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.


View Larger Map

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.

Does Anyone Have A Speargun I Can Borrow?

People always ask about sharks.

People who don't swim in the Bay regularly.

But when you start getting asked by Bay Swimmers, well...

Okay, suddenly I don't feel so cocky anymore.

There's probably nothing to worry about, but I can tell you one thing:

The interval training is going to finally pay off.

I am going to seriously haul ass from the Zoo to the Golden Gate.
Insert Gratuitous Life Aquatic Quote Here:
" Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go on an overnight drunk, and in 10 days I'm going to set out to find the shark that ate my friend and destroy it. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome."

Econo-Swim: 7/12/08

Ever the supportive hubbie, Nat brought me my coffee at 4:30 a.m. (ain't he sweet?), so I was up - but despite the early rise I didn't enter the the water until 7 am. I swam the the perimeter of Aquatic Park three times; quick and easy.
I used to think doing coves alone was boring & even a little creepy, but something's shifted since I've been training. It no longer matters where I am swimming. Even with the most exotic course, the view is always the same to my right: my pilots. This is why above all else (attitude, sense of adventure, loyalty, etc.), the most important quality to look for when selecting a crew member is good looks.
Back to the swim, Elizabeth launched the rowboat & we headed East. Elizabeth is such a bad ass, she can manage mixing my feed, watching for traffic and steering me all while manning the oars. We cruised for two hours before turning back towards Aquatic Park. I spent most of that portion working on guessing her mother's name (hint: 8 letters & the name of a state).
Just about there, a loud loud horn sounded. I just about jumped out of the water. The WWII warship, the Jeremiah O'Brien was letting off steam. We didn't know if it was going to move as well, so I sprinted ("Swim for your life!!!") for a very exciting 10 minutes. Back to the dock for a feeding: Hour five!
At the shift change, Alice came out in the kayak to take me West to finish the second half. Elizabeth had given her the name of her sister, which I was working on (hint: starts with a J).
Alice was seriously equipped: marine radio, her new waterproof digital camera & who knows what else all hanging around her neck - probably her pager & cell, plus all my feed between her knees. You have to hand it to the gal, its no easy task being on call for work 24-7 AND being an open-water enthusiast. Try finding coverage for you no-show employee, all while directing your swimmer, manning your kayak and keeping your fancy work-phone from getting wet - just one week after swimming a marathon. Impressive.
By this point my tongue was so swollen, I could feel the carmel from the last snickers bar on my bottom teeth, but try as I might, my tongue just couldn't get at it. Cursed Sea-Tongue! It must be the idea of the snacks I enjoy, because I couldn't taste much either. The rather brilliant idea came to me to have Nurse Alice measure my tongue before & after a long swim with some kind of medical calipers, so we could get an idea how much a tongue really puffs up. I got a look at it in the mirror immediately afterwards and it was all wrinkled in the middle- pruned up just like your fingers after too long in the pool.
Here's a clip staring my Sea-tongue.

I know what your asking: Do I really swim that slowly? It was almost hour 7 when this was filmed, but September 4th is going to be a very very long night, if that's what it is going to look like! It is a brand new camera, maybe Alice just needs to fix the speed setting or something...yeah, that's probably it.
I started working on a brain teaser one of my lane mates Kathy had given me last week:
you start from 100 and continually subtract 7 all the way down. She called it a dementia test - I'm not sure if that's because it determines if you are crazy, or it makes you crazy. Anyhow, it really helps pass time.
Before I knew it, we were headed back to the cove - I did a final two laps around and it was done! My crew was cheering on the dock and asked me how I felt:
"Strong Like Ox!!"

As it was an Econo-Swim, (read: I stuff my mattress with money, rather than spend it. How do you think I became this wealthy, in the first place?), we celebrated by drinking VB's in the women's locker room, instead of Fiddlers.There's something really fun about drinking beer in a locker room with a bunch of tough dames. The conversation seems to go places it couldn't in a pub. Ehem.

Alright -next up, "Three Bridge Swim" with Jim Bock at the helm this coming Saturday:
4:30 am ready & launch boat
6am start at the zoo
9:30am Get to GG Bridge (6.7 NM)
Cross GG Bridge depending on vessel traffic (.6NM)
Head into Raccoon Straights and on to victory. .
The objective is to drop me in some chop and let me log some time slugging it out.

Fine, I'll talk about swimming.

Okay! Tomorrow morning is the second attempt at the 7.5 hour swim. "Second?" You ask? I called off the first attempt 2weeks ago around 2.5 hours in. Yep. I quit.
Skies were clouded.
Water was cold.

Morale was low.
If you look closely, you can probably see the look of defeat in my eye.Nat asked me what song I was singing in my head out there.
The chorus to some Iggy Pop song: "No fun, my baaaaby, no fun!" Well, we're moving on folks. Not to worry.
I've got Elizabeth and Alice drafted for a "fiscally responsible" training swim tomorrow. No zodiac for these ladies. We're doing it Amish-style. Oars and paddles!
Here's the line up:

• 7 am: Tawny gets in the cove and coves around all by her lonesome for 1.5 hrs.

If Tawny can get her ass in bed and out of bed early enough, she may even log more time beforehand to shorten the collective burden. The strategy here is that hour 2 & on will seem nicer for the company.

• 8:30 am: Elizabeth enters the picture a la rowboat. We head east towards ATT Park.
• 10:00am: Ebb begins and we start heading back towards Cove to meet up with Alice.
• 11:30 ish: Alice enters the water as Tawny swims in the cove during shift change. Elizabeth can dock and call it or hit the bathroom, do a 7th inning stretch & really row her poor hands raw, if she so desires. (She says she does?!) Either way, we are covered.
• 2:30: In the worst case projection (me entering at 7 am) the swim is over!
• 3:30: Victory Beers!

6/21/08 Six Hour Bay Swim

The Course:

Aquatic Park to Golden Gate Bridge

Golden Gate Bridge back to Aquatic Park

Crew Pit Stop: Swim a Flag and Out
Aquatic Park to Candlestick

The Crew:

Joel Lanz
Cool, calm, collected, single.

Joel single handedly kayaked me across Tahoe for my solo last year. Seven hours thirty eight minutes and he was pure enthusiasm the entire way across.

The man is pure class.

Alice Wong
Chief Medical Officer, specializing in fluid management.

Alice is a marathon swimmer and crewed for Jessica Sullivan's Channel Solo last year. With the combination of her nursing background and her swimming experience, she's an amazing asset to any crew.

Joel handled the boat and the radio. Alice did all my feedings and carefully monitored my "fluid outtake", as well. Peeing turns out to be nearly as important as taking in enough liquid, so just about every feed break involved Alice asking:

"Have you peed yet?!!"

"Yesss Alice!"

"Was it a good amount?!

"I think you'd be satisfied!"

When we arrived at the club, that morning there wasn't any gas, so Alice and I grabbed some cans and hit the road trying to find a gas station. This proved to be somewhat challenging, but we persevered and returned to a great parking space in front of the club.

Joel called in the course over the radio to Vessel Traffic: Aquatic Park to the Golden Gate Bridge for a turn East to Candlestick.

We heard Vessel Traffic relay the course over the radio and the response that came back over was, "Wow. (Pause) - Roger".

You do this kind of thing often enough and are surrounded with folk of similar ilk & its easy to forget you're doing something other people find impressive. Thanks, Vessel Traffic.

The zodiac didn't hit the water until after 8:30 am. The wind picks up as the day gets later and I had some chop to deal with - something I'd best get used to. I swallowed some serious Bay water - but only had about six bad gagging incidents. No retching to date, but going on fellow swimmers' experiences, its only a matter of time.

This time I requested the crew not tell me what time it was or more importantly, let myself ask: How much longer do I have to keep swimming?

I need to get over that and just accept the fact that its seemingly endless. I wrestled with the demon a few times, but all in all I did pretty well not tracking the time.
I like games out there. First I worked on guessing Joel's middle name, then his mom's first name.
Maybe a little more than half way through I got envious watching Joel and Alice eating all that tasty solid food up in the zod and started obsessing about eating something real.
New game: If I could have a bite of anything I wanted out here, what would it be? I decided what I really wished for was a bite of a Snickers bar. I'll have to pack one next time. I ended up settling for jellybeans first round. After that each time I fed, I'd call out what solid food I wanted for the next feed and it gave me something to get excited about for the next twenty minutes.

I tend to have pain in my left arm and shoulder - probably because my form leaves something to be desired, but this was one of my stronger swims and I only called out for Motrin once. Alice told me I was over the five hour mark, so I spent the last thirty minutes organizing just what I would eat first once I was on the zod and wrapped snug in my parka. Salami and cheese and crackers. One entire odwalla orange juice. Pirates Booty. Jelly beans. More salami and cheese. Chocolate covered espresso beans.

Alice snapped an amazing shot of me swimming past the Financial District - I'll post it here once she figures out how to download it off her phone. She also took some film footage - the first time I'd seen myself in action & could see the technique issues I'm contending with.

All in all, I'd have to say it was my strongest training swim to date.

Hopefully I can say the same after my 7.5 hour swim this coming Sunday!

Pt.Bonita to San Quentin

Writing up long swims is even less exciting than reading about them.
So we'll call this one a "Photo Essay" and spare us both the agony.
Pt. Bonita to San Quentin:
6/15/08 Five Hours
Pilots: Jim Bock & Elizabeth Glass

Photography:

Pure Elizabeth
This was to be the longest Bay swim I'd done to date.

Jim, the cosumate swashbuckler, picked a really exciting route from Pt. Bonita in Marin, through Racoon Straights, round the back side of Angel Island ending at San Quentin. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I've never even considered swimming to San Quentin. Bay swimmers tend to get fixated on the other prison, and lose sight of the fact, that the Bay area has many lovely penal facilites, which can serve as swim destinations. I will set about right away to learn the rest of the lyrics to the Johnny Cash's "San Quentin". I couldn't get past the chorus out there. Drove me batty.


Ah the Mighty South End!




Jim and I ready the Spicer for the swim.







The Light house at Pt. Bonita.

Jim calls in the course to Vessel Traffic.

I need to work on looking sexier in my thermal cap and goggles. Maybe practice in the mirror like I did for the wedding photos. There's got to be a way to tilt your chin or something...

The water was rippin' west of the Gate.

We never leave Oakland, so its hard for me to be sure,
but I think this is Tiburon.

Yep, another bridge.

I think this is the point at which I got the bright idea to try salami & cheese on a cracker. After four plus hours of endurox and gu, I've noticed I tend to start getting creative. Probably won't repeat that particular experiment.

"San Quentin, You've been living hell to me..."

They tried to convince me to swim in directly under the prison,
but they weren't sure if I would be shot. So we ended it at the beach directly next door.

This last shot is dedicated to all the dirty old men of the South End

who've been dying to see the inside of the ladies locker room:

Victory beer with Alice Wong.