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The bay gives and the bay takes. This time it has given me bacterial pneumonia and has taken my ability to be well. On my last swim to Pt. Bonita, I must have inhaled bay water into my lungs. The water festered in my lungs for a few days and then took me down last Saturday. 6 days later…I am starting to feel better. This is a hard place for me to be in. Not because I am loosing training time but because I have a hard time not being in water. So, over the past 6 days, I have taken a total of 25 baths. Yep, that’s right, 25. My poor gas bill is going to be so high this month.

I am not feeling too concerned about loosing precious training time. I packed my off season with endurance building swims and dry land training. This has given me a solid foundation and it shouldn’t take me too much time to be back on my game. I just need to remind myself to take it slow.

So, I have taken a great lesson from this sickness and I give my respect to the San Francisco bay.

Please excuse the look of my blog for a little while. I am in the process of redesigning it and adding some new gadgets. It is a great way to keep myself busy while still thinking about swimming from the comfort of my bed.

Last Sunday (1/10)  I completed a swim from the Richmond San Rafael Bridge to Point Bonita. 14 miles, 50 degree water and it took me 3 hours 20 minutes. I learned a lot about myself on this swim. What I learned was how loud my inner dialog can be in my head and how that dialog can dictate how my body performs.

I started my swim by first touching the bridge and figuring out that it was smooth. I looked at the boat and gave my crew the signal to wait one minute.  I just couldn’t help it…it was going to be the best flipturn ever. I swam away from the bridge and then swam back towards it and did a flipturn and I was off.  The water was really moving from the moment I jumped in so I knew that it was going to be a nice ride out to the mighty Pacific. It only took a matter of minutes before that signature frozen smile was on my face. I giggled to myself and thought here I am back in my favorite place in the world and kept repeating the phrase “There  is no other place in the world I would rather be than right here, right now”. I felt fortunate to experience that moment of living in the present and all the stresses of  life on land were washed away and well on their way out to sea.

After I snapped back from my aqua spiritual moment and started to associate again, I began to do a body check in. Shoulders feeling good…check…hands and feet numb but feeling good….check….core holding its required temperature….check….head feeling okay…check but my brain said ” let it all go”.  So I did and I drifted off into disassociating again. It is very similar to a working meditation. Things, ideas or thoughts bubble up in my head but they just flutter past my consciousness and then dissipate. I like this place. I feel happy in this place.

The next thing I knew I was turning the corner to Raccoon Straits and realized that my swim was almost half over. I could see the Golden Gate Bridge off in the distance and I could feel the seals that had been following me for miles swimming in unison with me. I stopped to take a feeding and Naji said ” I am pretty sure those seals are asking you out on a date to the prom”  I said that I would accept their offer as long as I could wear the purple taffeta dress. Everyone laughed and I swam off with my new friends and proceeded through the straits towards the gate. It is very hard to explain what it feels like heading out to sea through the Golden Gate on a 4.1 knot ebb tide. The only analogy I can come up with is it is like being squeezed out of a tube of tooth paste.  I was just a small speck being pulled and tossed around by the pull of the ebb tide.

After crossing the opening to Sausalito I was met by a few dolphins who felt the need to escort me under the bridge. This is not the first time that this has happened to me in the same place. During a swim from Point Bonita to Aquatic Park last year, I was escorted by several porpoises that swam me under the bridge and then proceeded to swim under me and kick me before they swam off.   How lucky was I to have this experience.  Do I send some type of signal to them to join me, similar to hailing a cab? I wish I had these powers but for now I will just pretend that I do.

After crossing under the Golden Gate Bridge and doing my usual few strokes of backstroke, I realized that this is where the meat and potatoes of the swim began. The inner struggle that happened between ego and body. The inner dialog that happens between reptile brain and the more developed human brain. The part of the swim in which my body said enough is enough and my ego said keep going a little longer. I made the mistake of waving off my last feeding with about a half hour left of the swim. This left me in a state of depletion and I learned a great lesson. For my body to battle my strong ego, I must fuel the body to fulfill the egos wishes.

All in all it was a great way to start out the year. I learned a lot about myself and that is what training swims are all about. I am moving toward my ultimate goal of the year of swimming from the Farallon Islands to Aquatic Park.  No female has ever accomplished a swim from the Farallons and my mantra is “I am just the girl for the job!”

Thank you to my crew.  Naji, thank you for feeding me and fueling me with your smile. Dewey, I loved the first thing you said to me in the morning “Isn’t it a great day to be alive!” Bobby, how do I love thee…let me count the ways. As always a true team effort and I couldn’t have done any of it without you.

2010 has arrived and I am well on my way toward my swim goals. My off-season training has turned into on-season training which consists of more time in the water. I will be starting off the year with a swim from the Richmond San Rafael Bridge to Point Bonita. The north bay will be new swimming territory for me and I have a feeling that I will spend a lot of time over there in 2010. Check back after Sunday to see how it went.

Lately I have been tapping into my inner-mermaid. She will beckon you to swim anywhere in 50 degree water.

I apologize to my readers for the several month hiatus I have taken from blogging. I have spent the off season training very hard but have not written about it. Starting on the 1st of January, I will be back blogging with a vengeance. I have a very large swim goal for 2010 and I will be divulging the details as they start to fall into place.

In the mean time, I will be finishing out my incredible year of swimming with a swim from Candlestick to the Golden Gate Bridge on 12/29. All very familiar swimming territory to me now. Last year at this time I had never even tested those waters. What a difference a year makes!

My off season training regimen has been great. I am so excited to be working with my personal dry-land trainer, Doug Ingersoll, who has set me up and kept me motivated for the past few month.  A few weeks back I did a swim from Sausalito to SERC and I have never felt so strong in the water. It took me 2 hours to complete the 6+ mile swim and I approached that swim as an all out sprint for the entire time. I had a new level of stamina that I can only attribute to the time I have spent training with Doug. Just think how strong I will be feeling in a few more months.

So as we come to a close of another year, I always take the time to reflect back and look forward. As a goal minded person I can confidently say that I achieved all that I set out to do in 2009. That is the greatest gift I could ever give myself.  Let’s see what I can do about 2010.

Thank you to my readers for following my liquid adventure journey for the past year. Stay tuned to see what is next….

Peace, love and happy swimming in 2010!!!!

I took a little time off swimming last month. October 1st is my go date to get back to work. I have reorganized my training schedule and set my goals for the remainder of 2009 and all of 2010. I still need to put some pieces into place but I am thinking “California Triple Crown”.  Please realize that I am just making this up as I go. More to come…

In the meantime I was shocked to see my name on the list of open water swims of 2009 for my Tahoe Crossing. Crazy! I look at the list and I see the who’s who of open water swimming on it, then I scrolled down and holy moly my name was on it.  Check it out…

Open Water Swims of 2009

Usually after a marathon swim, swimmers take what is called a month of sin. One month…no swimming. This hasn’t happened for me. The month of sin I am talking about is, one month…no blogging. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I do have a longer story almost completed but haven’t posted it yet.  In the meantime here is an interview done by www.activereno.com. Thank you Ryan and Lis for the acknowledgment.  I am on my way to swim the Maui Channel on Saturday. Aloha.

Wednesday came and went and the entire day I was glad that I was not in the water trying to cross the lake.  Everybody at work had a look of confusion on their faces when I showed up, “what are you doing here today, aren’t you suppose to be doing your swim?” At one point I walked to the end of the pier and stood there with the wind whipping around me and smiled. It was hard to make the decision to postpone but it was the right choice.

Plan B has now been put into motion. The sunny-side of this postponement is that Plan B is actually better than Plan A. Funny how that works… I am looking forward now and have set my sights on next Wednesday August 12th.  I wanted time to allow this freakish weather to pass by. The forecast is showing for some clearing next week and warmer temperatures. It is not a high pressure moving in that I had hoped for but it may just clear enough to allow me to make an attempt.

I appreciate all of the well wishes and thumbs up I have been receiving. The town is abuzz waiting to hear the outcome from my swim and that makes me feel great. My favorite support comes from my neighbors. Dave’s amazing optimism and philosophy regarding patience and respect has been very soothing. Renee is waiting, with butter and sugar in hand, ready to bake me any treat my heart desires. The best is my neighbor John who lives down the street and has been taking an extra lap around the block so that he can slow down, roll down his window and yell “Hey, get some rest!” whenever he sees my car is home. Thank you neighbors, you are making the waiting game fun and enlightening.

As of this morning the weather is not looking to  be in my favor for my Tahoe crossing on Wednesday.

Wednesday…Breezy. Partly cloudy in the morning then becoming mostly cloudy. Highs 67 to 77. Light winds becoming southwest 15 to 20 mph with gusts up to 35 mph in the afternoon. Ridge gusts up to 50 mph.

Wednesday Night…Breezy. Mostly cloudy. Lows 40 to 50. Southwest winds 15 to 20 mph with gusts up to 35 mph decreasing to around 10 mph after midnight.

At first it hurt, I felt really bummed. Then I remembered that in every disappointment there is an opportunity. I am not sure what the opportunity is at this moment but it will become clear at some point.  I am glad that I am not in a hotel room in Dover waiting to swim the English Channel. I will still be sleeping in my own bed while I wait.

So, the window is open now and I play the waiting game. I will reorganize, refocus and reenergize. My time will come.

Stay tuned!

As I am closing in on the date for my Tahoe crossing, I began to think about the who, what, where, why and how I got here. On a swim last week, I took the entire time  to reflect on this journey. This is many, many years in the making. When I was 7 years old, my Dad took me for a bike ride on my lemon yellow Schwinn Stingray from Tahoe Keys to Camp Richardson. There was an old fashion soda fountain at the camp. Of course  he could get me to ride anywhere for ice cream, still true today. After we had our root beer float we walked down to the lake to take a look. I remember standing on the edge of the lake and making a promise to myself that I would someday return and swim across. I have lived in Tahoe now for almost 20 years. During my time here, there have been years that I think about that promise to myself constantly and years in which I never thought about it once. In that time I have married, raised two boys, lived in 9 different houses, had 2 dogs, 4 cars, battled cancer, owned a business, many jobs, many ups and many downs. The one constant in that equation is my promise to myself to attempt this feat.
Three years ago, as my boys became teenagers, I started to think about life with an empty nest. What was I going to do with myself when no one needed me to feed them, drive them, help them, guide them. What did I do with my time before I had kids? Then I remembered my dreams. Dreams of swimming Lake Tahoe, the English Channel, Catalina Channel… Dreams that I had put on hold to focus on raising two boys that quickly became young men. All of sudden I became very excited about the prospects of following these dreams.
I started out slow at first. I had an opportunity to swim while raising the boys but not on a consistent schedule. I did some open water swimming in Donner and Tahoe during the past 20 years but not to the extent that I do now. I saw an ad in our local paper about a masters group that practiced in Truckee. I went to check it out and the coach started me out on the first day in the slow lane. As soon as we started the set she moved me to the next lane over and then finally into the fast lane and made me lead. I had forgot how much fun it was to workout in the pool. I was hooked and my dreams started to become even clearer to me. The first year of training, I went to the pool 3 days per week and my goal was to complete the Trans Tahoe relay with a team of 5 people. The second year my goal was to swim the width of Lake Tahoe. I went to the pool 4 days per week and as soon as I could swim the lakes I swam everyday. My third year of training has been the most eventful. I joined the South End Rowing Club in San Francisco because my friend Trudy told me that there were other people at the club who had the same type of goals that I did. I figured that I would be able to meet people that could answer some of the questions that I had about how to accomplish this goal. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the South End felt like coming home. In the past year I have learned to swim in the bay, did an Alcatraz crossing on New Year’s day, learned that I have the ability to swim very cold water, swam under and around the Golden Gate and Bay Bridge, accomplished a swim from the Golden Gate Bridge to the San Mateo Bridge and have learned so much about myself.
On my swim last week I came to a surprising conclusion that it doesn’t matter what happens on August 5th as I am attempting to swim the length of Tahoe. It is all about the journey!

On this Father’s day I would like to tell you what my Dad has done for me in regards to swimming. First and foremost I would like to thank my entire family for the sacrifices that were made in order to have me swim at the level that I did. Sacrifices that included hardly ever taking a family vacation except if it involved a swim meet, my Mother’s endless hours in the car, either driving to swim practice or waiting for me during, my brother who cooked dinner for us nightly because my Mother was in the car. For all of this I am forever grateful.

My Father’s role during my swimming career was that of “the organizer”. He made sure that I was entered into every swim meet that I needed to attend, in a timely fashion. He dictated all of the pertinent information to my Mother, who would type all of my consolidated entry forms to be submitted. This was very unusual. When it was time for a race, you would stand at the board where the meet director would post all of these entry forms for you to take to the timers at the beginning of the race. I always felt so lucky. My consolidated entry form was always easy to spot because it was the only one typed, not handwritten. This is one small advantage I had because of the help of my Dad. I thank him for this.

When I out grew the team that I was swimming on. My Dad researched another team that would better suit my swimming ambitions. The team that they chose for me was over an hour drive from where we lived. I remember the first day that my Mother was going to drive me to my new team to try it out. My Dad had left a map that he had made for us. Similar to what you would find on Google maps today. Except he had hand drawn it, highlighted the proper path, left us notes of points of interest along the way and had given us a second course we could take home to see which one we liked best. I thank him for this.

My Dad was my archivist during my time age group swimming. To this day I still have the countless books, logs, and scrapbooks that he made in order to organize all of the information. Can you believe that I have data for every single swim I did starting at age 4. The data contains my time, place, who I swam against, where it was… it is unbelievable. He never gave up on collecting this data. My scrapbooks are complete from the time I started swimming to my last race. I thank him for this.

Recently he sent me a book that he had made for me recounting my swim from the Golden Gate Bridge to the San Mateo Bridge. It contained photos chronicling the swim, my time, who was on my crew…once again exemplifying his amazing skill at keeping track of my swimming. Most of all it showed how proud he was of me. I thank him for this.

These are just a few examples of what my Dad has done for me and my swimming. So, on this Father’s day I am thankful to my Dad for all that he has done, shown me and taught me. I only wish I was as organized as him!