Just Keep Swimming: 2021 10 mile open water swim attempt
The Big Picture
Self-accountability is one of the most important and powerful tools you can master. It is good to be motivated to be a better version of yourself when you are surrounded by workout partners or when you want to prove yourself in an official race you paid a good chunk of change for. It is even better to maintain that drive when plans fall through and you have to improvise. After missing out on 6 weeks of swimming post surgery in July and August, I decided to move my 2021 10-mile swim goal from one of the largest open water swim races in the country in September, to an individual effort at a small Long Beach location on Sunday. The experience and reward of persevering to complete a goal I had set for myself would far outweigh any finisher medal or recognition found in an official event.
For me, tackling big goals always provides an invaluable opportunity to practice controlling the things you can control, and not get too carried away by the things you can not control. Attending work training for a week leading up to the swim meant for some long days, sub-optimal nutrition, and a long cross-country flight the day prior. Getting 8 different vaccines in as many days led to some sore arms and uneasy stomachs. Frequent pool closures and inconvenient pool hours meant constantly changing training schedules. Unlike any other event I have ever done, I had to get creative when it came to getting in swim time, especially living in the middle of a desert.
The one thing you can always control is your mindset. One of the many lessons that taking on these types of endurance events has reinforced in me over the years is the ability to set goals that I can win even if I fail. Four hours into my swim I started to develop completely unexpected but significant muscle cramping in my left hip flexor and hamstring. I tried to problem solve for about an hour but to no avail. My leg still has some ways to go to regain pre-surgery strength and endurance, so I ended up calling it at about the 8.5 mile/5 hour mark out of precaution before developing any injury. Although the big goal was 10 miles, the process and dedication to get there resulted in many smaller victories that will be invaluable moving forward.
When we fail at a goal, most of us don’t give ourselves enough credit for all the things we do right and have learned along the way to that failure, lessons that will make us stronger going forward. I was in some pretty dark and cold places mentally between hours 3 and 4 of the swim. Unlike running or biking events, were I would often get through lows just by slowing down to enjoy the scenery and realizing how fortune I am do be doing what I am doing, swimming in zero visibility bay water didn’t afford the same visual stimulus. This swim was just another opportunity to train the ability to generate the internal fortitude to bring about the change in mindset. Changing your mindset is the first step toward changing your future.
Everytime I tackle a big goal, I am reminded of where and how I started. I heard about Kat & Pavel’s story shortly after moving to LA in 2016 and right around the same time I started to dabble in triathlon. They have become dear friends of mine ever since. Their fighting spirit and dedication has been a part of my daily motivation to train, as they set such a strong example every single day. I am a big proponent of always keeping perspective in order to constantly move your goalpost. This 10 mile swim attempt paled in comparison to the daily toil and struggle these two manage to crush every single day for the last 6 years. They wrote a book about those 6 years, entitled “True Love & Suffering”, which will be released on November 16th. I highly encourage ordering a copy or two of the book (wherever books are sold!) that day to help Kat & Pavel get to bestseller status, but equally important to learn from their hard-fought experience and gain incredibly valuable knowledge of how to stay strong when literally all the odds are against you. You can learn more about their incredible story of perseverance on their website: https://strongwithkat.com/
Many thanks to Chris for crewing me during the second half in a support kayak and for being such an awesome person, to Swim Secure for making the best towed swim buoy out there which served as my self-serve aid station for the first half, and to Liz for always being my #1 supporter, understanding just how import this attempt was for me, and for putting up with my now 10 day old Ted Lasso Halloween costume Mo. The larger the chance of failure, the larger the reward.. on to the next one.
The Team
The Training
After my initial knee injury in September of 2020, a pair of MRIs did not reveal any significant damage to my knee other than a tremendous amount of swelling. The plan was thus for me to wait a few weeks for the swelling to subside and start physical therapy in order to gain strength back in my knee and leg. After 3 months of physical therapy I was given the green light to start ramping up slowly. Initially this worked out fairly well. By February, I was going for longer walks again and by early March I was slowly jogging. Although there was still minor swelling in my knee, things were looking up.
This only lasted about a month however, by April, the swelling would increase significantly after even the smallest of efforts, and my range of motion became limited again. By the end of the month, I switched to swimming as my main form of cardio. By the time May rolled around, I knew I was in trouble. Sharp pains would run through the front of my knee everytime I would bent it more than 90 degrees. This led to yet another MRI which revealed I had tears in multiple locations in my meniscus. This is when I decided that my big goal for 2021 would have to be a long swim, and thus the training started.
Originally I was aiming to compete in the 2021 La Jolla Cove 10 miler swim at the end of September. This was a 2-mile course which offered both team relay and individual/solo effort slots. After learning I would have to stay out of the pool for 6 weeks following my surgery in late June, I started to think about shifting my 10 mile swim date right, as I felt I wouldn’t have enough time to adequately prepare between mid August and end of September. Half way through the recovery period I decided to instead do my 10 mile swim at a small Long Beach location called Bayshore, where I had swam on previous occasions for the Bayshore 70.4 mile triathlon.
I decided to keep the build simple, increasing by 10% throughout a 3 week block, then take a 1 week recovery block by swimming about half of my total yardage from the 3rd week. This 4-week block format would then repeat, starting in the first week with 10% more than I finished in the 3rd week of the previous block. My goal was for my longest continuous training swim to be about 6 miles. Total yardage numbers over an 18 week period are below.
After I called it at mile 8.5 of the 10 mile attempt due to significant cramping in my left hip and hamstring, I started the process of reflecting to gain lessons learned. Due to the assymetric nature of the cramping, it was obvious that my left leg just wasn’t quiet strong enough to support a 10 mile swim effort. I have taken a holistic look at my preparation and execution to see where I can patch the holes. Immediately I knew that I had not done enough leg work in the pool to prepare. After I got the green light to start swimming again in August I started off by only swimming with a pull-buoy. It is a foam device you can put between your legs. It helps swimmers focus on their upper body form, and often helps triathletes with leg recovery when they do long swims after long runs or bikes. I continued to use the pull-buoy all the way up to my last training swim, a short 500 yard, 9 minute effort two days before the 10 mile attempt. I did not afford my hips and legs the training they needed to support a ~6 hour targeted swim effort.
Likewise, I did zero(!) kickboard training during my build up. This was predominately driven by the fact that I did not want to push my left leg too early after the surgery, and that mentality just stuck with me throughout the build. Kickboard training is essential to develop strong hips and legs to support long swim efforts.
Unlike any other challenge I have ever attempted, training for a long distance swim forces you to be very resourceful and flexible. Unlike running or biking, you cant just lace up your shoes or jump on the training during any hour of the day. The pool at Edwards AFB was only open on weekdays, and then would only be open from 0600-0800 and 1000-1300 daily. In addition, due to COVID mitigations, every other lane was closed until the beginning of September, resulting in only 4 lanes for the entire base, with a 30 minute swim limit per person. Finally, there was only one life guard, so the pool would be closed almost half of the time due to life guard availability or maintenance issues with the pool. All of this led me to front load my yardage quiet a bit when the pool actually was open and I could make it (i.e. I did not have to be at work before 0800). This is the main reason why I exceeded my target total training yardage by about 8%.
Screenshot from a video my friend Chris took from the support kayak, buoy in tow.
The Nutrition
All of my previous endurance experience has come from either running or biking. Marathon swimming is such an interesting discipline as there are so many small things you just don’t think about when you are on dry land. One of the biggest was nutrition. When I race triathlon, I do not have to take in nutrition during the swim portion as it is only 2.4 miles (or between 70-80 minutes for me depending on how good im swimming that day). Personally, I can sustain a good effort for that amount of time without nutrition and no see no detrimental downfall in my performance. I typically also focus on taking in a bit more nutrition in the first 30 minutes of the bike following the swim, to replenish my internal stocks quickly and prepare for a long day in the saddle.
Similarly with ultra-running, I tend to overpack a bit on nutrition that I have constantly on me, so I will have easy access to calories and electrolytes at any given point throughout the event. I don’t think there is a sport that lends itself to inconvenient access to nutrition as much as open water swimming. There is no pool edge you can place your electrolyte sports drink and energy bars, and everything gets soaked...
One of the big things long running and biking events in the past have thought me is to learn how my body reacts and accepts nutrition. I typically aim to consume about 300 calories an hour, and was planning on doing the same for this swim. The trickier part was my sodium intake. Since I perspire pretty easily, during hot races I would consume about 1000mg of sodium an hour. It is much different swimming in 65F water for an extended amount of time. I did not take any body temperature measurements, but I can safely say I was fairly cold (although not uncomfortably so) throughout the swim even with a 3mm neoprene wetsuit. The sodium intake was thus a bit of an experiment. I decided to go with 150 calories and 200mg of sodium during feeds every 30 minutes. To accomplish this, I ended up consuming the following across 5 hours and 10 minutes of swimming:
1.5x 32oz Gatorade bottles of fresh water
1.5x 32oz gatorade bottles of tailwind-water electrolyte mix (4.5 scoops total): 450 calories, 1350mg of sodium, 0g of protein, 400mg of potassium
8 Gu gels: 800 calories, 480mg of sodium, 0g of protein, 240mg of potassium
2 RX bars: 420 calories, 520mg of sodium, 24g of protein, 680mg of potassium
2 pancakes (left over from breakfast): 140 calories, 260mg of sodium, 10g of protein, 140mg of potassium
1 banana: 110 calories, 0g of sodium, 1g of protein, 450mg of potassium
Since i had left my phone in the car before going to the beach i dont have a lot of pictures, but this is a quick snapshot of how the 2x 32oz Gatorade squeeze bottles fit in the tow buoy. You can see one of the RX bars below that, this is also where the gu gels, pancakes, and banana were stored.
This boils down to approximately 200 calories, 261mg of sodium, 3.5g of protein, and 191mg of potassium every 30 minutes. I never felt full, had GI issues, or felt like I was taking in too much nutrition, so I definitely have some wiggle room. From a caloric perspective, my body tells me swimming is a much more energy intensive activity than running or biking. I had no issues consuming 400 calories every hour, whereas with past running events that proved to be too much. One of the things I would like to experiment with, particularly related to the bad muscle cramping I encountered, is take in about twice as much potassium every 30 minutes. Together with a stronger left hip and hamstring component should allow me to get through a 10 mile swim without the cramping.
Looking forward
The plan right now is to set my sights on swimming the length of Lake Tahoe (21.3 miles) in July 2022. It involves a lottery system, so I should find out by the end of November if I am lucky enough to do just that. Similar to this 10 mile swim effort, if I do not get into the Lake Tahoe swim, I will improvise and find another way to attempt to swim at least 20miles (taking all the appropriate safety precautions of course).
The upside to my 10 mile attempt is that I did not feel any lasting effects of the cramping or any soreness or tightness in my upper or lower body (Writing this about 48 hours removed from the event, typically the worst time for post-event soreness!). Other the mental low points between hours 3 and 4, I was in great spirits by the end of the swim and didn’t feel overly physically tired. I felt like I had more to give, having come at peace of calling it at 8.5 miles to avoid any injury to my left leg. This gives me enough hope to saddle up for a 20 mile effort in 2022.
