Shoulder update

Yesterday afternoon I went to visit my Sports Therapy Doctor, Spencer Richards.  I updated him on my left shoulder:  sharp pains in the very corner of my shoulder whenever I raise my arm above my head.  When I'm swimming it's livable, but strangely its worse when I'm out of the water lifting my arm above my head.  I've already visited him twice for a couple of cortisone shots which really helped, but only for a few weeks.

We decided that after the Slam the Dam race, I will undergo a minor surgery to remove the bone fragment in my left shoulder which is supposedly the cause of the pain.  Apparently it will only take three weeks to recover afterwards and should be able to make progress towards the EC training without shoulder pain.  I can't wait!

In the meantime, he gave me another cortisone shot before leaving his office yesterday.  Last night and this morning it is really painful!  Even without moving it.  I remember it being like that with the previous shots I had, and that it only lasted for a day, but felt like a million bucks within 3 days.  I'm really counting on that, because I'm planning to swim Bear Lake on Monday!  However, the weather forecast for Labor Day doesn't look good at all.  If that forecast doesn't over the week, I'll probably postpone the Bear Lake Swim once again. Boo!

Fellow OW Swimmer friend, Julian Riley posted this video on facebook this morning:  Now my shoulder REALLY hurts!

My charity of choice

Many marathon swimmers have a charity which they support which they encourage their followers to also support.  Most of them for disease research, abused animals, fighting cancer, etc...  Up till now, I've not really found an organization that has become personal for me.  I didn't want to just support something I wasn't passionate about.  But I've finally found someone that I really feel needs our help.  Here's her story:

Believe it or not,  this old lady is awesome!

There's a crusty old lady that is fairly unpopular and undervalued.  Her biggest problem is that on the surface she is shallow, ugly to most, and well to be honest, smells funny.  Still, she has many  great qualities.  For instance, she takes care of thousands of stray animals, and she shares her resources secretly with the city which also bares her family name.  She owns a great amount of land, and a few rich corporations are lobbying politicians and policy makers to take portions of her land.

Because she isn't very attractive to most people, she is being overlooked and those who try to take advantage of her, are for the most part being ignored and allowed to do so.  Relatively few actually know this old woman, appreciate her, and join her corner.

Does this injustice bother you?  Thing is, if you don't go visit her, and get to know her, any passion you might have to protect her might just fade away.  You can help by assisting in her defense financially, but probably more importantly, you can start by learning about her and what kind of contributions she really does give to the community.  Once you do that, you will undoubtedly join her small group of protectors and make a difference.  

Click here to read more about her, and even assist financially.  But I would encourage you to go to the next level.  Go visit her, and get to know her personally.  Don't be one of those who simply look at the surface and scorn her value.  Please, join her group of friends.

Beating the sun to the water

This morning I got up earlier than I really needed to.  I was hoping to do a little extra today, so I was in the lake at 6:20am this morning.  This time instead of starting from the GSL Marina's boat ramp I went northeast from the marina towards the eastern red buoy.  Went around that and then went straight to Black Rock from there.  I got halfway to Black Rock before the sun finally came over the horizon and hit me in the water.  When I almost arrived at Black Rock I saw Josh heading back to the marina.  I was hoping to catch him, but not a chance he was gone by the time I got back to the marina opening.  I went for one more lap of Gridley Straight.

Found an aluminum can at the bottom of the lake in about 5 feet of water.  Dove down to get it and put it in my SSD.  Today's swim was awesome.  I was able to detach my brain from my body for about 2 miles of the swim.  My arms just get in a rhythm and go and I let my thoughts drift off.  Love that!

Update on the recent pineview swimmer/boating accident:   Apparently the boaters knew they hit her and sped off without assisting her.  But that is from one guy's story.  Hard to imagine the heartlessness of people who hit and run.  Here's the latest news story on this:  http://www.ksl.com/?nid=960&sid=16950830&autostart=y

I'll be watching this case closely.  It's really a sad story and have little patience for idiotic boaters.


Todays total:  5.25 miles in 2:23:49

Swimming in Warm River, ID

After setting up camp and picking up Cathi's Marathon packet, we took the kayaks to the top of Warm River and let the kids take several trips down the river.  They had a blast.  After about 10 trips I was beat and ready to get in the water myself!

We found a nice place where the water was deep enough to swim and seemed fast enough to swim upstream like an endless pool.  The water was cold!  It was 61.1° F and I haven't been in water that cold for a long time!  Once I got in I felt fine and was able to not only swim in place but swim upstream just a little.  Every couple minutes I'd float back down a little so that I could go back to swimming right in front of Cathi who was sitting in a camp chair in the shade of a tree right at the river's edge.

I saw some fish swimming ahead of me in the water and yelled out for Jacob and he was in the water within a minute searching for fish.  The other kids were deterred too much by the temperature and didn't get in.  I was able to get within inches of the fish, but never was able to touch them.  They were just too fast.  It was really cool to see so many of them in the water.  I had just as much fun watching them as I was getting in a workout.  I spent 40 minutes swimming upstream so I figure it was equivalent to a mile.  I was shivering a few minutes after getting out and got a hot chocolate at the Jubilee Market in Ashton.

Looking at the pictures from this trip, it really is a wonder I get hypothermia at all.  I really am quite a pudgy dude!


1 Mile Total

What I look like to a fish under the water.  No wonder they swim away!
What an ugly dude!

Hebgen Lake 2011

We arrived at Hebgen Lake this afternoon and took down the two small kayaks for the kids to have fun with (and also help escort me across just to be safe).  Lucy took me on the first lap.  This was her first time in a kayak and was able to very quickly learn how to maneuver and she was able to keep up and was not a hindrance to my swim.  The water was much calmer than last year and there was no wind.  The water still had the same DARK atmosphere under the surface.  It's really weird.  It is clear up to about 3 feet and then gets REALLY DARK.  I can see my hands clear as day and bright, but looking down it is pitch black.  It must be a really deep lake.  I don't understand how it can be so black looking down.

At the end of that lap Lucy had a blister so Cathi took me across for the second lap.  Both laps were not sprints that's for sure.  Nice and easy.

Jacob found a couple of crawfish in the water like last time.  He filled up my waterproof case with water and put them in there.  We ended up letting them go before we left.  The kids enjoyed watching them.

3 miles total

We then went to West Yellowstone to watch "Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat" at the Playmill Theatre as a family.  This kids loved it.  I was mostly impressed with their costumes.  Very exquisite and detailed.  It was a great time.

Here's a slideshow of the entire trip!

Salinated Swimmer

I'm starting to not mind the tongue swell effect.
This is an old pic taken after my EC qualifier in GSL.

After this morning's swim: It's official, in open water, I've swam more miles in the Great Salt Lake than any other body of water.  I passed up Bountiful Lake as my number one open water swimming practice lake.  As of today: 137 miles in GSL and 134 in Bountiful Lake.  So I guess that means I'm more of a saline swimmer than a freshwater swimmer.  Not exactly though. I have many other freshwater swims in other places that still outweigh all my GSL swims.  But it's nice to have GSL as my number one place to swim.  Here's my totals spreadsheet.

This morning met Josh out at the Marina and we did the Gridley Straight.  When we got back to the red buoy we talked for a good 5 minutes and he took off to a meeting and I did another lap.  On the way back I was daydreaming when I looked up and I was only 8 feet away from hitting that one stupid pylon that I'm usually on the lookout for.  It was dead ahead and I almost ran right into it.  Whew!

On both laps I went from channel pace to race pace about halfway back.  I actually tried to break away from Josh on the first one, but he kept right up.  Which was great cause he's gonna be my pacer for the EC trip next year.  He's gotten alot faster this year.

It was nice today to not have an audience as I got out.  I was able to get to my car, go take a quick rinse with the hose and get out of there and off to work before being late.  Very nice swim.  While I was swimming I was thinking about Evan's Catalina Channel crossing tomorrow.  What an epic swim that is.  Right up there with EC fame.  He's got a top notch crew and weather permitting will be victorious!

Total Distance: 4.3 miles
Time: 2:05 (including drink/chat breaks)

Thinking positively

Today I swam at SDRC.  Was in the pool at 6am and did:

1000 free easy
1000 - 2 x 5 x 100's descend 1-5 on 1:30 (1:25 - 1:13)

David Balling was a couple lanes over and was watching me on that last set.  He was apparently done with his workout and was just watching that whole set. On my last one he said "Pretty good!" I still feel embarrassed about our last conversation.  What an idiot! 

1000 - 10 x 100's stroke last one free no rest
2000 pull w/ankle strap build by 500s
1000 - 10 x 100's Tempo Trainer start fast tempo (:90) and slow it up by :02 per 100 (end on 1:08) on 2:00.  Try to maintain same finish time (@ 1:21)
1000 - 10 x 100's Tempo Trainer start slow tempo (1:08) and speed it up by :02 per 100 (end on :90) on 2:00

On these last two sets I was pretending that I was swimming downstream.  I could almost feel the current pushing me like I was swimming in a river downstream.  This kind of thinking I'm sure made me faster than if I wasn't thinking this way.  I think my "sweet spot", or ideal spm is right about 62 spm.  Faster rate and I'm not as efficient.  Slower rate and I'm just plain going too slow.  

200 IM warmdown


7200 yards total

Another good reason to swim GSL

This morning Cathi emailed me this story about a woman who was ran over by a boat yesterday evening in Pineview while she was swimming. According to the report it happened at 8pm which is dusk time.  That is the worst time to swim because if she wore any lights they wouldn't be visible, and it's not really light enough to an SSD very well (even if she did have one).  My instincts are to lash out at the boater, but it's also the responsibility of the swimmer to be extremely cautious and take precautions such as wearing an SSD, or have a kayak support boat nearby to make it easier to see that there is a swimmer in the water.  It really is sad.  Pineview is crazy busy with boats and I've witnessed alot of boaters who just are plain reckless.

Many times while swimming you can hear when a boat/jetski gets close.  Even when they're a hundred yards away, under the water, they are noisy!  I've never seen a motorized boat in the GSL (except for the harbor master's).  All sailboats, kayaks, or rowboats.  Problem with these boats is that your can't hear them coming! But on the other hand they are very rarely out on the water and if so, it's such a huge lake that there are miles and miles of water to share and they get very spread out!

This morning's swim was out at GSL and for the first time that I've swam out there over the weeks in the early morning I saw my first boat!  It was a guy on a single skull boat.  He was about 30 yards from us as we were heading back from Black Rock on our first lap.  Then he was coming back to the Marina while we were 1/3 into our second lap out to Black Rock.

On the last length back to the marina I pretended that I was wearing my massive hand paddles.  I felt like I was getting a stronger pull and was able to make pretty decent time back to the marina.

Total distance: 4.3 miles
Time: 1:01:17

Official "Sign your name" entry

So Josh made it an official event, and after my initial attempt earlier this week, which pretty much sucked, I decided to have another go at swimming my full name.  This time in Bountiful Lake.  After yesterday's soapbox post, I realized I should have a little more pity for those who look at that lake in disgust.  It was indeed pretty nasty today.  I prefer GSL anyday to BL.  I got off work and hurried over to BL just in time to finish before my Mom's Birthday party.

I looked at the map of the lake earlier today and found that if I look at the map with the south end up, I could use the islands to help me with the "o" and "d".  I thought it worked out well.  The water seems lower than normal cause I kept hitting a bunch of stuff as I rounded the islands.  I also noticed another set of tree trunks sticking out of the water at the southeast corner of the western island.  Wouldn't want to run into those when sprinting out a Josh Green Loop entry.  I did alot of breaskstroke today so that I could keep an eye on where I was so that I could get a decent entry into the name contest.  It was long and boring.  I definitely will have this be my official entry and won't be trying this again.

Here's the GPS results of my swim:
Distance: 1.79 miles
Time: 1:06  (I really don't like breaststroke, but today's water was super nasty and I also needed to really be aware of my direction and distance, so it was necessary to do about 25% of it breaststroke)

"Gords" spelled out in Bountiful Lake.  Cathi thinks I'm a real nerd!  Whatever.  

Wow, I'm sore

No shoulder issues at all, but I'm even more sore today in the chest and lats than I was yesterday.  That weight training session I did on Tuesday evening was more intense than I thought.  I wanted to swim at GSL this morning, but my mouth is still pretty swollen from yesterday's swim, so I swam at SDRC to give my mouth a break:

1000 - 10 x 100's easy on 1:45
1000 - 1000 kick with fins
2000 - 2000 straight pull w/ankle strap and paddles
200 - 100 IM, 100 free easy


4200 yards total


Tonight is my Mom's Birthday party so I'm gonna have to miss an OW get together at GSL.  And tomorrow is Cathi and my 17th anniversary.  Then I head up with the scouts to Ephraim's Grave so it's gonna be a busy weekend without much swimming.  Hoping I can get something in though on both days.  We'll see.