March Update in April

Start of the Fort Point->Pt. Bonita Swim

 March has come and gone really quickly! I have had several solid swims that are building my confidence and helped me to shed my second cap (silicone), so now I am just down to my trusty ol' yellow latex. As per channel rules I can only wear one cap, so I could technically just wear one silicone cap but those never have seemed to work for me, they tend to slip off of my head during swims longer than 1 hour, I think I sweat too much? and they give me headaches...so i dont they are not worth the extra bit of warmth.

On March 7, I did a RT (round-trip) Anita Rock Swim with the Sunrisers. It was designated as a "nutcracker" swim, named for its level of difficulty. I had done a 1 hr 55min swim in late February and followed pretty much the same course, so I felt pretty confident doing this swim. The leg out to Anita Rock took the bulk of the time about 50 mins as we were swimming against a fairly strong flood. Once we got to Anita Rock, I chugged some water mixed with a Gu powder. I like that particular mix because it isn't too sweet but still gives me lots of electrolytes. Drinking midway through gave me a nice burst of energy and started to power on back to the club. I made it back to the club in far less time, because I felt like I wanted to kick it up a little bit speed-wise. Once back inside Aquatic Park I decided to give myself a little cool down. Overall we were looking at about 1 hour and 43 mins in the water, which I was quite happy with.

The following weekend I had a chance to do another adventurous swim, this time taking place outside of Golden Gate Bridge. The plan is to swim from Fort Point in the eastward direction and ending up at Point Bonita.


We were greeted with a phenomenal sunrise and boarded the boat in the sunshine. The ride out to the gate was a bit bumpy, which meant that we might encounter some wind once we were outside the bridge. Once we jumped it seemed like it took forever to arrive at the bridge and make the right hand turn underneath the bridge. I knew that once I made that turn I would have to keep my head down and keep moving because it was going to get choppy. I didn't spend too much time gazing up at the bridge...but no matter how many times I have made a crossing underneath that bridge I am always in awe of its beauty. After getting past the bridge, I found myself at Pt. Bonita in far less time than I had imagined. I stayed in the water for another 45 mins just swimming and playing around in order to get some extra time in.

I now possess a shillelgh to use to hit mean seals. 

In honor of St. Paddy's Day, the club hosts a Coughlan beach swim where we all raced for the honor of winning the shillelagh. In case you dont know what a shillelagh is...i have attached a link to wikipedia for further information. Right before jump time a few of the guys at the club suggested that I join them for a roundtrip Coughlan swim. I decided it would be a nice way to warm up for the race portion and started off early in order to arrive in enough time to start with everyone else. Once I had already committed to this I had a brief moment of panic when I remembered that last time that I did a RT Coughlan I had a really rough swim. I got a headache from the cold and started panicking and basically lost it mentally halfway through the swim. I ended up finishing, but I really doubted myself and was really hard on myself afterwards. I have made a lot of mental progress since then, but it was a scary moment. A huge part of training for the channel is the mental component and this experience scared me because I felt like I wasn't where I should be and that I shouldn't have been having those struggles.  Someone once told me that people who are successful never ever doubt themselves. I have been thinking about that lately and realized that isn't always true. It's okay for me to question myself, and it will likely happen during bigger swims, but I have to get into the practice of hearing those thoughts and honoring my feelings (whatever they may be at the time) but not letting them hold me back. I want to be sure that I am always authentic with myself and I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. I believe that it is really important that people know that all athletes have doubts and moments or periods of struggle do not ultimately mean that you will not be a success in the end.

I ended up finishing the swim first overall, and had a quick time of 20:30, but i did a few cool down laps to get my time in the water up a bit. This swim restored some of my faith because I was able to do well during a swim that previously had given me a lot of trouble. So March meant a bunch of great swims but also meant that the Mindy Project had it's season finale..so although I am sad about that I am looking forward to a bunch of great swims in April including some Alcatraz time and some time south of the Bay bridge! Stay tuned for some updates on things that actually happened in April :)