jgalswims

I had a really good sea swim today at 40foot. It was freezing, but I was with a group so we managed to stay in for 30 minutes. Great for me. So, since it is the bank holiday weekend, we're going out again tomorrow for a 'longer' swim. It's going to be great. I'll bring even more layers. Today I basically fell into Cafe Java afterward and shiver-screamed 'large hot chocolate!' Cold is a big issue for me, but I talked to a 2-time Channel swimmer today and he assured me that the cold will not be a problem come next summer. He's not the first to say this to me, so I am not worried about it right now. I will just continue to suffer and shiver and look ridiculous with my blue lips and purple face. Really, it's fine. :)

SWIM MEETS are fast upon me! I am doing two galas in November. The first one is in Scotland! I love this gala, mostly because I love the party after it haha. I can't remember what I am swimming, but I can guarantee you that I will be doing freestyle, IM and butterfly, because that is just what I do. :)

The second gala is my intervarsities with UCD. We're heading up to Queens in Belfast for it. I entered the 100 fly, 200 IM, relays and some lifesaving events. We'll see what I actually do, though. This gala is less serious, obviously, since it's with college, but I hope to do well anyway for UCD. The girls won last year so I hope we do that again!

Other than that, I am just training away. I'm not going as serious as I did in September, mostly because I am in pretty good shape now. Life is a bit manic with work, training and the whole PhD thing, so I am likely going to cut down on my work hours after Christmas. That should help to alleviate the madness!

One thing I continuously learn throughout this process is never to take myself too seriously. It is much better for me to act as though life has not changed too drastically since I started training again, even though it semi-has. It is good for me to keep things as normal as possible. I have all summer to be an isolative swim nerd!

Still cold but not shivering,

jgal

This may seem weird for me to post...especially since I am doing something as crazy as swimming from England to France, which is a marathon, but not running...swimming. I read this article and then re-read it. First it was funny. Then it was retrospective. Maybe I'm thinking too much about this, but I really do not want to have my channel turn into a big hurrah about my physical ability. I already know I can swim from England to France, so I don't have to prove it to anybody. This guy's hysterical perspective on extreme sports made me think about why I am doing the channel, and my answer is...because I want to. That is my final answer. Not because I want to prove something. Not because I want to show the world what I am made of or add myself to a list of rapidly growing finishers. Not to raise a load of cash for my wonderful charity, although that is a great bonus for doing this. I am doing the channel because I want to, and that is all. After my channel, that is all. The end.

Anyway, the Dublin Marathon is on Monday and, naturally, the paper today has lots of stories on it. This guy has a great perspective on the whole thing. Read it twice.

Here we go. Taken from The Irish Times. Page 13.

Thought of stepping out sends me scurrying for the couch
by Kilian Doyle

In two days, about 11,700 people are going to willingly put themselves through unspeakable - and very public - agony on the streets of Dublin.

All those who complete the marathon, be it in two hours or 17, will have achieved something remarkable. They'll go home, as the saying goes, tired but happy.

Will I be among them?

I think not. Put it this way -- I'd rather eat my own hair, washed down with a few pints of my own bile, than run a marathon. The very thought has me scurrying behind the couch to seek solace in a two-litre tub of low-fat lard.

Let's look at this rationally: The modern marathon commemorates the heroic run of the herald Pheidippides, who ran the 26 miles to Athens to inform his masters that Athenian forces had routed the Persians in the Battle of Marathon.

On arrival, he blurted out: "Rejoice, we conquer!" before dropping dead on the spot.

Two questions arise from this tale. First, why didn't he use a horse? And second, if he - a rippling-muscled Athenian warrior - imploded after running 26 miles, what chance have I?

From speaking to people who've put themselves through marathons, I gather that once you cross the finish-line, you feel light-headed, breathless, battered like you've just gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson and filled with a sense of having done something that requires huge courage and no small measure of madness to do.

Sounds noble enough. But I too can feel like that. I just smoke 20 cigars in quick succession before throwing myself down the stairs. Exact same buzz and no training required.

Truth is, I'm not big on exercise. Life is hard enough without putting yourself through unneccessary pain. The most energetic thing I do most days is chase the slugs off the cabbages in the back garden. But if I were to somehow get motivated enough to leave the house, the last thing I'd do is go jogging.

Because jogging is rubbish. Not only is it insufferably boring, but it is utterly pointless. If you're not running after a ball or away from a lion, why bother running at all?

What's more, I hate joggers. A man can't go for a contemplative stroll and a cigar in any park these days without being mown over by a lycra-clad stampede of tehm, huffing like asthmatic wildebeests as they pass. I hate the way they pounce along, waving their man junk around in tiny shorts, flaunting their fitness and wordlessly scoffing at my slothfulness. See if I care. At least there'll still be cartilage in my knees when I'm on my deathbed.

Here's a fact that warms the cockles of my black, shrivelled heart: Did you know, dear jogger, that with each step you take, your ankles are being juddered by a force equivalent to 3.5 times your body weight?

So, if you run a marathon, which takes an average of 40,000 steps, your poor, innocent joints will have been crushed 140,000 times your weight by the finish. To save all that time and effort, why not get a hammer to your lower legs and be done with it?

In an effort to understand why people do marathons, I did a bit of Googling. One blogger whose egotistical witterings I stumbled upon explained the attraction thus: "It is about making a public statement of sacrifice, telling the world that you are tough enough to sustain significant pain."

How arrogant is that? What makes this chap think the world cares how "tough" he is? Was he bullied by girls as a child? And if he really wants to make an impression, why doesn't he just break into his local TV studio during a life primetime news broadcast, hop up on the desk and stick red-hot needles in his ears?

It'd certainly get him more attention than suffering silently in the middle of a herd of 11,000-plus other masochists.

Others say running, for all the pain, fills them will (sic) a sense of wellbeing and elation. "It feels so good!" they gush. I'm not convinced. Pray tell me what feels so good about having terminally chafed nipples, blisters the size of jellyfish and sacs of dust where your hip sockets used to be?

And can someone answer me this - why do so many marathoners feel the need to dress up in ridiculous costumes more suited for trick-or-treating than running? Will their kids not let them out at Halloween? Think that donning a gorilla suit makes you a wild and crazy guy? Wrong. It makes you a heart attack risk. See that person running along beside you with the defibrillator? That's a real doctor, monkey boy.

Granted, many of those in costume are doing it for charity. I've no problem with you raising money for good causes but do you have to leave your dignity behind to do it? Do you think the starving children of Africa or cancer sufferers of Clonmel really want you to don a massive pair of plastic boobs or dress up as a cow's backside for their benefit?

Seriously, though, if you are heading off on Monday, good luck to you. I wish you well.

I'll be cheering you on from my nice warm vantage point on the couch as you pant your way through Drimnagh with nothing but a man in a gimp mask and PVC catsuit for company.

Break a leg, as they say.

Last river/lake/sea swim of the year was Blackrock to Cobh in Cork, Ireland. I decided to do the unthinkable and drive down the morning of the swim, do the 12.5k swim, recover, and then drive home. Let's just put it this way: it was a long day.

I wasn't worried about completing 12km, as that is a very doable distance for me. I was worried about the impending freezing water. Because I had only just gotten my tonsils out, I had ony been in the sea once since the Liffey Swim. The 3 weeks I went without touching the sea basically erased any comfort I had built up in the cold water, but I knew this. So I kept driving, anxiously looking at the thermometre on my car reading 5.5 degrees Celsius, hoping that number would substantially increase by the time I hit the southern coast. (Keep in mind it is 6-8 in the morning...so coldish anyway.) So I listened to my ipod and sped my way down to Cork to meet up with some old friends for a long day of swimming......




Everybody was standing around, like always, nervously chatting about the water, what the course is like, who has done the race before, tricky spots, why we signed up for this in the first place. You know, the usual. I was feeling pretty good and was completely ignoring the fact that I was going to be swimming in an hour. We had our safety briefing, and the first group of people started to make their way to the water. I didn't hear any horrific shrieks so I felt a little better. The starts were staggered so that we'd finish closer together for safety reasons. I was the last to go off, with a young lad named Owen who is also doing the Channel next summer, and another fellow as well. Owen is a great swimmer with a great attitude. If I am correct he is only 15, but will be 16 when he does the Channel. Here's a picture of us before we started. And below that, a picture of my wonderful volunteer kayaker Paul, who was precise on my feeds and told me I was 'fliiyin now girl!' in a way that only a Cork person can say. :)





Soon it was time for us to head into the water. This is when I really started to realise that A.) I was about to do a 12k and B.) The water was 14 degrees C (57F for the yanks). Yep, that's when I started to wonder why I had set two alarms to wake myself up at 5am so I could drive 3+ hours to be down here to do this in the first place. :) But I got in, inwardly (and possibly outwardly) shrieking. I sprinted for 100 metres, trying to find a pulse somewhere, hoping I had not died. Already my quote had emerged...'Just Keep Swimming.' With 11,900 metres to go, I did just that.

Now, to the mind games. I had discussed with Paul before my swim that I wanted to work on keeping my feeds under 30 seconds, because my advisor and Channel crew chief Martin Cullen had told me to do this. So I asked Paul, who seemed uber-organised and prepared, to feed me every 45 minutes. He had a very cool-looking diving watch on, so I knew he took time very seriously. (I should have remembered this observation later in my swim, but alas, I did not.)

I took my own watch off, as I am debating whether or not to wear it in the channel because I become very time-obsessive and I don't know if this is a good or bad thing for me. So, long story short, I was swimming along and a very fast pace, Paul was kayaking away, looking happy as a lark, and my silly mind was utterly convinced that he had forgotten to feed me at 45 minutes. I thought we had been swimming closer to 90 minutes when he FINALLY waves his paddle at me, slows down, throws me a bottle and goes 'that's 45 minutes now, you are FLIIYIN girl!' I just drank my liquid calories, tried to feel my feet (nope), and kind of sighed/smiled.

I threw back my bottle and kept swimming. I felt defeated, knowing I wasn't even halfway and he was so happy for me and I was shivering. Oh, did the negative thoughts ever have a chance to creep into me then! But I knew it was coming. I knew I would easily fall victim soon if I was not careful, so I started completely distracting myself from everything. Lucky for us, it was a gorgeous day. The sun was out, the water was calm, and life was good. I started singing Coldplay songs because, oddly, they make me very happy. I started thinking about lots of things in life...and mostly how I ended up in a little island country swimming a 12k in freezing water. I had to laugh, for it is a funny story indeed. By the next feed I felt light-hearted. In my head I knew we had done precisely 90 minutes, because by then I had fixed my mind and knew Paul was spot-on, like he was in the first place! (silly, silly mind!) So I swam on. I was getting tired, but I just thought of all the strokes I had corrected in the last month, and tried to think of what I'd say to myself if I was my own client. It got me through the fact that my body was turning purple.

Soon we arrived to Cobh. You know when you're on a long flight, and you can see the city out the window? You know it's the city because of the lights and tall buildings, so you consciously know you're there.......so why aren't you landing!? That's how I felt when we got to Cobh. But, lucky for me, I did the swim last year (in the summer when it was still warm) and remember that it took a while to actually get to the end of the swim. Still, though, it's so painful to know you are so close, yet still so far away. Paul stopped me again and asked if I wanted some calories. 'Nah, I'm fine, I'll just swim on in.' 5 minutes later I was finished. And boy was I freezing. Here is a (very unflattering) picture of me layered in 3 shirts, a jacket, a hoodie, a blanket and about 14 other layers:



We had a good chat after the swim, and then I headed back to Dublin. I took a pic of me on the way home, mostly to keep myself occupied so I wouldn't fall asleep. :)



So that, folks, is my 2008 season. I am so very pleased with myself and know that I am well on my way to swimming across that Channel next summer. Thank you always for your continuous support. You have no idea what it means to know that people have your back! You are all the best, and it has been a pleasure getting to know some of the newer faces! I will of course be around the blog, as I am now moving into a few galas to get myself through the long and dark winter!

Everybody take care, lots of love. xx.

jgal