OPEN SEASON HAS BEGUN!

Hagg Lake opens for the fishing season in March.  Typically the swimmers and triatletes don’t start going to train until very late May or June.  I thought there is no time like the present.  I of course enlisted one of my swimming buddies, Tim C., to join me.  (Side Story: Tim is new to Oregon and swam the Channel in August.  I couldn’t be happier that he joined the Barracudas and now there is another crazy cold open water swimmer to join in my training fun.)

Right now the coast is running around 48 degrees.  I figured Hagg Lake would be comparable.  That was until we started driving out there and the fog became denser and I noticed the snow on the hilltops surrounding the lake.  At this point I was hoping that we wouldn’t have to break the ice.   We still went for it despite the weird looks from the fishermen.  There were about 5-6 fishermen on the shore enjoying a nice quiet morning.  Tim and I popped down with the thermometer to check the temp.  Jokingly a fisherman said “What you going swimming?”  I bet he wasn’t ready for both of us to seriously state “Yep!”.  The thermometer reading…45 degrees.

This was going to be a very quick run in and run out.  My main goal was not to scream like a little girl the whole time and disrupt the fishermen’s morning.  Tim and I decided on a 20 stroke count swim away from shore and a 20 stroke count swim back into shore.  We have been training in 84 degree water so this was going to be a shock to the system.  Unfortunately both of us are the torture type that wade slowly in the water.  However, after the water reached my waist I was going for it.  I plunged in and started stroking.  I felt like a vice was crushing my chest.  I was still bilateral breathing but it was only by sheer luck.  I kept trying to relax into the stroke.  No way was that going to happen.  After 20 strokes I quickly pointed back towards home.  Tim and I quickly climbed out of the water into our awaiting towels and warm clothes.  (Note: They weren’t that warm as we had to leave them on a soaking wet park table.)  There is no luxury of a shower, support crew or sauna here in Oregon.  I guess they never much thought that there would be cold open water swimmers.  Perhaps we can change that perception.

The thing that I will remember from this first plunge is the sound of a fisherman calling out over the calm quiet water “So how was the swim?”  I couldn’t get my jaw unhinged to even respond. 

 My plan is to be back at Hagg Lake next weekend.  Perhaps I’ll even manage to swim 40 strokes this time.

Three months have just flown by and I found myself back into the dunk tank for my hydrostatic weighing.  I have to say I was a little bit nervous as I wasn’t sure that I was still on point for converting to more lean muscle mass.  After going through all the testing the results were good.  I dropped from 26.7% body fat to 25.6%.  YEA!!!  I was super excited, as this was still working towards my goal.  Also surprising is that my weight is remaining the same.  My athletic trainer has me doing some more strength training for my shoulders and it seems to be adding on the muscle.  I’m guessing in another 3 months I may not be holding the same weight, as I’m not trying to bulk up in muscle mass.  Plus I’ll be meeting with a nutritionist this next week to help optimize my nutrition for increased swimming performance.  Somehow I’m guessing that boxed mac ‘n cheese will not be part of my nutrition plan nor is the half gallon of spumoni ice cream that I consumed last week.  Yep, thank goodness I ate that after the hydrostatic weighing.

Then I was back into the Wellness Center to test how my VO2Max has been doing over the past 6 months.  The thing with VO2Max testing is that you have to either choose running or cycling to test.  For a swimmer neither of these exercises are that easy at least not for me.  However, since I’ve been running for cross training I thought I might do much better than in October.  The test takes around 10 minutes of running and you have to wear this weird contraption on your head.  Don’t worry the pictures are below.  You have to breath through this tube with your nose plugged.  It is all a very strange experience.  Luckily I only have to do it every 6 months.  The results are in and…11% VO2Max improvement.  Again another positive sign on my training plan.  Oh and I also have to do flexibility, push ups and crunches as part of the testing.  Push ups went from 35 to 40 and flexibility was at 15″.  I’m not flexible at all, so the 15″ is pretty good for me.  Please see pictures of the running test below.  Please be kind if you are runners as I know my technique stinks.  I’m just lucky most days that I can stay upright and put one foot in front of the other.

I’M RETIRED!!!!  Ok I’ve only retired from running, but I’m still very excited about this.  On the 16th, I ran my 3rd race ever.  It was the 5K Shamrock Run of Portland.  I was supposed to meet my friend Michelle down there, but with 16,000 people in downtown Portland we never connected.  And my other friends were running the later 15K race, so I was out on the course alone.  Ok yes there were a ton of people in the 5K, but I was running by myself.  I figured that with 3 year olds running past me as if they were connected to jet packs that I was moving at a glacial pace.  Frankly at this point, I just wanted to get through because then I was done with running.  After 6 months I still hadn’t fell in love with running.  In fact I think I still dislike it as much as I did before.  I will give a little and say that it has been great cross training and a huge help in my goal to lean down, but still those reasons didn’t overpower my dislike. 

I just checked my results on the web and good ol’ race number 7940 finished in 28:38.  A new PR baby.  And if I’m reading these race results right I finished 48th in my division.  Granted there were probably only 50 people in my division as everyone else was running the 8K or 15K because the 5K is a walk in the park for most runners.  Oh well.  I managed to run sub 10 minute miles and I’m happy with that.

Another friend just approached me the other day to run a race at the end of April.  This is a 10K.  Hmm…maybe. 

After many months I’ve figured out how to post more photos of my swim.  Granted I was procrastinating a little bit…ok ok you’re all right I’ve been procrastinating a lot, but it did take some sage advise about minimizing photos to save space, make loading faster, etc. etc.  Who knew how much I would be learning about websites and blogs in undertaking endurance swimming.  It appears that I’m much slower at learning these skills compared to my other swimming friends with blogs. 

Without much further ado, here are the second set of photos from my English Channel swim.  This shows a little bit more about what my crew did to keep me entertained.

Again it has been a while since I’ve updated my website and there has been a lot going on.  So here is a quick rundown.

You can see that there has been some updates on this blog and we are still under construction.  With the help of Synthetic Kit and my friend Courtney there are more features available.  I have had some friends complain that checking my blog every day to see if I was able to update (which usually isn’t the case) gets tiring.  One even went so far as to ask if my blog could notify him that I had made an update.  Well I wasn’t sure and I put the idea to Courtney.  Sure enough there was a way and now on the main page you can see that there is a subscription location.  So sign up with your email and you will be notified once I make an update.  Thank you Courtney!  Also we should all congratulate Courtney as she has just recently become engaged!!!!  Congratulations Courtney and Kevin!

And Then?

I forgot to tell you all that I had LASIK surgery in December.  Finally after 10 years of considering the procedure I decided to follow through.  I figured if I was still planning to do these long swims I had to eliminate one of my potential setbacks, my contacts.  I began to fear that I would lose a contact at the beginning of the swim and be blind for the rest of the swim.  I know that I could wear perscription goggles, but I just never went down that route.  Surprising thing is that when I finally talked with my eye doctor about wearing my contacts when I swam, he nearly freaked out.  Apparently this is not a good thing.  Oh well.  On December 21st, I went and had eye surgery.  Now 2.5 months later, things are great.  I can now see all the time with 20/20 vision.  I do have some mini wrinkles in my left eye which causes a fuzzy spot high in my vision zone.  I only really have a problem with it early in the morning and late in the evening.

And Then?

Thank you to everyone that has been asking about my mom and her treatment.  She is doing wonderful.  She has completed her radiation treatment and now is more on a monitoring plan.  True to her word, my mom will be around to make me miserable for a very long time   Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers.  As breast cancer continues to be prevalent in my family, just last month we had another diagnosis in the family.  For this reason, I will continue to swim for the University of Minnesota Cancer Center.

And Then?

Training has been going very well.  My shoulders are getting stronger and my swimming is getting faster.  For the time being I’m still doing some cross training with running and pilates.  I even signed up for another 5K on March 16th.  It is the Portland Shamrock run.  This will be my last run of the season and then I will be cutting out the running as cross training and begin swimming every day.  I will continue with pilates and strength training and PT for my shoulders. 

And Then?

Do you ever find that someone in your past has really touched your life in unexpected ways.  I have found that one of my swimming friends from college (who I haven’t seen since college) continues to be very present in my life.  At every practice in college Paula B would always have a smile and a kind word to push you through.  She always seemed genuinely excited to be at practice.  Now I was one of those swimmers that would delay getting into the water as long as I could.  I would even use the torture method of sliding ever so slowly in the water trying to keep my arms raised so the water didn’t hit my hands or face.  I figured once my hands and face were wet, there was no turning back.  But every day Paula would be so excited to get in the water.  Even now I can hear her saying “Hi guys!  How are you?  You ready to swim.”  However there is one phrase that always sticks in my mind.  “Last one Fast one.”  After a really hard set and we were finally looking at staring down the last 100, 200, 300, etc.  There was Paula beaming at the end of the lane “Last One Fast One Guys!!!”  It usually made me laugh, sometimes I just wanted to throw up thinking about “Last one Fast one”.  It turns out now I’m the one that says it in my lane.  Granted it is probably with a little more sarcasm than Paula ever showed but still there it is.

And Then?

At the beginning of February, I headed back to MN to introduce my sister at her induction into the College of St. Benedict Hall of Fame.  Of the 3 kids, I’m the least natural athlete.  My brother and sister could pick up any sport and excel.  My sister was being honored for being the most successful diver in the College of St. Benedict and I was so proud of her.  I thought no problem.  I’ll give a 3 minute speech giving some brief highlights of my sister’s career.  I even was so sure that right before I went up to speak, I looked at my sister and said “Oh your crying, I’m so not going to cry.”  I walked up to the microphone and not two sentences into the speech and I’m in uncontrollable tears.  Oh yes, full on tears where I can’t even get a word out.  I was so overwhelmed that Katie had asked me to introduce her and I began to think about all the times sitting and cheering her on knowing that I would never have her grace or composure.  She is magnificent and how can 3 minutes show that to the 100-200 people in the room.  Well crying for most of the speech probably didn’t help my cause.  I think Katie will seriously reconsider having me introduce her ever again.  I was just so proud.

And Then?

Out of the pool, I’ve been pounding the pavement and making phone calls trying to line up sponsors for my upcoming swims.  I want to ensure that I can cover the costs of my crew, registration fees, pilot fees, travel, accommodations, food etc.  Unfortunately, I can’t do that without the help of sponsors.  Things are moving slowly, but I’m getting a ton of positive responses from local businesses.  Hopefully once I line up sponsors, I will be able to focus more time on fundraising for breast cancer research.  I want to thank all those sponsors that have come on board and to those looking for an opportunity please feel free to contact me at mlmacy@hotmail.com.  To my friends and fellow swimmers, if you have any suggestions, please pass them along.

And Then?

No and then.

And THEN?

No and then.

And Then?

I think I’m all caught up.