Passionate about Swimming

A friend sent me this. It's all about swimming, and being passionate about it. Enjoy!

"People talk about the brotherhood and sisterhood they get in their volleyball, basketball and soccer teams, when they practice 3-4 times a week and sometimes have seasons that run for a few months. In swimming, you train at least 7 times a week, excluding the hours of dryland, stretching and track. Season starts in the first week of September, and if you're lucky, and crazy enough to call yourself lucky, it ends in the last weeks of August. So you take a week off, give your chlorine-soaked skin a respite and start next year's season a week later complaining to all your friends that you are "fat" and out of shape.

"

Oh, and in swimming, you've got such blue blood that you make fun of public swimmers, and have a hidden contempt for any other type of athlete who only trains 3x a week. 

You're in the water for 1.5-2.5 hours at a time, sometimes doing that twice a day, and sometimes waking up at 5:00 in the morning so you can be at the pool 15 minutes early for your 5:45 practice to get some stretching in. You do kick sets until your calf either cramps or your legs are numb, and then you do pull sets until you can hardly prevent yourself from doing dolphin kicks to move forward the extra 2 cm over 100m. And then you get a 50m warm-down just in time for a BA main set. You swim 6-7km a day, and when your school friends ask if you get "bored" swimming all those laps "back and forth," you wonder how to explain the difficulty in being bored when you alternate between exchanging gossip at the walls with extreme pain in all your physical extremities.



"Swimming is not for the body-conscious. After a couple hours, your training suit has ceased to be revealing, even when you rip out the lining and practically eliminate the need for a suit in the first place. After your first meet, you've seen 3/4 of your team naked, and 3/4 of them have seen you naked, either from low-riding speedos, girls that spill all when they pull up their suit straps, or deck changing. And it's not even a big deal. Time magazine may say that swimmers are the most sexually active athletes, but you'll never find a group of boys anywhere else than on pool deck that can still obsess over "adding .8 in my 100 free" when surrounded by 200 girls walking around in their size -8 aquablades with their straps down.

"

You'll live for the 3 hour bus rides to towns with a population that doubles when your team arrives, sleeping in the aisles or on each other. You'll cry when you add less time than it takes to blink to your best time, and you'll be surrounded by a group of people hugging you and reassuring you because they all know how much of a failure +0.5s feels like. Shaving off 0.08 is a miracle. Speaking of shaving, the girls give shaving tips to the guys, or even shave with them. Legs. Arms. Nether regions? All for the sake of that 0.0000000000001s you'll take off, and the "smooth" feeling you get, that no non-swimmer will respect you for. 

And then there's the drama.

"Every swimmer, and just as often boys and girls, have inner drama queens. Who knew that who you sit with on the hour long bus ride to training camp could be so political? And every swimmer has fallen for another swimmer. You can tell by the way they stand at the blocks and cheer for their every race, give them shoulder massages, splash each other in the warm-down pool, sit next to each other in the hot tubs and on the Grayhounds.. and by the way they live halfway across the country from each other, hanging out in the meets that happen every 3 months.

"

And there's love. Lots of love. Love for your sport and your race. Love for your team, in the cheer-offs and deafening screaming during finals. And love for each other, the people you laugh and cry with, who give you their extra green apple Powerades and whose team shirt you're probably wearing. They'll zip you up, badmouth your coach who said nasty things about your 200bk, gossip with and about you, and scream your name with frantic arm gestures for a 4.5 minute race even though you are in the water with a cap on and cannot possibly hear them. They'll know once you hit the touchpads if you were off your best time, stretch your arms behind your back, and wish you good luck and mean it even if they're squaring off next to you in lane 3 for the final. 



"That's swimming. And if you have it and you can do it, no matter how hard it gets or how elusive that time standard is, be "in it" as much as you can. Even if it doesn't work out and you have to quit due to the insanity of 9x/week practices or devastating shoulder injuries, you'll be a swimmer your whole life, and you'll never fully drain the blue blood that makes you laugh when you join your school soccer team."

The Wonder Tea

Feeling the draining symptoms of the fall cold/congestion? Well, here is a drink that will help! It's a tomato tea that works wonders, and clears out your system.
Recipe:
 - 1 cup of tomato juice
- -1 tsp chopped fresh garlic
 - 1/2 tsp of hot sauce
 - 1 tsp lemon juice
 - A pinch of celery salt for flavor.
(I added honey instead of celery salt, A. because celery salt is expensive stuff, and B. because honey tastes better and is slightly healthier).
 - Heat ingredients & drink hot.
Try it out and let me know what you think!

Define Swimming:

[Exerpt from:] The view of a competitive swimmer:

Why do competitive swimmers love swimming? Because they couldn't imagine their life with out it. Its part of them, its something they live for. They live for the 5 a.m practices, pasta parties, cheers, long bus rides, invitationals, countless swim caps, chlorine, and coaches you hate but appreciate later. They live for the way it feels when you beat the person next to you by a tenth of a second and you know those 2 extra laps you did in practice were worth it. You live for the way you jump every time you hear a buzzer, or the way you scream whenever you hear the gun on the 500, even though you hear it every time. You live for the way you celebrate when you get to do a set with fins. You live for the way you become a family with your team, and no one understands what happens within that pool or locker room, but you. You live for the countless songs you sing in your head when your swimming those laps. You live for the people who scream at you while your swimming even though all you hear is BLAH BLAH BLAH. You live for the competition, you live for the friends, you live for the practice, you live for the pain, its a part of you. You are a swimmer.

It's the feeling you get at the end of a hard practice, when you've pushed ur self to the limits, and it's the way the water feels when get back in after time off, it's knowing that you don't have to shave for months at a time, and thinking of 7:00 am practice as sleeping in. It's muscle cramps, swimmers ear, and 11 practices a week. It's when your coach knows you better than your father, and your teammates are your brothers and sisters. It's seeing everyone else cheer you on during a race, and knowing your team is behind you. It's borrowing caps and sharing shampoo, going through whole boxes of cereal in one day, and blowing the fuse in the locker room four times because everyone has to get ready after morning practice. It's hearing people at school say "It's must be a swimmer thing," and always having the best parking spot because you are the first one at the school every morning. It's a collection of T-shirts and ribbons, and not really being able to put into words how the meet went. It's knowing that you got up and did something you love, and something you hate, and something you can't really explain, and don't really want to understand. It's the way you walk, and the way you talk. It's something that no one else really understands because they haven't felt the felling you get every time you step up on the blocks, that swimming isn't just a sport... it's all the friends and coaches over the years, all the practices and inside jokes, all the memories, all the fun times and all the road trips, 

because swimming is more than just a sport...

College Swimming

Does swimming have to end once you get a job?
This is something I have been struggling with for sometime. Once you get out into the 'real world' there are so many time constraints. So many things to do, places to be, and you have got to make a living somehow. I just started my first job out of school, and I can't tell you how much I miss swimming already. Sure I still get in and practice nearly every day, but the atmosphere and the mentality have changed. It's no longer about being part of a team. It is totally for me. I am the master of my destiny so to speak.
This summer I competed at the USA National Championship swim meet in Palo Alto, CA. I tell you what, nothing has inspired me to keep swimming quite as much as that trip. I rubbed shoulders with so many famous athletes and coaches, I swam against the best in the nation, I had a blast, and even somehow got better at my long course times.
Now I'm at a small college in Western PA coaching for a college team. I love coaching, but I don't really want to leave competitive swimming behind. It has always been a huge part of my life. Winter Nationals are coming up in December, and it's the same weekend as the winter invitational that the college team goes to each year. So literally, I am faced with the choice: career, or swimming. This decision makes every time I get in the water a struggle. I am so close to the Olympic Trial cut, I can almost taste it. I want to go so badly, but I feel I have an obligation to the team that I have committed myself to. I want to be there for them when they compete at their meet. I am still very torn about this decision, but it's not completely over yet.
So what should I do? Follow my dreams and beg my coach to give me the weekend off? Or just let it go, and forever wonder what could have been?

Making and Breaking Waves

Gulp&Go Open Water Swimming

Blog Post 10

Stephen Clendenin

04/18/11

Making and Breaking Waves

            Breaking waves is like breaking new boundaries. Each stroke you take that breaks you through a wave is like breaking through some new challenge. It’s another step closer to the end goal. You feel your body climb, and then it suddenly dips back down. It is an endless see-saw motion that most people find nauseating, and somewhat scary. You have no control over the waves. But there is something you do have control over: your body.

            When first going out into an open water race, the first and last obstacle you will encounter is the breakers. That’s the point near the shore where the waves are breaking, sending splashes and plumes of white water everywhere, all around your body, creeping into your ears, mouth, and nose. It takes timing and lots of exhaling to keep yourself from choking on water. There are plenty of ways to avoid this. Firstly, there is seeking. Seeking is when the swimmer lifts their head just enough so their eyes are out of the water, watching the approaching waves. If the wave is a good distance away, then in the same motion, the swimmer swivels their head to the side and grabs a quick breath. Seeking is done throughout the swim as a way of looking where you are as well.

            When you are heading into breakers however, the best option is to take a quick dunk under the wave, and let it break overtop of you. So instead of wasting energy and fighting through the wave, you can easily slip through. Some people prefer to power through the waves because swimming above the water takes less time than going under it. But if you are like me, and prefer to not to get water-logged, going under is an easy way to work on breath control.

            Once you get past the breakers, depending on the weather, the waves should be much calmer and easier to get through by simply seeking, and breathing when a wave is not right on top of you.

            When I swim, I don’t focus a lot on strength, powering through the water like an animal. I focus on the feel. I love the feel of the calm sloshing of the waves slipping down my arms, past my side, and back across my legs in a smooth, fluent motion. If I feel sluggish, I know that my technique is off, or I could be tired. That can easily be fixed by changing up the technique and giving the mind something fresh to think about and focus on. But the feel is so important. It has taken me years of hard work and training to get to know my body. That is sometimes the hardest part. You need to be feeling each part of your body work and move along so that everything can slip through the water with ease. Know your body.

Know Your Course

Gulp&Go Open Water Swimming

Author: Stephen Clendenin

English 202, Writing About Sports

04/10/11

Blog Post #9

Know Your Course

There are over 3,000 sanctioned open water swimming clinics, camps, tours, races, and events in 158 countries. There are distances varying from a single mile, to a marathon in the water. The terrain varies from the tropical paradises of Barbados, to the frozen tundra of the arctic (popularly called ‘Polar Bear Swims’). Where there is water, people swim. Common places such as the English Channel, the Hudson River, or the Cole Classic (Australia) usually host thousands of swimmers yearly. To date, the world’s largest mass participation open water swimming event is the Sun Moon Lake International Swimming Carnival in central Taiwan. Sun Moon Lake (Jih Yueh Tan in Taiwanese) has between 18,500 and 22,000 swimmers take on the 3.3 kilometer distance. Imagine all that white water, the flailing limbs, and perhaps even the hungrily awaiting sharks sitting at the bottom of the lake, waiting for some unfortunate soul to be lost among the mass of swimmers. I shudder to think. But truly, the likelihood of that happening is not nearly as high as the Rottnest Channel Swim. True to its name, this open water swim is a 19.2 kilometer struggle through some of the strongest currents in Western Australia. This swim is also known as having some of the most abundant amounts of marine life to deal with. In my own limited personal experience of marine life in open water swims, I think I was stung by a jellyfish in a tiny spot just under my bicep. In that same race, my friend Brad became entangled in the slimy clutches of a Portuguese Man-of-War. The PM-O-W is among the top ten most deadly jellyfish in the oceans. Its tentacles can grow up to one hundred and sixty five feet long, and are filled with venom that create whip-like welts on the skin (lasting two or three days) and can be extremely painful. Upon exiting the water, my friend Brad was immediately taken and doused with hot water, given lots of medicine to rub on his skin (it was green and looked like twice-digested algae). Not to worry though, he lived, and enjoys telling the story much more than I do. But ANYWAY, the point of that story is: always be aware of the course. Moments before getting in, the lifeguards had posted a warning, telling us that there was dangerous marine life out in the water. Now, warnings such as these may not deter the more hardened open water swimmers, but the smart ones will stay weary. Swimmers who swim the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim need to be aware that when circumnavigating Manhattan Island, they will be dealing with 28.5 miles of temperatures between sixty-four and sixty-seven degrees, various flotsam and jetsam, and who knows what else. Know the course you are getting into when you join an open water swim.

Night Swimming

Gul&Go Open Water Swimming: Blog Post 8

Stephen Clendenin

English 202, Writing About Sports

04/04/11

 Night Swimming

Open water swimming is a daring sport at times. Out in the elements, waves crashing, sea creatures swarming, freezing cold temperatures, it is enough to make one quiver at the thought. And just when it could not get any crazier, imagine doing open water swimming at night. Looking out over the horizon, all you see is the dim reflection of the moon (if it’s out) being caught by the rippling waves. The sand is significantly colder, but that is the least of your worries. The ocean is an untamed element. That is part of what makes it so mysterious and frightening. There is so much that could happen to you while you swim. Add that to the darkness of night, and it might give you chills. Night time can be like the ocean: you can’t see too far into it, and there are strange things out there that you don’t know about. Night time open water swimming is for the swimmers who are braver than most, and smarter than most. You don’t just go running into the ocean at the stroke of midnight and hope you somehow make it back to shore someplace. It takes some careful thinking and preparation.

            Mentally, it is a battle. All the fear and uncertainty that can creep into your gut and make you wimp out must be blocked by your own will power, and the knowledge of cold hard facts. Now when you think of swimming at night, you might think that it would be much colder than swimming during the day. In a way that’s true, but only out of the water. The temperature of the water generally does not change, just the air temperature. And if you’re worried about visibility, be smart and take precautions. Don’t use those nice mirrored goggles that block the sun. Get some clear goggles that are un-tinted. Oh, and of course, DON’T SWIM ALONE. The roughest part of swimming in the dark will probably be the landing. When you are coming up on shore, you want to be able to know where you are and see what you’re doing, so make sure you have someone waiting for you at your finish point with plenty of lighted markers.

            For this, know what equipment you need. Don’t be foolish and just go for it without some kind of lighted beacon. There are three types of lights you can use during the swim: pencil-shaped light-sticks (battery operated), a disc-light to place on top of your head (it has a strap, or attaches to the back of your goggles), and of course, glow sticks. And of course, DON’T SWIM ALONE.

            These are just some helpful tips and rules for people who are gearing up to swim an individual or group marathon swim. Nick Adams is a brilliant swimmer who swam the English Channel at night, and has some more facts about it on this site. Check it out before you decide to diving into the ocean after the sun has set. And for information on other awesome open water swimmers, check out the Swimtrek Guides page.

Wetsuits

Stephen Clendenin

English 202, Writing About Sports

03/28/11

Wetsuits

            Having owned and worn various versions of wetsuits, I find them to be not only practical for swimming in colder open waters, but also incredibly fun. It is much like slipping on an outer layer of skin, soft and rubbery, like the hide of a leopard seal. The better quality body suits, such as those made by Blue70, are more expensive, and take about thirty minutes of tugging, sweating, and grunting to get on, but the payoff is incredible. Not only do they keep most of the body heat insulated and contained, but they also save on energy. They are much like the Hybrid Prius of swim suits. Other more bulky suits are like the hummers of swim suits. They are thick, bulky, unnatural, but keep the swimmer completely insulated and warm. There are various types and shapes of wetsuits, depending on the need of the swimmer. Some prefer that their entire body be covered, and therefore are covered from wrist to neck to ankle in sleek rubber skin. Others just need something to keep their chest warm, so they use the shoulder to thigh suit that many surfers employ. But the big question is do they work? In competitions the more streamlined design of the suit, the better. There is less resistance. But that is only a sideline perk of the suit. The real reason people go out and spend a hundred bucks on the high-tech suit is for energy-saving benefits. When a swimmer gets tired, the first thing to go is always the legs. The kick slows down, and the legs begin to sink. The suit changes that. If the material is made of thicker, then the legs will remain floating. Or, depending on the speed of the swimmer, the water will rush around and through the suit, buoying the swimmer’s body to the surface, much like a kite catching a gust of air. This means that the swimmer does not have to exert as much energy into their kick or arms to keep their body afloat. The suit helps the swimmer stay horizontal.

            While there are numerous benefits to the wetsuit, the one danger that is often not taken into account is over-heating. The wetsuit itself is great for keeping the swimmer’s body insulated, but when it’s summer and ninety-five degrees in the sunny waters of Southern Florida, that thick black rubber can become dangerous. Like an egg left in the sun, whatever’s inside the suit will begin to cook. So if you are trying to figure out if you need a wetsuit for your next open water swim, there is just one thing you need to be sure to check out beforehand: water temperature. If it’s going to be cold, consider it. If it’s going to be warm, then that sunlight will feel mighty good after a cool dip in the ocean.  

Swimming To Infinity (and possibly beyond)

Gulp&Go Open Water Swimming

Stephen Clendenin

English 202, Writing About Sports

03/20/11

Blog Post #6

Swimming to Infinity (and possibly beyond)

            When you walk up to the middle aged man wearing a jammer, goggles, a number on his shoulder, and a huge smile on his face, and ask him why on earth he is about to go jumping into water that is seventy degrees or lower, he will probably give you answer you by asking you the same question. People do it because they love it. Many open water swimmers will speak about that feeling of being totally limitless. When they are in the ocean they can go anywhere. There is a sort of freedom that comes with the challenge of getting out there and swimming against the current. Another swimmer with longer hair and a couple of tattoos might tell you that they’re ‘bonding with nature.’ No harm in that. The ocean is wild and very much untamed. While other swimmers stick to their puddles built into concrete holes, and other athletes compete on manicured squares of grass, open water swimmers, like the dog-sledders of Alaska, are out in the elements. Fighting for breath against the crashing dark green waves, these athletes know how it is to live. Some will tell you that they have grown tired of the safe yet numb environment of the gym. They see them as limitations. I prefer to see them as training trials that must be overcome to truly succeed and break into the ocean waters.

For many other swimmers it is also a way to escape. They go diving out into the water to find for themselves a place to focus. In many ways, the raging and crashing of the ocean waves forces the swimmer to hold their calm. It is like chaos breeding serenity within the mind. Hearing the constant hum of the ocean in the ear and feeling the water ripple across the skin is an unforgettable experience. There are no membership cards, no sweat-stained locker rooms, and no smelly gear bags to drag around. There is only the open horizon and a sea of possibility.

Featured Record Holder:

            On June 1^st, 1998, Susie Maroney swam from Mexico to Cuba in thirty-eight hours and thirty-three minutes. She covered one hundred and twenty two miles without flippers, out in the open ocean, making her the record holder for longest distance ever swum without flippers. She holds the fastest two-way English Channel Crossing (England à France à England) with a time of seventeen hours and fourteen minutes. She was seventeen when she achieved that. She hold numerous other records, and is a fantastic swimmer in her own right. Now a mother, her time as a swimmer is over, but her name still stands as one of the greatest open water swimmers of all time.