DETENTION: The 8.5 Hour Swim

Alice didn't like the Zoo Start and said she was out for piloting the portion west of the Gate. Unfazed, I blamed Discovery Channel induced hysteria and told Elizabeth to buy sea sick pills.

My husband didn't like it either. What, suddenly I am going to start listening to him?

Then the Swim Commissioner said forget about it: Its the Bay or nothing.

Okay, well, I had nothing on that one.

Its like the cashier at the coffee shop told me when he saw how crestfallen I was that they ran out of my favorite cookie: "Best to practice non-attachment". Thanks, kid.
And so it was that poor Cap'n Blue Balls had to rewrite his master plan & his vision remains just that, a vision.
Feeling somewhat castigated, we thought up a course in keeping with the mood:
The Detention Tour.
There are so many lovely detention centers dotting the Bay that are well worth swimming by, if you are only willing to spend the time.
We started our tour from the beach at Aquatic Park.
With me on the A Squad: Jim Bock & Elizabeth Glass
Not two feedings in, we realized I must have forgotten to pack the Motrin. Special.
The longest training swim and I forgot the pain killers!
Impressive.
I also forgot my favorite goggles and my nylon bikini, but managed to steal Alice's goggles and dug up a moth eaten one piece out of my locker.
If not prepared, at least I can claim to be resourceful.
Moving right along...
First Stop: Alcatraz
Once an exceptional swim destination, its long been over run with triathletes and obsessed Bay swimmers alike. Sure its fun, but why the fixation on racking up this particular swim?
Hey, San Q has real live prisoners!
With no time to waste, we headed on towards Tiburon, a right through Raccoon Straights and there on the right, our first stop: Angel Island.
Angel Island boasts not only its status as a former detention center for undesirables; lovely Ayala Cove was also a fumigation center at one time for quarantined immigrants. Fascinating.
The crew told me to swim laps around Ayala Cove while they hit the restroom one at a time.
Three small laps and Elizabeth is back on the dock. She takes the helm, while Jim heads up to the facilities. Three laps. Still no Jim. Five laps. Jees - this guy is constipated or something, hope he's okay?..sixth lap and there he is at the dock, two lattes in hand!!
Apparently, Ayala Cove has come along way in terms of amenities.


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Then it was off to San Quentin. As we came closer, Elizabeth reported that the B Squad was in route from Aquatic Park to take over the second portion of the swim. After some time spent weaving in and out of the start of a sail boat race, Elizabeth hopped in to swim the final leg up to the prison.
The B Squad arrives; Joe Butler and Alice Wong in the relief zodiac.
I swam circles around the two zods watching as they attempted to accomplish several things at once, all without being able to dock.
Elizabeth is hoisting herself up on the zod.
No easy feet when you are wet and the boat is slippery.
The A Squad offloads all their crap into the relief zod to take back with them.
The A Squad briefs the B Squad as to the situation with gas, the course & vessel traffic.
The B Squad transfers their supplies into the Spicer for their leg of the journey.
The B Squad boards the Spicer & the A Squad boards the relief zod.

Insert gratuitous Life Aquatic line here:
"Listen. You may be on 'B' Squad,but you're the 'B' Squad leader."

All this needs to be done with two zodiacs which the current in spinning in circles as they idle and are only being kept together with the grip of the crew.
No one fell in, but it was still pretty amusing to watch.

Once that was done, the two squads parted ways (see ways parting picture) and Alice and Joe took me towards China Camp. I was hoping China Camp was another detention center, but a little online research reveals that it was actually a shrimp fishing community & was settled voluntarily.
Ah well, three is a pretty good days work.
On the way their we swam underneath the very low portion on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.That's another notch for the lip-stick case; a new bridge! How low did we go? Insert video clip here:






The water got swirly and strange on the other side of the bridge.
Likely due to the trolls that live there. If you've never been, its hard to fathom, but Alice took this clip of Bay trolls in action. See them off to the left?





I spent an eternity (that's distance swimmer lingo for the last few hours of your swim) trying to make it back to the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge, but the ebb wasn't much help.






Along the way, a tanker came by - and rather rudely stirred up a surge of freezing water that must have been camped out below the depths since May. It was that cold.
When they told me the tide was reversing directions & had me turn around, I thought I had the time figured for sure! I knew the ebb would start around 3pm, so clearly it must have been around then. Alice was up to some trickery though, because our poor heroine thought she still had an extra two hours to go. Evidence of possible cruelty posted below.

And finally the 8.5 hour swim was over. And so you would think the adventure was over, as well. But the real fun came on the ride back! Joe at the helm took the brunt of the spray as we hit wave after wave.








Luckily, he had on his high performance wicking fleece. Made all the difference, as you can tell in this video.



Finally after lots of tail bone abusing bumps, we made it to the South End dock. I headed straight to the shower to warm up. I timed it carefully, so that I wouldn't have to help out putting the boat away and when I came out Elizabeth was serving up the piping hot Zachary's Deep Dish!


Hooray!!!

A big thank you to the crew:

Jim Bock
Elizabeth Glass
Joe Butler
Alice Wong

also to the best boat hoister ever,
Jonathan Maier.

Night Coving

First off, some editorial matters:
One of my readers recently pointed out that the title of my last post was strikingly similar to a line from an email that they had sent me prior to my swim: "Workin' on the Night Coves" .
While its true that I might have been somewhat inspired by the tone of his email, by the time I had finished my title "Workin on the Night Moves", it was so radically different that there was no need to credit his idea.

That would be because it was my idea.

Last week's night swim was a rousing success. Suzie Dods and Morgan were on hand to escort me out of the cove, just after I finished my fifth lap.
Another great shot by Elizabeth, of the three of us heading off into the sunset.

Under the watchful eyes of my entourage, we spent a few hours swimming in and around the breakwater wall, weaving in and out of the Ft. Mason piers, and back to the cove. Being wet and cold in a back-cramping kayak isn't exactly most people's ideal Saturday night. Suzie didn't want to hog all the fun, so when Fast Eddie showed up, she let him take a turn and retired to the Dolphin's sauna to see if she could regain feeling in her extremities.
Morgan and Eddie took me back over to Ft. Mason for another tour. I was wrestling with the idea of calling the swim at hour five. My shoulder hurt and I was feeling pretty self-indulgent.
Something like:
This kind of sucks.
Yeah, my shoulder hurts.
I hate fruit punch powder mix crap.
The lights are really bright and hurt my eyes.
Its kind of cold.
Yep, kind of sucks.
I have to swim 8.5 hours next week, why swim six tonight?
This is silly.
Five seems really reasonable.

So I told Morgan, I was thinking of calling it short at hour five.

"Why?"
"Um, because I just want to".

So it was in to the cove for two more laps to kill the last hour.
Its funny how smells in the air totally make the water smell. For some reason, the water smelled like hot candle wax. When I asked Eddie, he said he smelled it in the air, too.

No answers to that mystery.

When we went by the muni pier, it smelled strongly of marijuana. Bay water smells like a lot of things, but that was a first. The smell was drifting down from a throng of rebellious youth up above on the pier. The second time I came around they all started applauding and cheering for me.

See how silly drugs make you act?

I was kind of at a loss for how to respond; I told my pilots, I felt compelled to moon them. I guess I wasn't as quiet as I thought, because someone shouted from above "You should!"

That guy totally ruined it. You can't moon someone, if they approve of the mooning beforehand!!

Drugs make people so stupid.

Soon it was all over (okay maybe not as soon as I would have liked at the time) and we swam in to a flash of camera bulbs. Elizabeth, our ever faithful papparazzo was at it again.

Check out this victory shot.

I have friggin' incredible hulk legs!!

You've seen the headlines and heard the whispers:

"Has Tawny taken the leg presses too far?"

Move over Madonna!

Nobody can take a good thing too far like I can!

Workin' on the Night Moves

This is the Cove.
This is the Cove at Night.

With the help of some illuminated kayakers, I'll be getting some practice in the dark this Saturday.

That's right, folks! No alarm tomorrow morning!

Jump time is at six pm and the swim ends at the stroke of midnight. (My dramatic touch.)

The dark is a lonely place, so I have roped in Michelle Deasey & Fast Eddie into joining in. Michelle is swimming Catalina just a week ahead of me & Eddie has '10 English Channel date.

Not that they will really be swimming next to me, per se.

They are both "race horses", while I am more of the"work horse" variety. Not much to look at, but gets the job done. Eventually.

Anyhow, I am very grateful for the company.

Everything is more fun with friends.

Even swimming circles in the dark for hours.

The Elbow Knows

Morgan gave me a thirty minute massage for my birthday.
"What? Wasn't that back in May.." you ask?
As I am much too cheap, I haven't had many massages in my life, but I've had one of Morgan's early on in the training (And yes, it was free. I am a regular charity case..) Knowing I had a good thing coming, I ferreted away the gift for when I really needed something to look forward to. This turned out to be a brilliant move on my part. In just two months, the gift certificate nearly tripled its redemption value!! I was drooling on her table for well over an hour. Like everything else the woman does, when she rubs, she kicks ass. She decided we didn't have time to ease in to it (gulp) and went straight into my shoulders.
Think you're tough, eh?Well, meet The Elbow.
It wields uncommon force.
It heals the lame & makes grown men cry for mercy.
The Elbow is going to be on my boat during my Catalina crossing.
Whatever happens, I must not disappoint it.

Karah Crosses the English Channel!

Great news for a Monday!

Despite the most hideous spider bite ever to grace a woman's leg and fainting twice upon standing on the French shores, Karah completed her crossing in 12 hours, 28 minutes!
Nice work, Karah.

We salute you!

West Coast is the Best Coast

Open water swimming is fraught with dangers.

No, I am not talking about sharks.

I am talking about SEA LICE!!!

Sea lice plague the waters of New York like scabies plague Phish-fans!

(Are you scratching yet?)

Alice came over last night to show me her battle wounds.

Ever the medical professional, she would want me to mention that its

technically known as "sea bathers eruption".

The date-night lingerie will remain in the dresser this week.

Yep, sea lice almost always go for the breasts

(mean little bastards!),

so I had to make do with a picture off the Internet.
You thought it was just my California snobbery,

but I knew there was a reason I haven't bothered with the Big Apple.

7/5/08: Alice Dominates MIMS!!!

Despite the intense competition, I was awarded the coveted assignment as ground reporter for Alice Wong's Manhattan Island Marathon Solo (from here on snobbishly referred to as "MIMS" ).
Per the Manhattan Island Foundation, this is the "longest and premier event of the season, a full counter-clockwise circumnavigation of the island of Manhattan." The course is 28.5 miles through some water nasty enough to turn the stomach of even the boldest of SF Bay swimmers.
I had hoped to be able to post to my blog as I relayed the updates to her fan-base via email & forwarded their messages to Alice's crew on the boat.

Alas my mother had the brilliant idea that the family would spend the day hungover painting my aunt's fence in the blistering Riverside heat, so I reported most of it from my crackberry in the shade of a lone juniper tree, paint brush in hand. Not exactly CNN, but hey..
For those of you who don't know, Alice has been my mainstay training buddy through the last winter. She lives maybe 5 blocks from my apartment and together we've toughed out the day to day battle against the snooze button for morning dawn patrol at the pool, as well as many a not so exotic adventure in Lake Del Valle. (I promise an entire posting dedicated to "Del Valle - Jewel of Livermore" in the future - there's so much to say, I can't find the starting point!)
Anyhow, Alice kicked some serious ass and finished the swim in the unofficial time of 8 hours 23 minutes!
In case you are wondering how these things work, usually one crew member on the boat is in charge of relaying the updates to the swimmer from the communications person on the ground. So Alice's people emailed me their messages and I texted them to Jessica on the boat and she would put them up on the whiteboard for Alice to see.

Below is my favorite encouraging message - penned by moi...
"VB" is short for "Victory Beer" - a key motivational tool for the endurance athlete.

I am not sure how the hell a Coors was nominated to such a lofty position, but then I have never really spent much time in New York.

I can only speculate "tapping the Rockies" has a bigger appeal over there...

Our Team Includes...

Elizabeth Glass,

Head Pilot...

our professional photographer,

unfailingly at my side

since a drunken promise

one fateful night after Happy Hour;

Alice Wong,

Chief Medical Officer,

about to swim around Manhattan;

Morgan Filler,

X-Pro Marathon Swimmer, Training Advisor &

All Around Bad Ass;

Dryland Dan O'Loughlin

Expert in the Art of Torture;

Cap'n Nathaniel

Good Looking Husband.