When you start to dabble in the stuff of adventure, you start to meet all kinds of interesting people.  Prior to getting involved yourself, you’d definitely say they were crazy.  Bonkers.  Missing a few marbles.  What kind of person actually derives pleasure in subjecting their body to extreme conditions, putting themselves through some masochistic test of the human ability to endure?

Answer?  All kinds.  Young, old, great athletes, average athletes, wealthy, not so wealthy…

There is a common feeling of camaraderie fostered in places like the Dolphin Club that can be summed up in the words of my dear friend Reuben Hechanova:  “We are all equal opportunity supporters of crazy people.”  It’s funny how we all seem eager to jump up and help our comrades fulfill their dreams of self-torture.  The South End Club is the same way.  When you’re in an environment like this, where people not only understand the extreme but encourage it, it’s weird how “crazy” quickly becomes “cool.”

You want to swim from Alcatraz to Aquatic Park in shackles?  Awesome!  I’ll pilot you!

You want to swim continuous trips around Alcatraz and back for 8 hours, dodging huge cargo ships in one of the busiest shipping channels over and over again?  Sweet!  Wish I’d thought of that.  Can I do one of the laps with you?

You want to swim the English Channel?  Go for it!  I’ll meet you here at 4am on a Saturday and we’ll do a 4 hour swim in the dark to get you ready.

You want to swim 40 miles in 3 days in 50 degree water in the middle of winter?  Great!  I’ll spend most of my Christmas vacation making you hot drinks to warm you up.

When you’re with people who “get it,” the impossible becomes possible, both because you alter your perspective AND because you discover a cult of people who actually want to get up early/freeze outside in the wind/swim beside you/fetch you food/sit in a row boat for hours/get wet/coach you through the lows/spend their entire day forgetting about their own comforts and goals all to help you.  They’ve been there, and they know what it’s like.  People were there for them.  Now you need them, and you know it…and there they are, supporting you every step, stroke, or pedal of the way.  It’s pretty rad.

Beware, though…once you take that first step into madness, once you feel the thrill of adventure, you open a Pandora’s Box of possibilities.  Without realizing it, you become one of the crazies.

And man, does it feel good.

This Sunday will be my longest training swim so far, 6 hours out in the San Francisco Bay.  Dolphin Club Rowing Commissioner and Pilot Extraordinaire Reuben Hechanova designed the course you see above.  We aim to start from the Dolphin Club at 7:30am, head around Alcatraz and Treasure Islands, under the Bay Bridge toward Candlestick park, and return to the Dolphin Club along the waterfront to wrap things up at 1:30pm.  At which point we will grab some yummy Ahi Tuna sandwiches at the conveniently located Blue Mermaid Restaurant.

I’m really excited because my family will be up again for the swim!  My dad, mom, and sister will be out on the water cheering me on, along with usual suspects Reuben and Neal, and with Dave Hollembaek captaining the Arias.  Here’s the breakdown:

Reuben, Neal, and Dad in one of the gorgeous DC rowboats.

Dave, Mom, and Karri in the Arias (zodiac).

I’m aiming to treat this swim exactly as I would the real Channel swim, from the feeding schedule, to the food, to the boat position, etc…maybe we’ll even throw in a few twists or two, like changing out goggles or something.  It will also be a chance for Mom and Karri to learn how to “feed me” in case they are called upon to perform this task in England.

I”ve been training really well all week.  This morning, I did 9k in the pool, then headed to the Bay for a 4 mile swim right after.  The water has been very warm (59-60 this morning) and I’ve been feeling strong.  My shoulder is still hanging in there, and my foot, I am happy to report, is still attached despite the pain in my ankle.  I’ll get in a good long training session on Friday, take Saturday completely off and cheer on in the Dolphin Club/South End Club Golden Gate Bridge swim, and be ready to bring it on Sunday morning!

The Lake Berryessa swim today was awesome!  The lake is beautiful, the water clear, clean, and warm (69 degrees!)  While this is obviously way, way warmer than the Channel, it was a fun chance to have fun and race.  The sun was shining, and it was super warm out. 

A ton of my friends showed up – members of the Dolphin Club, South End Club, San Mateo Master Marlins, and Mountain View Masters were there, and I met some really nice people from Santa Cruz.  I also managed to get my friend and former Princeton swimmer Fernando out to swim.  What can I say, swimmers have a tendency to rock. 

The Davis team did a fanstastic job running the event, and they used a really nifty timing system.  They had us all wear electronic bands on our ankles that recorded times as we ran up the beach.  Very high tech, and it made turn around time on the results very fast. 

I entered both the 2 mile and 1 mile events.  The 2 mile went off at 9:45, and it was this race that was my focus.  I got out fast, and once I was in the lead, I started freaking out that someone was going to catch me from behind at the finish (it’s happened before).  Since open water swimming has no turns, I had no idea where people were behind me, so I kept ramping up the effort through the whole race.  It paid off, and I came in as the first female age 18-39(11th overall if you include the men).  Later in the day, Suzanne Heim-Bowen, a fellow Dolphin Club member, would surpass my time by 35 seconds to claim the 5th spot overall.  Well done her!

I was feeling tired, and the 1 mile was set to start what seemed like almost immediately.  I decided to just have fun on the 1 mile – just enjoy the warm, clear water and the chance to swim with other people.  But 30 seconds after the start, I found myself at the head of the pack again.  Well, I figured, if I’m ahead now, I may as well try to stay there! 

The 1 mile seemed to be over almost as soon as it started, but once again, I finished first out of the women age 18-39. 

I had a great time, and I’m definitely going to be back next year!  Hope to see you there, too! 

PS.  Loved the shirts!

Summer is just around the corner, and that means it’s open water race season!  Both Southern California and the Bay Area have tons of swims scheduled for the open water swimming fan.  From the beautiful Pacific Ocean to the myriad of lakes dotting our glorious, sunny state, you can find plenty of opportunities to join fellow swimmers in an escape from black lines and chlorine.

Just make sure you rinse your suit out well so your swim bag doesn’t take on the permanent fragrance of ocean bottom!

• May 31:  Lake Del Valle .75 mile and 1.5 mile, Livermore (NorCal)
• June 6:  Lake Berryessa 1 mile and 2 mile, Napa (NorCal)
• June 27:  Lake Mendocino 2 mile, Lake Mendocino (NorCal)
• July 11:  Balboa to Newport Pier to Pier 2 mile, Newport Beach (SoCal)
• July 12:  Seal Beach Rough Water Swim 1 mile and 3 mile, Seal Beach (SoCal)
• July 12:  Semana Nautica 6 mile, Santa Barbara (SoCal)
• July 18:  Trans-Tahoe Relay, Lake Tahoe (NorCal)
• August 2:  CRUZ Cruise 2 mile, Santa Cruz (NorCal)
• August 8:  Donner Lake 2.7 mile, Donner Lake (NorCal)
• August 16:  Naples Island 1 mile and 3 mile, Long Beach (SoCal)
• August 22:  Russian River 1 mile, Healdsberg (NorCal)
• August 29:  Corona del Mar 1 mile, Corona del Mar (SoCal)
• September 12:  Alcatraz Invitational, San Francisco (NorCal)
• September 13:  Whiskey Lake 1 mile and 2 mile, Reading (NorCal)
• September 13:  Tiburon Mile, Tiburon (NorCal)
• September 13:  La Jolla Rough Water Swim, La Jolla (SoCal)
• September 19:  Santa Barbara Pier to Pier 3 mile and 10 mile, Santa Barbara (SoCal)

Happy Swimming!

My morning swims in Aquatic Park go a little something like this:

I wake up at 5 or 5:30 in the morning, usually after having gotten to bed around midnight (I know, Dad, I need to work on that…) I grab a pack of Chomps and an Espresso Love GU (because it has 2x the caffeine and falling asleep on the freeway isn’t so good) and blearily head north to the Dolphin Club. Sometimes I then pass out in my car for about 10 minutes in the parking lot before hauling my overly stuffed swim backpack up the DC stairs to the locker room. After a good 20 minutes of putting on caps, stuffing in earplugs, readjusting caps, rinsing out goggles, hanging my towel and clothes in the sauna, and other such manners of stalling, I finally run through the stabbing cold air to the even colder water and start Round One of the day’s training.

Now, as you can imagine from my descriptions til now, my mind isn’t particularly sharp at this hour. Coming up with interesting routes around the Cove is too much of an effort in the morning, and I’d be likely to run into an anchored boat or something. So I just go up and down along the buoys for a little over an hour, using all of my early morning mental capacity to avoid running into other people. Normally, I do a pretty good job of this.

Okay. So here I am at 6:30am, dodging other swimmers even though the rising sun is in my eyes, when all of a sudden, BAM! I plow into something firm but soft and mammalian. I pop my head up, apologizing profusely, thinking I just killed a fellow swimmer. Imagine the increased confusion of my already hazy brain when this swimmer I just hit licked me!  It finally clicked that it wasn’t a swimmer I’d hit, but a big, friendly, yellow lab.  The dog belonged to a member of the South End Club, and he was out with his master for a morning dip.

All I can say is, that is one studly dog.  The water is still hovering around 51-52 degrees.  Talk about man’s best friend!