark and I got married at the Nubble Lighthouse, so it's pretty exciting to be able to swim around it, too!

There's still time to contribute!

2010-06-05T21:57:00.000-04:00

Dear Family & Friends,

My apologies if this message is reaching you again, but I figured I'd send it out one more time before the big day next week! I hope you can support me and my team in our little adventure planned for June 12th. I'll be returning to the scene of the second of my Triple Crown swims of last year- Manhattan- but this time, I'm not going to have to go it alone. Instead, I will be supported by a team of 5 other Channel Swimmers as we swim the 28.5 miles around Manhattan Island to raise money for cancer research.

The other incredibly inspirational members of my team are some of the sport's most accomplished women: Liz Fry, Marcia Cleveland, Bonnie Schwartz, Meryem Tangoren and, the ringleader, Marcy MacDonald, have all swum the cold waters of the Channel and we are hoping to best a similar men's relay team of 6 Channel swimmers in a river duel.

We are swimming on behalf of St. Vincent’s Medical Center Foundation, a charity that does great work supporting cancer patients and their families by providing medical care and assistance. Their mission is one that's close to my heart, having lost a sister to cancer many years ago as I did, and we are thrilled to be able to support St. Vincent's.

Our goal is to raise $10,000 for St. Vincent's. We need your support and ask that you give whatever amount you can. Got an extra ten bucks you can part with? That would help us reach our goal. With your help we can make a difference!

To donate, visit: http://give.stvincents.org/ChannelingCARE

Or you can mail your contribution to:
Swim Across The Sound Marathon
St. Vincent’s Medical Center Foundation
2800 Main Street
Bridgeport, CT 06606

For more information about the swim and my teammates, check out our blog here.

And thank you for your support!

St. Vincent’s is a qualified charitable organization under Section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code. (Ask your employer if they have a matching gifts program.)

Thank you and I hope all is well with you!
Elaine

Dare to dream that the Charles will someday truly be swimmable again...

2010-06-01T20:14:00.002-04:00

Mark forwarded me an article from the Boston Globe today all about swimming in the Charles. I have done the Charles River 1 mile swim twice now and have loved it both times. (It's a great race if you're looking for a real conversation starter, which is usually met with incredulous stares and inquiries as to the necessary vaccinations to avoid some horrible disease after the swim.) But it's an ongoing lament of mine that we live less than 2 blocks from the Charles, and while above the surface it looks inviting, I know it would be a terrible idea to just jump in for a workout now and again. But as the article notes, there has been improvement. Perhaps in another 15 years it'll be swimmable 90% of the time. Dare to dream, anyway!

It's time to donate to the ChannelingCARE relay!

2010-05-18T19:35:00.002-04:00

Dear Friends,

The summer heralds the start of the swim season proper, and I’m pleased to be taking part in a great swim for a great cause early on. I’m kicking off the summer in style by swimming around the Big Apple in this year’s Manhattan Island Marathon Swim on June 12th. That’s right, I’m doing it again! But this time rather than slogging through the 28.5 miles of river swimming by myself like I did last year, I’ll be swimming as part of a relay along with some other incredibly inspirational ‘Swimmy Ladies’: Liz Fry, Marcia Cleveland, Bonnie Schwartz, Meryem Tangoren and, the ringleader, Marcy MacDonald, all of whom are fellow English Channel swimmers and who have done some amazing things in the water.

We are swimming on behalf of St. Vincent’s Medical Center Foundation, a charity that does great work supporting cancer patients and their families by providing medical care and assistance. Our goal is to raise $10,000 for them. We need your support and ask that you give whatever amount you can. With your help we can make a difference!

To donate, visit: http://give.stvincents.org/ChannelingCARE

Or you can mail your contribution to:
Swim Across The Sound Marathon
St. Vincent’s Medical Center Foundation
2800 Main Street
Bridgeport, CT 06606

For more information about the swim and my teammates, check out our blog here.

And thank you for your support!

St. Vincent’s is a qualified charitable organization under Section 501(C)3 of the Internal Revenue Code. (Ask your employer if they have a matching gifts program.)

Summer 2010 starts!

2010-05-16T14:38:00.002-04:00

First day in the lake today... 62.2 degrees, swam for about 20 minutes. Perfect, sunny day and what a treat! I've really missed the lake and am so happy to be back in open water.

More details to follow this week about the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim and our fundraising efforts for the St. Vincent's Medical Center. The Channel Gals relay is getting ready to kick some booty around that island and doing it in style! Check out our team suit!

Swimmer Guy vs. Tri Girl

2010-05-05T22:54:00.001-04:00

Yes, I will be swimming 10,000 yards to train for a 25 mile swim I am doing next year...
Great video- enjoy!

I've been hacked?!

2010-04-18T11:58:00.002-04:00

Hey all-

Just quick post to say that whatever that previous "la zoete" post with the link was, it wasn't a legit post by me and I hope no one clicked on the link. Not sure whether it's a virus or not, but I've deleted it and taken other precautionary measures, so hopefully it'll end there.

Damn hackers...

Bouncy Butt...

2010-04-06T21:51:00.003-04:00

Just taking that previous post to its logical next stage...

Pearls Before Swine

Sick cats and new jobs!

2010-04-05T20:15:00.003-04:00

The last couple of weeks sure have been interesting. I've left my job of 5 years for a brand new position at a new firm doing all new things and I couldn't be more excited about it. Today was my first day and I'm exhausted, full of all kinds of questions and insecurities, but so glad that I took the plunge. I'm now doing proposal writing for Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, an engineering firm based here in Waltham (can't beat the 1.5 mile commute... I see a beach cruiser as primary means of transportation in my future!) and it's totally got its act together. I am just bowled over by what an amazing job the HR department has done to make me feel welcome and to help orient me to the firm, its culture, people, and my position. While I've only just begun, I already have very high hopes for what's to come.

In other news, our cat Hemingway has had a tough go of it in the past 2-3 weeks with some mysterious illness which has totally had him under the weather. He's got a big lump on his neck and the poor bugger had us in the kitty cat emergency room on Easter Sunday looking for some relief. The vet swears he's going to be OK, but I'm both chagrined and relieved that he's showing some interest in food... relieved because he hadn't been eating all that much in the past 2 weeks, but chagrined because the thing he seems to like the most is that dreaded English spread Marmite. I have a cat that loves Marmite. Sheesh... It tastes to me like burned poo, but Mark loves it and so does Hemingway. Apparently he found the right family after all. Hopefully he turns the corner soon!

Updates pending on the coming swim season-- (a few more of these beautiful 70+ degree sunny days strung together and we'll definitely be out in the lake soon)-- so far I'm definitely doing a brand new race on July 10th- a 2.4 mile race around the Nubble Lighthouse in York, Maine. I am very much looking forward to this race not only because I love swimming in Maine, but also because Mark and I got married there just over 2 years ago. It's a lovely place! I'm also a definite swimmer for the Kingdom Swim, a 10-mile event in Lake Memphremagog, Vermont. I have a few other swims I'm thinking about, but nothing firm just yet. More details to come...

It's all in your perspective...

2010-03-30T15:03:00.002-04:00

I thought this comic strip this morning from "Pearls Before Swine" was a great illustration of how positive thinking can turn a potential problem, i.e., a fat bottom, into a positive attribute, i.e., a superpower. Kind of like a channel swimmer's perspective on the addition of adipose tissues. It's not fat, it's an internal wetsuit! (And yes, in some ways it is a superpower! Just ask any skinny athlete who enters his first open water swim and forgets to bring a wetsuit...)

Pearls Before Swine

March/April issue of NEM News

2010-03-15T13:07:00.005-04:00

Beware the ides of march for they bring... the next issue of NEM News! Now online and at the printer, mailing ASAP. Check it out here.

Famous Frazz!

2010-03-09T18:33:00.007-05:00

It's been far too long since I updated this blog (do I start EVERY blog post that way?) and there's no real reason other than being busy and ill. I had a crazy viral thing-- whatever it is that's going around-- that saw me miss six days of work and even more days of swimming. But it looks like I'm going to live after all, and I'm slowly returning to life.

One incredibly awesome thing that happened over the past couple weeks that I've been remiss in reporting here is my first turn as the inspiration of a comic strip.

Frazz

My friend and fellow swimmer, Jef Mallett, is the author of the recently released Trizophrenia: Inside the Minds of a Triathlete and the artist behind Frazz, a nationally syndicated comic strip about a triathlete janitor at Bryson Elementary School.

Jef has become a good friend of mine-- even though we've not had the opportunity to go for a swim together just yet-- as a result of a couple fortuitous events, and the association goes back well over a year.

It all started when my swimming friend Debbie handed me a comic strip clipped out of the newspaper in December of 2008 that, surprisingly enough, was all about Masters swimming. As the editor-in-chief of NEM News, the newsletter that goes out to all 1,600 members of the New England Masters Swim Club, I am forever looking for new content to include in the newsletter, and here was someone handing me this totally relevant and funny comic strip. I just had to know how this artist knew about Masters swimming and could I print the strip in the newsletter?

So, I did some digging and learned a little more about Jef. He's not only a cartoonist, but also a columnist for Inside Triathlon and Triathlete magazines, a contributing artist for Velo News, a former professional cyclist, a blogger, and the author and illustrator of a couple books. Sounded like an interesting fellow. So I wondered if maybe, just maybe, he'd agree to an interview with me for the newsletter.

I began looking for an e-mail address for him. I looked high and low online and just couldn't seem to turn up anything that looked like a real e-mail address. I sighed heavily and looked at the strip again thinking I'd never be able to get in touch with him, and well, why would someone like that want to talk to me anyway? And that's when I noticed in the corner of one of the panels of the strip, in the tiniest of fonts, a Yahoo e-mail address. Bingo!

So I shot him an e-mail asking whether we could run the strip, and by the way, would you want to give me a few minutes of your time to talk about your swimming? I figured it was a long shot, but the answer's always "no" if you don't ask, right?

Well, lo and behold a couple weeks later I got a lovely e-mail back from Jef saying that he would be delighted to talk to me. Seriously? It's ON! We exchanged a few more messages and set up a time. And the interview knocked my socks off-- Jef was warm, funny, forthcoming, humble, and well, just a dream interview. Before I knew it, we'd been on the phone for almost an hour talking about all the neat athletic things we've done and some of the things we hope to do. Kindred spirits for sure.

During the course of the interview, I mentioned my quest to become a Triple Crown swimmer, and I guess I made an impression. I think it's so funny that both Jef and I were, apparently, somewhat starstruck by the whole thing. No wonder it was a great interview!

So then, I wrote up the article for NEM News and decided to pitch it to SWIMMER magazine, the USMS national publication of Masters swimming. Think NEM News with a lot more content and much wider reach. (Again thinking, the answer is always "no" if you don't ask-- I like that motto!) And, well, much to my surprise they loved the piece and wanted to run with it. I ended up writing two feature stories for them in 2009, and may end up writing more for future issues. Wow! Who knew a single e-mail might launch the beginnings of a real freelance career?

Jef and I have kept in touch ever since and he's been a great support in my quest to swim the Channel and whatever it is that comes next (more info on that in a future post). When he released his book in November, it wasn't long before a comp copy showed up on the doorstep, and a review in NEM News soon followed. (Favorable, of course... not because I like the guy, but simply because it was a great book that I think really hit on what it is to be an endurance athlete regardless of the sport(s) in which we compete. He made my job as reviewer easy.)

Not long after I finished his great book, Jef mentioned something about a certain comic strip that I should keep an eye out for on February 26. As it turned out, I was home sick from work that day and our Internet was down, so it was a couple days before I finally got to see the strip and Jef's blog post about it, but it was well worth the wait!

It's an incredible feeling to have anyone, especially someone with a national audience, reference you in a comic strip and a blog, especially when it's unexpected and, well, just plain flattering. Cool and awesome hardly begin to define it, and well, I'm actually left a little speechless by it all.

If that weren't unbelievable enough, then another package turns up on my doorstep yesterday--addressed from "Bryson Elementary Aquatics" to "Triple Crown Swimming." Too funny. Wouldn't you know it, Jef had been kind enough to sign the original and ship it out to me. Um, yeah... speechless. I guess it just goes to show you that there are some wonderful people out there, and this whole swimming thing is really about the journey and who you meet along the way.

Thanks, Jef, for everything-- the art, the letters, the epic friendship, and just plain "getting it!"

Channeling Care Blog Goes Live!

2010-02-08T12:55:00.003-05:00

In case you hadn't heard yet, I'm planning on swimming around Manhattan Island again this summer, but this time, rather than taking on all 28.5 miles on my own, I'm going to have a great group of English Channel swimmers swimming along with me. The 6-woman Channel Gals relay is headed to Manhattan on June 12, 2010. Look out, Big Apple!

I am humbled and excited to be swimming with some of the biggest names (and nicest ladies) in Channel swimming. My teammates are: Marcia Cleveland, Meryem Tangoran-Masood, Elizabeth Fry, Marcy MacDonald, Bonnie Schwartz, Erica Moffett, and Margaret Peterson. (There are 8 team members in total as we have two alternates in case of illness or injury.)

We are raising money for St. Vincent's Medical Center Foundation via Swim Across the Sound. St. Vincent's helps patients and families battling the burdens that cancer has forced upon them. You can check out the Channeling Care blog for more information or to donate to the cause. We have a lofty goal of $17,500 to raise, so even if you can just contribute a few bucks, every little bit helps!

Thanks and stay tuned for more details!

Age and Sports Performance

2010-01-18T13:48:00.002-05:00

I subscribe to a daily email called Delancy Place that dispenses interesting tidbits from a wide range of non-fiction sources. One day, I'll get a snippet on pirates, the next on global warming, Ghengis Khan, and today interestingly enough, a snippet from Superfreakonomics that delves into the impact birth date can have on sports performance.

I wonder if, once you get into Masters swimming, this trend reverses itself-- the whole "aging up" aspect coming into play-- or if the trend of early development is already so ingrained that there's no substantive change later in life when youth begins to become a larger aspect of performance. Just some things to think about when swimming a lot of laps...

Below is the excerpt from the book.

"If you visit the locker room of a world-class soccer team early in the calendar year, you are more likely to interrupt a birthday celebration than if you arrive later in the year. A recent tally of the British national youth leagues, for instance, shows that fully half of the players were born between January and March, with the other half spread out over the nine remaining months. On a similar German team, 52 elite players were born between January and March, with just 4 players born between October and December.

"Why such a severe birthdate bulge? Most elite athletes begin playing their sports when they are quite young. Since youth sports are organized by age, the leagues naturally impose a cutoff birthdate. The youth soccer leagues in Europe, like many such leagues, use December 31 as the cutoff date.

"Imagine now that you coach in a league for seven-year-old boys and are assessing two players. The first one (his name is Jan) was born on January 1, while the second one (his name is Tomas) was born 364 days later, on December 31. So even though they are both technically seven-year-olds, Jan is a year older than Tomas - which, at this tender age, confers substantial advantages. Jan is likely to be bigger, faster, and more mature than Tomas.

"So while you may be seeing maturity rather than raw ability, it doesn't much matter if your goal is to pick the best players for your team. It probably isn't in a coach's interest to play the scrawny younger kid who, if he only had another year of development, might be a star.

"And thus the cycle begins. Year after year, the bigger boys like Jan are selected, encouraged, and given feedback and playing time, while boys like Tomas eventually fall away. This 'relative-age effect,' as it has come to be known, is so strong in many sports that its advantages last all the way through to the professional ranks.

"K. Anders Ericsson, an enthusiastic, bearded, and burly Swede, is the ringleader of a merry band of relative-age scholars scattered across the globe. He is now a professor of psychology at Florida State University, where he uses empirical research to learn what share of talent is 'natural' and how the rest of it is acquired. His conclusion: the trait we commonly call 'raw talent' is vastly overrated. 'A lot of people believe there are some inherent limits they were born with,' he says. 'But there is surprisingly little hard evidence that anyone could attain any kind of exceptional performance without spending a lot of time perfecting it.' Or, put another way, expert performers - whether in soccer or piano playing, surgery or computer programming - are nearly always made, not born."

Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner, Superfreakonomics, William Morrow, Copyright 2009 by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner, pp. 59-61.

Jan/Feb NEM News

2010-01-08T14:49:00.001-05:00

Newest issue of NEM News is now available...

Trizophrenia: An Affliction that Saves

2010-01-08T13:39:00.005-05:00

Below is a book review I ran in NEM News for the January/Feburary issue about my friend Jef's book, Trizophrenia: Inside the Minds of a Triathlete. I loved the book, and I hope you'll enjoy the review. Check out the book- it sure doesn't disappoint!

In the several months that have passed since Frazz cartoonist and avid triathlete Jef Mallett’s swimming and triathlon accomplishments were first featured in this newsletter, (“Not Frazzled by Competition,” March 2009) he has been busy writing and drawing to produce his newest literary offering: Trizophrenia: Inside the Minds of a Triathlete.

The word “trizophrenia” (fanaticism for threes) may be a mouthful, but it’s a fairly common phenomenon among triathletes. And there’s a similar affliction rampant among swimmers, especially open water swimmers— that one where you get crazed by your sport and devote every waking moment to either preparing for a big event, eating, or plotting the next one. You know how it goes: How many times have you told a non-athlete coworker or friend that you’re planning to do a big open water race or an Ironman? Now think about how many times you’ve probably been told in response, “You’re crazy!”

For the triathletes among us, Trizophrenia may just be the best way to tell these non-believers that it’s a good kind of insanity that sure beats the alternative. The book breaks down the sometimes enigmatic ritual of triathlon into its most basic parts— not just the swimming, biking, and running parts— but also the discipline, the preparation, and the investment of both time and money that practitioners will inevitably make once hooked by the sport.

In his engaging style, Mallett tells the story of triathlon, from how it started and how it’s grown to where it’s going next. He even explains why triathlon begins with the swim, something that I always thought seemed strange, but in fact makes perfect, practical sense: “Swimming presents an exhausted athlete with the greatest potential for tragedy, so it’s good to get it out of the way while everyone’s fresh. A broad expanse of water is difficult for lifeguards and officials to patrol, so it’s best to conduct that part of the race before the pack has a chance to stretch out.” Eating and drinking is another factor and it’s also a lot faster to peel off a wetsuit than it is to try to wriggle into one once you’re already sweaty.

Scattered throughout the book are cartoons that relate directly to the text. Mallett’s style and personality shine through in both the narrative and the art, and before you realize it, he has told you the story of how he first met and fell in love with triathlon and how and why he continues with the sport today. And if you’re not careful, he’ll persuade you to take the plunge and do your first triathlon, too.

At its core, Trizophrenia is a love letter to triathlon and the happy, healthy individuals that endurance sports of any stripe allow us to become. It’s an earnest edict to embrace life itself and a guide to living the best life you can through sport... make that three sports.— Elaine Howley, NEM News Editor

Trizophrenia: Inside the Minds of a Triathle by Jef Mallett is available at Amazon.com. You can read more about him on his blog or see him in the funny papers.

2009 is Dunzo!

2009-12-31T15:12:00.003-05:00

Wow, I can't believe that 2009 is really on its way out right now, and as it's slipping away, I want to make a short post about what a great year it was for me and how much I appreciate all that everyone did to help me reach some amazing goals this year. I wish I had something pithy and insightful to say about the value of hard work, smart work, and how important it is to have such a supportive circle of friends, family, and teammates, how I couldn't have done much of anything without everyone who contributed-- whether it was financially, by swimming with me, by listening to my stories, or by just being there-- but I'm pretty much wiped out from the last few weeks with work being insane and trying to tie up all the loose ends before the end of the year. (How's that for going out with a whimper?)

At any rate, I do have some interesting things to tell about goings on that I hope are going to come together in 2010, so stay tuned. In answer to the question that I get asked so frequently, "What's next" I can now say with some degree of certainty that there will in fact be more swimming adventures ahead and I definitely will not be resting on my laurels. There's still way too much water out there in that big, beautiful planet of ours for me to even think I'm done yet.

As per last year, my "resolution" is to post more frequently and keep those handful of you who do still follow this blog better updated as to what's going on. For today though, I'm going to sign off and say Happy New Year to all and thanks for the memories, 2009. You brought some incredible highs, and a few lows, but all in all, you're a year whose memory I will cherish for a lifetime. Here's to 2010 and the many more friends who I hope to make along the way to the NEXT big adventure!

Trizophrenia Strikes!

2009-12-01T10:09:00.003-05:00

So, I just came across this interview Jef Mallett-- the artist behind the comic strip Frazz who I interviewed for NEM News and SWIMMER magazine recently-- gave to another blogger, Steve in a Speedo, about his new book, Trizophrenia: Inside the Minds of a Triathlete. And lookie there, I get a mention in question 4. Now that's cool. Jef, you are a star, plain and simple. I can only dream of doing an Ironman someday. And I think the Straits of Mackinac was an awesome swim. I would love to do it sometime!

Grab a copy of Jef's new book from Amazon. Would make the perfect X-mas gift for the favorite triathlete on your shopping list. Looking forward to reading it myself!

Florence Chadwick on WML

2009-12-01T09:42:00.004-05:00

So yesterday, I came across an article that said that Jack LaLanne, the "father of fitness" had said he would swim the Catalina Channel on his 95th birthday. Incredible! The article was a few months old, and his birthday was in September. I hadn't heard anything about it, so I did a little more digging and discovered that LaLanne was a big swimmer, having swum Alcatraz in handcuffs among several other long distance swimming stunts. (And here, all this time I thought he was just into pumping iron!)I guess we'll just have to see whether he does swim Catalina at some point in the future-- he would crush the record for the oldest swimmer by a long shot!

Then this morning I moseyed on over to the Catalina Channel Swimming Federation's Facebook page and saw that they had posted a video of Florence Chadwick's 1955 appearance on What's My Line. Pretty incredible stuff. Not only did her shoulders give her away, but the English Channel record (England to France) she had set two weeks before the taping was the exact same time I did in the Channel this summer-- 13:55 (she mentions it at 5:07 in the video). Pretty incredible, huh? To think, I did the same time as a former world record holder-- granted that was more than 50 years ago when the training, navigation, and nutrition aspects were not nearly as well established, but still, it's a neat thought. Her record is listed on the CSA website in the 1875-1959 records listing here.

I've been Examined...

2009-11-30T17:22:00.004-05:00

Karen Fair, one of our friendly Lake Cochituate swimmers, is also a writer for the Boston Examiner. She covers swimming topics, so she asked if I would tell her a little about what it's like to train for these swims without a set team as I did for so long leading up to the Channel. Many thanks to all who helped me along the way- a solo swim is indeed a team effort and everyone who trained with, followed along, or coached me made a difference.

http://www.examiner.com/x-18562-Boston-Swimming-Examiner~y2009m11d30-The-selfcoached-swimmer-Elaine-Howleys-solo-adventure

NEM News Nov/Dec issue

2009-11-10T12:01:00.001-05:00

Wow, I can now load NEM News directly into my blog thanks to Coach Nate's efforts getting the NEM News archive up and running- how cool is that? Here's the latest issue.

Neat video

2009-10-30T10:04:00.001-04:00

So this neat video was posted to the English Channel chat group yesterday. It's some of the clearest footage I've seen of a channel swim, and I love the sense of humor they kept throughout the swim. Nice one!

Sylvain Estadieu's Channel Swim from Sylvain Estadieu on Vimeo.

The First Crossing

2009-10-27T22:16:00.003-04:00

As many of you know, my husband Mark is currently working on finishing his Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education at Lesley University. He's taking a writing class this semester and his assignment for the first paper was to write a descriptive piece. He chose to write about our Catalina channel crossing, and was kind enough to let me share it with you all here. Enjoy!

The First Crossing
by Mark Howley

The scene was reminiscent of one from the many World War II films I had watched on rainy Sunday afternoons, when I was young. A powerful searchlight trained, just above the waterline, on a narrow strip of lonely pebble beach; illuminating not bunkers and machine gun nests, but washed-out glimpses of the bigger rocks, boulders and rough-hewn cliffs beyond. In this instance the task force of redoubtable commandos had been replaced by an intrepid lone swimmer, who would be facing the foe with a swimsuit and a pair of goggles, not body armor and hand grenades. Backed up by a small fishing boat’s worth of supplies and nervous anticipation. And this time the hostile territory, into which the daring raid would be launched, would be the sea and not the land. Of course, no one’s life was really in danger, (we hoped), but I was no less proud of her for that. Even though the future of world peace did not depend on the outcome, the months of personal sacrifice and preparation meant that the peace and harmony of our own little world did.

The engine quieted to a low, gurgling grumble. Like an old curmudgeon, it complained in muttered, submerged tones as it fought against the inexorable movement of the tide to hold position in the surfzone just out from the shoreline. The water frothed and churned, black like a rich Indian ink spilled over and staining the entire world, a shade-perfect match for the coal dark sky. The firmament lacked any discernable features. If any clouds or stars hung in the sky, they had disappeared, blotted out by a sharp, incandescent glare, surrounded by the halo of extra darkness created by the oversized spotlight.

This broad glow caught the thick threads of diesel smoke, its pervasive stink rising in a sluggish fog. But it never rose far or fast enough to save us from another lungful that inhabited the inside of the nose long after it had added its weight to the bucket of nausea sitting under the ribs. Just as if the same bucket were stood on the open deck, with each convulsive surge or swell, it threatens to spill or up-tip altogether.

Looking out into the enveloping murk, I spied shimmering metallic streaks dancing across the water’s surface. It took me a moment to distinguish these as distinct from the bright reflections in the ripples and see that they were flying fish that jumped and skipped like the fireflies would overland. Even though it was the first day of autumn this was Southern California, and it would be a few more weeks before the evening’s chill would help hurry people indoors.

It quickly became apparent why the fish were dancing, as a rubber-black blur cut through the foam, briefly breaking the surface and then arcing over and slipping away again just as swiftly. Imagine a big dog; a big dog in a wetsuit. A big, mean dog with no legs. There was little comical about the sea lion’s prodigious bulk, which belied its speed and graceful agility in the water as it chased down the hapless fish. As I witnessed this predator/prey interaction, I could not help but ask myself: “What chases sea lions?”

Our swimmer, the reason we were here at two minutes before midnight, was about to enter the very same water and swim throughout the night and into midmorning. She had seen the aquatic activity too, and was asking that very same question. In that crucial moment, the many months of disciplined, early morning training and building anticipation proved ironically inconsequential as the real challenge suddenly became: would she take that one decisive step off the boat and into the water, or wouldn’t she?

The only time that any of us doubted that she might not be able to do this was then. The fear of not starting crowded out the familiar and long-held fear of not finishing. Her long hesitation— standing on the swim step at the back of the boat, peering into the darkness, fear writ large across her features— clearly indicated that she shared our misgivings.

Her whoop, only half full of bravado, was swiftly muted by the splash, significant beyond its meager volume. The plunge into the cool water strewn with clinging seaweed immediately submerged any lingering uncertainty with the body’s reflexive need to surface, breath, and move. As our first marathon swim began properly, the boat would guide me, and from a kayak, I would guide the swimmer. Pushed and jostled by the waves and wake, steadily sweeping and scooping with the long paddle I moved near to keep her between the boat and me, nestled and corralled in equal measure.

After a few strokes, her fear gave way to preparation and awe at the immediacy of the enormous task ahead. That in turn was soon replaced by an athlete’s professionalism as she settled into the strong, steady, rhythmic stroke of a practiced swimmer. That beautiful, wonderful swimmer. When I had met her the summer before, she seemed so normal and well balanced and now here she was, having jumped off a perfectly good boat at midnight into the dark, chilly waters surrounding Santa Catalina Island with the aim of swimming more than twenty miles back to mainland USA! A distant smudge of warm, hazy orange marked our goal, and somewhere in that direction the sun would come up. But for now, it was still night; the night that my wife, Elaine, would swim across the Catalina Channel.

Another article

2009-10-09T20:10:00.001-04:00

http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO126491/

One more article/video form yesterday's swim.

Karen Gaffney's Boston Harbor Swim

2009-10-09T09:33:00.003-04:00

I've been a bit lax the last couple weeks with posting here, but I've got lots to share today. Yesterday, I helped out as a pace swimmer for Karen Gaffney's 8-mile Boston Light Swim. The goal was to swim the Boston Light Course, but the wind had other ideas. Gusting up to 40 miles per hour, and sustained winds of about 20 miles per hour meant that we were getting tossed around in the waves like corks. We decided to give it a try anyway, since Karen and her family had come all the way from Oregon specifically for the swim.

Karen has Down's Syndrome, and she takes on these marathon swimming challenges to prove the point that she can do anything anyone else can do, regardless of her "disability." She stands a mere 4'9" inches tall and weighs less than 100 pounds, so she's a tiny thing, but man, was she determined.

Karen's parents are very supportive of her swimming and had arranged for three boats to accompany us during the swim. We left from the Boston Harbor Yacht Club and motored out to the Boston Lighthouse on Little Brewster Island. Conditions were rough the whole way out. Whitecaps, waves 3-4 feet tall breaking in open water-- it was downright ugly. But the sun was shining and we were all ready to go, so why not give it a shot?

Chris, the kayaker, got in the water first and was immediately pushed around by the wind. He struggled to keep position in the waves for most of the swim, but he's an experienced kayaker who handled the situation beautifully. Then Karen slipped into the water. She wore a full wetsuit, a neoprene cap, and goggles. The water was 55 degrees, and being so tiny and not acclimated to water quite that cold, it was a good thing that she had on the wetsuit. I hopped in afterwards, of course not in a wetsuit because I can't stand the things, and for a moment I wondered if leaving my wetsuit at home might not have been the dumbest thing I could have done. I was gasping, shouting, and being tossed around by the chop. It took me several minutes to calm my breathing and get past the gasp reflex. In the meanwhile, I was swimming head up freestyle and trying to catch up with Karen and the kayaker. I slowly relaxed and was finally able to put my face in. Instant brain freeze. That took a few minutes to absorb, and then finally I was settling into a pace where Karen wanted me, about 10-15 feet in front of her. I found that swimming backstroke made it easier to keep an eye on her, since she wanted to be chasing me. I did a fair bit of breaststroke, too, as I dodged the waves. Once I settled in and got used to the temperature, I felt really good and smooth out there despite all the chop.

We swam along until the first feed, and that's when the danger of the situation really started to sink in. It was going to be virtually impossible to feed from the main boat as we had planned, as the boat was being pushed all around in the wind and waves. We nearly got crunched at one point by the boat as it rolled in a wave. We finally managed to grab hold of a rope hanging off one of the smaller boats that was escorting us. To make matters more tricky, it took several minutes for us to get to the boat, and that period of not swimming as fast meant that our body temperatures had dropped a bit. The cold had started to seep in. The Coast Guard boat nearby was also watching closely, and I gather that they weren't too happy with the situation, either.

We decided that the best plan of action was to hop into the small boat and motor a little further into the course to where we might get a bit more protection from the lashing wind from some of the islands. As soon as we got out of the water, though, the exposure to the wind became an even greater danger. We eventually transferred over to the larger boat and got bundled up in sweats and towels. We were both shivering.

We motored in closer to the finish line, over near Castle Island, and about an hour later, Karen and I got back in the water and swam in to the finish line. Laura Collette, another pacer and open water pro, hopped in with us for the last mile or so, and we swam into the beach at the L-Street Bathhouse. All told, we estimate we covered about 5 miles in the harbor, and while we may have missed out a few miles from the middle of the course and had to think on our feet to adjust the course to best suit the conditions, it was still an incredible swim in atrocious conditions.

As we arrived on land, there was a crowd on the beach waiting to greet us that included several photographers and writers from the Boston Herald and the Boston Globe, as well as Fox News and Channel 7 news. It was really neat. I've posted links to all the media I know about below.

Once we go into the beach, getting warm and dry was the top priority, so we headed into the bathhouse and the showers. It took a while for my feet to completely thaw out, but all-in-all I was really pleased with how I tolerated the cold water and lousy conditions. Karen handled it all like a pro, and I know it wasn't easy out there, so my hat is off to her and I am in complete awe of her capabilities and her motivation. A lot of other "fully-abled" swimmers would have taken one look at the water and said, "No way!" But Karen wasn't going to back down! What an inspiring day and a neat event to be a part of.

http://wbztv.com/local/kathy.gaffney.boston.2.1237090.html

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/10/09/woman_with_down_syndrome_gets_into_the_swim/

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1203336&format=comments#CommentsArea

http://www.katu.com/news/local/63793457.html

http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/local/woman_with_down_syndrome_swims_boston_harbor_100809

Ray's 10K Race Results

2009-09-28T17:44:00.008-04:00

This past Sunday, in the rainy wet weather, the first full weekend of fall, a hearty bunch of New Englanders took to the waters of Johnson's Pond (Flat River Reservoir) in Coventry, RI for one final open water race. And boy, were there some fast kids at this race. Two new records were set and I got left in the dust, bringing up the rear in 3 hours 20 minutes. But a good time was had by all. Below is Ray's synopsis of the race.Thanks for another great race, Ray! See you next September!

Johnson’s Pond in Coventry, RI was the site for the 3^rd annual Flat River Reservoir Champion’s Challenge. The event was held despite cool air temperatures, cold water (65 degrees), and an ongoing light rain. The weather didn’t dampen the competition as new records were set in both premier events. The smell of burgers and hot dogs, along with laughter and smiles were the staple for a fun and hearty event! Applause, yells and whistles could be heard down the lake as each contestant neared the finish buoys.

In the 10K event (6.2 miles), Seb Neumayer of MA defended the title the he won last year with a new course record of 2:31:25. Liz Mancuso, 2^nd overall bested the previous women’s record with a 2:33:36 finish. Ray Gandy of RI and Marcy MacDonald of CT came in the 3^rd and 4^th overall positions. Special recognition goes out to Becky Gagnon as she completed her longest swim to date and captured the hearts of the crowd with her determined efforts.

The 2 mile event was added this year by popular demand. Josh Sroka established the overall course record with a 50:51 time, while Lori Pugh set the women’s standard at 54:57. Al Hollenbeck came in 2^nd overall with John Dumas, Greg Hindle and Mary Phelan finishing behind Lori, to round out the top 6.

A 1 mile and 3 mile option was provided with Tom Craig and Lou Sardelli finishing 1^st in those swims.

The event raised close to $500 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of RI.

A special thank you to Al Hollenbeck and Rene Gaudet for co-hosting the event. Thanks also for support from the Wood Estates Resident’s Association, the Johnson’s Pond Civic Association and the Coventry Fire Department. Also a big thanks to all the volunteers, kayakers, timers, etc. for making this year’s event truly special.

Final results for each event are posted below:

1 Seb Neumayer *2:31:25
2 Liz Mancuso *2:33:36
3 Ray Gandy 2:35:01
4 Marcy MacDonald 2:47:39
5 Tim Morse 2:49:10
6 Kate Radville 2:55:36
7 Greg O'Connor 2:59:37
8 Elaine Kornbau Howley 3:20:07
9 Becky Gagnon 4:15:05
10 Dane Kwiatkowski 5K (3.1 miles) 1:34:00

Ray's Radio Interview

2009-09-13T12:47:00.003-04:00

Ray Gandy gets interviewed by Rhode Island's Radio Station of Record, 99.7 FM, 630 AM, interviewed by Dan Yorke. He's a superstar! http://630wpro.com/Article.asp?id=1496598&spid=18040

Here and Now Interview

2009-09-12T15:07:00.002-04:00

http://www.hereandnow.org/stand-alone-player/?fileUrl=http://www.bu.edu/wbur/storage/2009/09/hereandnow_0911.mp3&fileTitle=Full%20broadcast

Here's the link to my interview with Robin Young of NPR's Here and Now. It's a great show, but if you want to just hear me, skip to 30:25 on the time counter to listen to my very stuffy self. Enjoy!

Quick Friday post

2009-09-11T09:50:00.005-04:00

I am feeling a little under the weather today (the allergies seem to be back with a vengeance) so am taking it easy and neti potting like crazy, but wanted to put up a quick post. On Wednesday, Mark emailed me a link from the NPR radio show "Here and Now" hosted by Robin Young. She had interviewed Glenn Stout who has just released a book titled Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World. Gertrude Ederle was the first woman to ever swim the English Channel (in 1926) and a personal hero of mine who helped pave the way for what I do. I was so impressed with the interview that I emailed through the program's feedback web link and lo and behold I got an email back (that turned out to be from Robin herself!) asking if I would be willing to talk to her for the "Letters" segment at the end of the show. She called yesterday, and I had a quick 5 minute interview which was pretty exciting. The program will air on Friday at noon in the Boston area. How exciting is that? If you're outside of WBUR's range, check your local NPR station's schedule for the program's airtimes, and there will likely be a link posted to the program's web site here: http://www.hereandnow.org/ I just hope I don't sound as stuffy and breathless as I felt!

http://www.hereandnow.org/2009/09/young-woman-the-sea/ (Here's an excerpt from the book and a link to the Amazon page for it. http://www.amazon.com/Young-Woman-Sea-Conquered-Inspired/dp/0618858687

Get your EKH Triple Crown commemorative t-shirts today!

2009-09-03T16:26:00.007-04:00

On the right hand side of this blog, you'll notice a panel that connects to Zazzle, an online t-shirt and gift shop where you can make and sell your own shirts and gifts. Andrea, my awesome step-sis, decided to set up shop and sell t-shirts to commemorate my English Channel crossing and successful completion of the Triple Crown of open water swimming by designing some t-shirts and other tchotchkes and putting them up for sale for charity. (The image on the front of the shirt is a cleaned up version of the plaque Mark designed and we transferred to the ceiling of the White Horse Tavern in Dover after my swim.) If you want to show off that you know me, (and really, why wouldn't you?? ;-) ) then click on over and get yourself one of these fun tees or mugs right now! The proceeds of all sales will go directly to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America, so you can be sure that the profits are going to a worthy cause. Thanks for showing off my colors and for your support! And thanks Andrea for a great idea and the where-with-all to make it happen!

(In case the panel isn't working, you can always go to the online store through this link instead:
http://www.zazzle.com/whrath)

Sweet press in Bangor

2009-08-31T11:03:00.005-04:00

Well, back to reality here in Massachusetts, but have a little more boasting to do about our great weekend in Rockland for the Rockland Breakwater swim. As promised, here is a short synopsis of the race in Rockland.

When we got up early on Saturday, the rain had already been falling for some time, but the forecasted wind had not yet arrived. That was good news, but I called Greg to see if he knew anything about whether the race was still on or not. He was enroute from Natick and somewhere near Bath when I called at about 7:30, but had no additional information. I then called the number for Doug that was listed on the entry form and got his voice mail which said that the race was still on as planned. Good news! So Mark and I got our things together, sprinted through the enormous, tasty breakfast at the Berry Manor and hit the road for the Breakwater. As we got closer, the rain and wind were picking up.

The race check-in was soggy beyond all recognition. The path to the breakwater was all muddy puddles and the swimmers and organizers who did turn up were huddled under umbrellas and bundled up in heavy coats and ponchos. The air temp couldn't have been much over 55 and it was pouring. I checked in and got my cap. Then we had the race briefing.

The only concession made to the dreary weather was to shorten the race just a bit. Instead of rounding the end of the breakwater and doing a tiny loop on the other side of the rock jetty, we were told to touch the ramp at the lighthouse and make the turn there. It lopped off about .2 miles from each loop, so the shorter race would be roughly 1.4 miles while the longer race would clock in at roughly 2.8 miles (instead of the planned 3.2 miles). While I personally love the far side of the breakwater because it's colder and rougher, in the conditions we had on Saturday, I think it was a very wise decision to keep us on the lee side of the breakwater, which did its job beautifully. (We have a photo of the contrast in conditions between the two sides which I will post soon.)

By the time we got down to the water to begin the race, the wind had really picked up. The only place where it was tolerable was on the beach right next to the breakwater, as that totally shielded the wind. Stripping down in the rain and wind to my bathing suit was chilly, but getting into the 60 degree water was a relief- it was warmer than being on land!

The race went well. I think I did it in about 1:18:40 (at least by my watch) but because of the terrible weather, we didn't have an awards session afterwards. (All awards will be mailed and final results posted on the Maine Masters web site.) I came in just about 30 seconds or so behind Greg, which is good- he's fast, so if I'm hanging with him, all's right with the world. I felt good and strong the whole way, and dodging the lobster pot buoys was fun- a bit like a slalom course!

As soon as we finished, Mark met Greg and me at the water's edge with towels and we trudged back up to the car. The wind had increased dramatically in the hour-plus that we were swimming, so much so that it had begun to shred Mark's poncho, and little bits of bright yellow plastic ripped off and were floating in the surf.

At the car, Greg and I attempted to dry off, and were moving to get into the car when a reporter from the Bangor Daily News approached and asked if I would meet her downtown later (once we had all dried off!) to do an interview. Wow, a face-to-face interview! That's a first for me. We went back to the inn, got showered and dried off and headed to the pub, where Abby met us for the interview. It was neat- she conduced a very thorough interview and put together a great article. I'm incredibly flattered, and this is just one of those little things that make me like this race even more. I mean seriously, how cool is this? The story is the leading one on the sports web page on the Bangor Daily News web site.
http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/118327.html

So after lunch, Mark and I said goodbye to Greg who was driving right back down to Massachusetts. We poked around in some shops and tried, unsuccessfully, to stay dry. We got soaked by a car driving though a puddle on the way back to the inn. Thankfully, they had turned on the fireplace in the room, so we were able to dry our clothes and snuggle up next to the fire. We had another great dinner at In Good Company on Main Street, (http://www.yelp.com/biz/in-good-company-rockland) and then, sadly, it was Sunday and time to make our way home. But the weather was great on Sunday morning and we did a little more wandering around Rockland and went out to Owls Head Light to check out the lighthouse there. Beautiful! http://www.lighthouse.cc/owls/

Another great Rockland weekend in the rearview mirror...

Rockland Breakwater a Success

2009-08-29T18:25:00.003-04:00

Despite high winds and slashing rain this morning (not to mention the 60 degree water), the Rockland Breakwater 3.2 mile and 1.6 mile swims were a smashing success. Even Hurricane Danny couldn't keep us out of the water! More to follow soon, but I wanted to quickly post a cool story that I found when looking for the official results of the swim online. This is from a local paper and appeared on Thursday in anticipation of the event. With the weather this morning, I think it's safe to say that no one who wasn't involved with the swim was strolling along the breakwater at all, so I doubt that anyone other than the swim organizers, safety crews, and supportive onlookers saw us dodging the lobster pot buoys in the rain. All the same, another great event and wonderful, safe race hosted by the PenBay Masters swimmers. Thanks for another fabulous swim and many more fun memories. See you next summer!
http://knox.villagesoup.com/Sports/story.cfm?storyID=173408

Onward to Rockland

2009-08-28T11:25:00.003-04:00

We are getting ready to hit the road to Rockland this afternoon for my third trip to the annual Rockland Breakwater 3.2 mile swim tomorrow morning, and hoping that Hurricane Danny stays south and east of us so that the race isn't impacted. All the same, the forecast is for rain and wind in the morning, increasing throughout the day. I guess that's just all the more reason to swim fast so we can get out and get dried off with a beer in hand! Looking forward to swimming it with Greg this year, and hoping that I can keep my streak of being the top non-wetsuit entrant in the 3.2 mile swim alive again this year. (That water is probably going to be very cold this year, what with the rain and the storm coming in.) According to the NOAA buoy just south of Rockland in West Penobscot Bay, we're looking at a water temperature of 59-62, so actually, not that bad, and it could be downright comfy! http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=44033

Rockland is more than just a swim destination to us- it's where Mark and I went on our honeymoon, so we are very much looking forward to escaping for the weekend, and even if the weather doesn't cooperate, I'm sure we'll be quite comfortable snuggled up in the Berry Manor Inn and at In Good Company.

More Channel Swim Photos

2009-08-24T22:20:00.002-04:00