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.

How Cold Is It?

After a few months of swimming from Alki with the Notorious Alki Swimmers, I've become fascinated by the issues around getting cold and warming up again. I've watched other swimmers spend 15-20 min post swim in a teeth-chattering shiver, which can't be good.  My goal has been to avoid ever getting THAT cold.

I've been reading up on hypothermia and cold water, to try to get a sense of where the limits are, how long I can stay in the water and be ok.  One thing I've noticed is that all the writing is about people ACCIDENTALLY ending up in cold water. Not those who intentionally do so!

My initial reading on hypothermia took me to the Mayo Clinic site and their list of symptoms.  What became clear, as I was reading, was that it can be hard for the person with hypothermia to recognize it, because one of the symptoms is fuzzy headedness or confusion. This is scary, so I can get this thing, and not even know I have it!

All this made me slightly anxious that I was taking a foolish risk with my swimming.  At the same time, I'm one of about 20 people who do it weekly, and many of the others stay in the water a LOT longer than I do.

So where is the line?  How will I know if I'm getting too cold?  Can I know when I'm IN the water, or will I only know with hindsight? Most websites on the topic says that hypothermia sets in when the body temperature is 95* (F) or lower. (There is mild, moderate and severe hypothermia, but I'll talk about those some other time.

My research took me to the LoneSwimmer blog, where the author has asked these questions and attempted to answer them with science.   The chart below is from that blog and provided me some comfort.

Alki is usually around 10* C. So this gives me a safe zone of just under an hour in the water, and a marginal zone of three hours.  That would expand my swim range significantly, from the current 20-25 min.

The author of LoneSwimmer also pointed me to research that shows that there is no long-term negative effect of MILD hypothermia (the author has an in depth discussion of this topic as well). This may give me permission to push a bit further.

But the question remains, am I getting hypothermia on my current swims?

So I took a thermometer with me to Alki last week.  Here's what I learned:

Before the swim (at home) temp 97.3 (yes, this is normal for me, I'm always a bit low)

Before the swim (at the beach) temp 96.8. 

After the swim (at the beach) temp 95.3.

After the swim (at home, about 45 min later) temp 97.3.

What does this all mean?  

First, I lost about a degree and a half in the water for 20 min or so (I swam to the second set of stairs, and there was little to no current). With a low "normal" body temperature, I'm not sure hypothermia, for me, will be at the precise 95 degrees. I'm guessing that it has more to do with lowering the body temp 3.6 degrees (from 98.6 to 95) then a set 95. But this is just a guess, I'd love to find research that supports it. If I could lose up to 3.5 (for rounding sake) degrees and still be ok, then a body temp as low as 93.8 would put me into the hypothermic zone. 

Second, I'm losing a half a degree just between home and the beach.  We often spend a bit of time hanging out waiting for people to gather and working up the nerve to get cold.  My body is cooling in that time. I may want to work even harder to stay warm in that phase.

Lastly, I rewarmed by the time I finished the drive home.  With no adverse effect.

For this to go from anecdote to data, I'll need to add some data points. Will continue doing the temp checks, before and after swimming for a few weeks. Stay tuned for updates. 

CSO: Or why I didn't swim this weekend

I live in Seattle and swim in Puget Sound (or Lake Washington). Recently I've been swimming most often out of Alki beach in West Seattle.

Seattle has a dirty little secret. That is, with each large rain storm, the city releases thousands of gallons of sewage into the waterways, both Puget Sound and Lake Washington.  This is done to keep the sewage from backing up into the streets when the storm drains are full.  That's, on balance, probably a good idea.

However, I don't especially like swimming in raw sewage.  And so, when the rains are heavy, I check the city website for information on if the Combined Sewage Outflows (CSOs) have fired off.  If they have, I don't swim.

Here's the chart from this weekend, with my swim point marked with an arrow:

One might argue that the CSOs near my swim site weren't dispensing, so why not swim?  Well, I once got VERY sick after a swim with that logic.  So these days, a red or yellow CSO means no swim for me.

I hope to be back this weekend.  And, as the days are getting (slightly) longer, perhaps an after-work swim will be back on the agenda soon!

Getting Warmer...

The plan for this week's swim was to "hyper warm" before the swim and see if that helped with my time in the water.  The short answer is, it did!

Here's what I did... Prior to swimming I tried to keep my body warm. This started when I got out of bed, immediately putting on sweatpants and a sweatshirt, even though the house was comfortable. Then I kept the heat up in the car on the way to the swim, and wore a puffy jacket and hat until the moment I put on my swim gear.

That's me under the arrow. You can see in the pre-swim group photo I'm still wearing my hat and coat.  I was nice and comfortable.

For the swim I wore two caps (one silicone, one latex, that's just what I had on hand) and my booties and gloves.  I swam for 25 min or so, to the second stair case. And I felt comfortable the whole time (OK, the cold side of comfortable, but still ok).

My one mistake came near the end of the swim. I started chatting with another swimmer and just gently paddling. This got me COLD.  My fingers started chilling first. I tried to make fists inside my gloves and ended up removing the gloves, which just made my fingers colder.

For the first time, I did have a small amount of the teeth chattering after the swim.  This only lasted about 30 seconds and I was able to control it.  But that is the threshold I don't want to cross. I think I would have been ok, and not had the chatters, if I'd not done the slow paddle chat and instead finished swimming. I'll know for next time!

Air Temp- 40. Water Temp- 48.

Learning about cold water

Great January 2nd swim at Alki.  Met up with the gang, got in the water, and got COLD.  Ended up feeling like my fingers were colder than I wanted them to be, so I got out. Air- 29, Water 48, time in water, about 15 min.

I've been thinking about why I got colder faster this time. It might have been the air temperature, but I'm not really sure how relevant that is when your whole body is in the water.  I think what happened can be seen in this photo.

Of the two in red sweatshirts, I'm the one on the right.  You will notice that my hands are tucked up inside my sweatshirt sleeves for the photo.  This is a sure sign that I'm feeling cold. I think I was too cold before I even got in the water.  And therefore, couldn't truly get warm from swimming.

I have a big puffy jacket that I often wear in these colder temperatures, but had realized a few weeks ago that it is so non-breathable, that the warm air from the car heater wasn't getting into it to warm me post-swim. So I left it at home. I didn't think about how it could help me pre-swim.

My goal is to try to heat my body a bit more before the swim next time, and see if that helps.  If not, I may go back to the wetsuit, so I have more time in the water.

The good news is that my fingers re-heated quickly and I maintained my fine motor skills, so I was unlikely in any real risk of frost bite. I am glad, however, that I made the decision to get out of the water when I did. The goal is always safety first!

Christmas Day Swim

Since we had the time off work, I decided to swim on December 25th.  About five of the Notorious Alki Swimmers showed up, one for the first time.  Because it was both not a work day and not a Saturday, my husband joined and took some great photos.

That's us taking a pre-swim selfie.  You can always tell the "skin" swimmers because they are still wearing street clothes in the pre-swim photo.

Then we got in.

See how I appear to be shuddering in that photo.  Yeah. It was cold. But I swam.

I actually did more face-in swimming than the last time. The water was murky, so I couldn't see much.  And the waves were stronger than they appeared.  The tide was in, so they were hitting the seawall and coming back at me. And therefore there was a bit of a "dishwasher" effect.

But it was a beautiful day to be out!!  Water, approximately 50*.  Air 39*.  Time in the water- 20 min.

Skin swim!

Open water swimmers classify swims as "wetsuit" or "skin". Skin doesn't mean nothing but skin, a swimsuit, cap and goggles are still worn, but it means no wetsuit.  My wetsuit has a hole.  I tried to patch it this week, but I couldn't get the glue to hold.  I'm going to take it to the local tri store for a "professional" patch, but that will take a week. And I still wanted to swim.  So I decided to go in skin.

My goal was simply to get in the water, with a secondary goal of swimming for 10 min.  The air was 44 and water was 50. To add to the experience, it was raining, a steady Seattle winter rain.

I met the Notorious Alki Swimmers and announced my intention to go in skin for the first time.  Two of the regulars, J and J helped me figure it out.  I was struggling to not cuss, so J suggested I just shout it out.  A yelled F*** actually helped a lot. I walked around for maybe 10 min or so, then too the plunge and started swimming, aided by another set of f.f.f.f.f.f.f.s.

I was able to swim to the first set of stairs.  Then felt like I could go further, but wanted to not push things, so turned around and swam back to the bathhouse.  When I got back I wanted a little more so did another small loop.  In the water, swimming, for about 20 min.  Was cold after, but never go the horrible shivers or trembles.

The water feels so amazing on the skin.  I'm not sure I want to swim in a wetsuit again!

Saw two sea lions as we were getting out, perfect icing on the day!