In the bay there is a buoy that South Enders affectionately refer to as the “too far out buoy.” During a club swim if you are near the too far out buoy usually one of the pilots will direct you closer in to the waterfront because..well…you are too far out. This Sunday I will be doing a training swim from what I am calling the “way, way, way too far out buoy”. This buoy is 12 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge. To be completely honest, I am not even sure where it is. The captain of my crew has the longitude and latitude coordinates and we will be sailing out to it in dark of the morning on Sunday. I have been dreaming of this swim for weeks now.

A few weeks ago, I stopped at the vista point on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge to take a look at our beautiful bay. As I stood there, I thought to myself…I have swum from there to there…there to there…there to there…looking at all of the starting and finishing points of many swims that I have done in the past year.  I realized that the bay now felt like my personal swimming pool.  It felt very small to me. Then I turned west and looked out past Point Bonita and thought, that is where I want to be.  In the wide open space of the Pacific Ocean.  I am itching for an experience of not being able to see land from the water. A feeling of complete openness and vastness. I am desiring the feeling of being eerily alone in a large body of water. I think this swim will satiate this desire.

I will be meeting my crew in Sausalito early Sunday morning (3 a.m.).  Clad in glow sticks and blinking lights, it will be a dark start,  I will be swimming in on a 4.1k flood to Aquatic Park (ultimately the sauna). It is a much bigger tide than I prefer to be swimming in.  A flood that big will create some rough conditions because that will be a large amount of water being moved around. I will just be a tiny speck in the middle of it all and that is what I want most. So, check back after Sunday to see how it went.

Every morning on my way to the pool, I always miss the light at the intersection of  Hwy 89 and Squaw Valley Rd.  This usually upsets me because I am the only car on the road and there is no reason to be stopped. Today while sitting at the light, which is obviously on a timer, I sat and stared at the Olympic torch and Olympic rings at the corner. It made me think about the athletes that live in our area and the competitive environment that I live in.  On any given day I come in contact with amazing athletes.  Just up the road from the torch is one of the best training grounds for elite winter sports athletes in the country if not the world.  Lake Tahoe has long been synonymous with the Olympic tradition. This past Olympics our home town sent close to a dozen athletes to Vancouver and we were not disappointed.  They brought home 3 silvers and 1 bronze.  That is incredible!

Just in my time at the pool the other day. I came in contact with our USA swimming coach Debbie Meyers.  Debbie won 3 gold medals in the 1968 Olympics.  That same day I shared a lane with Par Arvidsson, who won a gold medal in the 1980 Olympics.  Without  leaving the pool area I had seen 2 more locals with 4 gold medals between them.

Along with these better known Olympic athletes, my home town is brimming with adrenaline junkies and endurance sports enthusiasts.  These are the athletes that I am really in awe of.   I am not just talking about winter sports either.  Our town is a perfect training ground for world class mountain bikers, ultra marathoners, triathletes, road bikers, rock climbers, alpine climbers and I am proud to say a marathon swimmer.

A few days ago I ran into a friend at the grocery store. As I was standing there talking to her about kids, school and general Mom stuff, I realized that I was talking to a woman that had summited Everest.  Just your average Mom that does above average adventures at the top of the world, no less. This is what it is like in my home town.

So today on my swim I pondered where I fit into this place with these people. I know that my liquid adventures to most are above average but when I stand with my fellow local athletes it makes me feel average. I couldn’t think of a better way to keep a balance in my life. The bar for athletic achievement is so high here that it forces me to have my ego in check at all times.  It also reminds me to go for the gold or as I like to say Dream it! Swim it!

There is something about living in the mountains that makes a person tough, especially girls.  I am proud to say that I have lived in the mountains now for 20 winters.  Measuring the number of winters that you have lived in a mountain town is a badge of honor. There are many people that move to the mountains with the hopes and dreams of having a quiet and peaceful existence far away from the hub bub of the city.  The reality of that dream is that the amount of chores you need to do to simply exist in the mountains in the winter are neither quiet nor peaceful.  There is no time for complacency. Proper preparation for and during a big winter season is a matter of survival.

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This morning when I woke up, I was greeted with an additional foot of snow.  Honestly that is a small amount for our area but there was still work to be done.  Just to get to the pool that meant shoveling a path out of my house to my car, clearing off my car and snow-blowing the driveway.   Remember when Rocky went to Russia to train? In a less dramatic way that  is my daily existence.

So I shoveled my way out of the house. I cleared a small path around my car and around the snow-blower.  I got out my new Blue Seventy Siren goggles (you thought they were just for open water swimming) and I cleared a way out of my driveway and I headed off to the pool.  On a dry day the nearest pool is a 30 minute drive. On a day like today, that drive can be 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours depending on who is on the road. Today it took me 1 hour and 20 minutes.
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By the time I made it to the pool I had been working to get there for several hours. It was  easy to convince myself to jump in and round out my week of training at 4o,oo0 yards. (36.57K).  So if you wonder how I could swim for hours in 50 degree water…just remember my secret…I am a mountain girl.

I have been so busy training that I haven’t had an extra second to write lately.  I am so excited for my redesigned website to be launched very soon. In the meantime here is what I have been working towards.  This article was written by Steve Munatones from the website  http://www.dailynewsofopenwaterswimming.com/

Today I got back in the pool for the first time in 2 weeks. It felt oh so good! I didn’t put in too much yardage. My goal was to get in, get my arms going around and assess how my body was feeling. I was pleasantly surprised that I felt better than I thought I would. So, a quick 2500 yards and a little extra time floating around enjoying the high humidity in the pool area left me with a big smile on my face. Smile On!

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