Proud to know them

One of the amazing things about the folks I swim with every weekend, the Notorious Alki Swimmers, is the diversity of skill sets and interests among us.

And yet we all love swimming in the Sound.

Three of these swimmers earned the title "Notorious" in the past week with amazing feats of endurance swimming. I am so proud to know them.

First, Melissa. Melissa swam the English Channel.  Yes. That is right.  She did this:

That's 41 MILES of swimming, in just under 17 hours. Seriously, that is a distance most people don't want to DRIVE. And she did it all, according to Channel Rules, with just a swimsuit, cap, and goggles, and with no forward motion help from her escort boat.

I watched her progress on her on-line tracker the whole way, and was cheering for her at every step.  Go read her blog post, she can describe it better than I can.  But let's just say she rocks.

Then there is Jerome and Lauren.  Jerome and Lauren swam 10.5 miles from Bremmerton to West Seattle. Jerome is the first man to complete this historic route, created by Amy Hiland in 1959. Only three women, other than Amy (and including Lauren) have completed this swim.

I was delighted to be at Alki for the end of Jerome and Lauren's swim.

And here's the thing about all three of these superstars.  They are kind, down-to-earth folks.  They support all the other swimmers and don't let their super powers go to their heads.  I'm really honored and proud to know all three of them.

What a difference two years makes!

Facebook has that delightful feature where they remind you what you posted on this day in years past.  Here's one of mine for today, from two years ago.

That's me. In a swim cap, googles, and a wet suit.  In front of the "Open Water Swimming Permitted" sign at Lake Washington. My caption says "let the season begin! easy half mile in lake Washington"

Two years ago I was still wearing a wet suit.

Two years ago I was swimming mostly in Lake Washington.

Two years ago May 9th was my "season opener".

Two years ago I could swim half a mile.

Now I swim "skin" and haven't worn the wet suit in 18 months.

Now I swim mostly in Puget Sound.

Now I swim year round, so there is no season opener.

Now an "easy" swim is a mile, or more.

It is always fun to see progress.  This is a great example of how far I've come!

Swimming farther

Last week's experiment in body temperature helped me see that I can increase my time in the water. And if I do regular temperature checks, I'll be able to push my limits and see where the threshold for too long is.  I'm sure the time to temp drop is not a linear scale, as the act of swimming generates body heat.  The harder I swim the more heat I generate.  So bigger waves or stronger current might actually help keep me warmer.

This did let me swim further this time.  I matched my "furthest" swim at Alki!  Last time I did that distance I was wearing a wetsuit. So this became my furthest swim in skin!  How far? To the third set of stairs!! How far is that? Well, a half mile.  I hope to keep pushing further.

Here's the map:

The red arrow marks the bath house where we start.  The blue arrows point out two sets of stairs, and the green arrow marks the third set, where I turned around this time.  The stairs are .1 mile, .2 mile, and .25 miles from the bath house respectively.  Making this a net .5 mile swim.

The eventual goal is to swim to the light house!

Again, the red arrow marks the bath house. The green arrow is the light house, .6 miles away from the bath house for a 1.2 mile round trip.  Since that is more than double what I'm swimming now, I will need to work up to it, not so much for distance, but for time in the water.  I was easily doing 1.5 miles or 2 miles prior to my injury last July. I don't think it would take me long to build that distance if I weren't so worried about the cold.  So I'll build slowly and see how my cold tolerance builds.