21 May 2024, Physical Therapy, 0m; 22 May & 24 May 2024 Kerkpolder, Delft 3700m & 2700m; 25 May 2024, Pijnacker 2600m

“What more do you need from me?” says Dion, my soon-to-be ex-physical-therapist.

“I guess some advice on what to look out for if I want to start dryland training in the gym?”

My sons have been on my case forever. When am I going to join them for a weights session in the gym? 

They’re fanatic, and the thought of joining them kind of scares me to be honest.

The advice that’s out there is all over the place.

Don’t do weights! That’s low rep stuff. Endurance swimming is about high reps. You’ll be wasting your time.

Do weights! The “swim only”-viewpoint is archaic. Swimmers around the world are starting to see the benefits of strength work.

That may be true for pool swimmers, who need explosive strength for a short distance, but not so for endurance swimmers! Don’t do weights!

It reminds me of the dog training world. 

Crate train your dog! The crate is a safe place for them to hole up. They’re den animals.

Don’t crate train your dog! It’s a cage. You’re locking them up. By the way, did you know it’s illegal to crate your dog in parts of the world?

How is any one person supposed to navigate this maze of contradictory advice?

How is any one person supposed to figure out what applies to them and what doesn’t?

Who do you trust?

If my dog training journey has taught me anything, it’s that everything starts with trusting yourself.

Trusting yourself to find the right thing. 

Which basically means to trust that you will forgive yourself with fervor when you get it wrong.

Because you will. Get it wong, that is.

It took me almost a year to get my shoulder to where it is. Still nagging sometimes, but no longer 24/7. To where I can swim three to four times a week without aggravating it further.

The first time I didn’t stop swimming long enough. I started back too soon. 

The next time I waited longer, but I upped the intensity of my training too much too soon.

I didn’t do my PT exercises and then I overdid them. 

I tried doing my PT exercises on swimming days. I tried only doing them on non-swimming days.

There were times I believed in my physical therapist and times I thought he was a quack.

There were times I believed in myself and my recovery and times I thought I would never be pain-free.

The latter times usually coincided with days on which I wouldn’t do any exercises or overdid my swimming.

But now, it feels like finally we’re getting somewhere.

Look, says Dion, if you had been any other patient, if you hadn’t had this crazy goal of yours, you would have been out of my practice a long time ago.

You know what to do, you know the exercises and you’re doing them correctly. The rest is up to you. It’s trial and error. Listen to your body. Experiment.

He gives me the pointers on weight training I asked for. 

(Don’t extend you upper arms further back than the frontal or coronal plane of your body! Yes that makes for slightly less efficient training. Make up for it with an extra rep or two and keep your shoulders healthy.)

And with that, I graduate from physical therapy. 

The next day I swim 3700m with lots of interval. On Friday it’s 2700m at endurance pace.

Saturday I join the TRIP squad for another 2600m of interval training.

I can feel my shoulders ache. This appears to be the good kind of pain though. The kind that says you kicked ass at training.

It’s end of practice. I kneel down on the side of the pool to unhook the line and reel it in.

Almost immediately my knee starts acting up. By the time I get home it’s genuinely hurting. I can’t sleep and the next day it will barely bend.

I guess I can’t deny that I’m 45. Let’s see how soon I’ll be back in Dion’s office again.

30 April 2024, Lauchsee, Fieberbrunn, Austria, 15,6 C, 1400m

I don’t feel like going. I don’t want to swim.

But I have to.  Which is likely the problem. That I am thinking of it as “have to”.

I chose this goal after all. I shouldn’t be thinking of it as an obligation. 

Shouldn’t…

I should know better than to think in terms of shouldn’t now that I’m a coach.

Should, shouldn’t, have to. None of these are helpful.

And yet I can’t seem to shake the pressure, and the self judgment.

So I pack my things and put on my bathing suit. It takes forever. I could pack these things and be ready in minutes but I just slog through the apartment staring blankly into space.

Good, that gives me yet another thing to judge myself on. The unconscious stalling tactics that my brain seems to be resorting to, rather than just getting on with it.

“Wow mom, it’s great fun, tagging along for this afternoon swim of yours, jeezzzz, why do you go if you’re going to be like this?”

“Because I have to!”

A lie. 

Obviously, I don’t have to do anything. But my brain is not ready to look at things in any other way yet.

When we arrive at the swimming lake the water thermometer indicates 15,6 degrees Celsius. 

To qualify for a solo swim of the English Channel you have to prove you can swim 6 hours non stop in sub 16 degree water. I can’t think of much warmer sub 16 degree water than 15,6 degree water.  In all likelihood this will be the temperature for my swim in early July.

I still feel like crap. I choose “open water swim” on the Apple watch Michel lent me and make my way down the slippery steps into the lake. Then I just stand there. Like an idiot. It’s as if the warmer the water gets the harder it is to get in. Besides, today’s mood is not helping for one bit. I stand there for so long that I stop the logging of the swim on my watch. I don’t want my idiot-minutes of not getting into the water to count towards my swim duration.

Finally I restart the recording and lower myself further into the water. Count to three and then plunge forward. One, two, three… Nothing. More mental admonishment.

Finally I’m horizontal, floating on my belly staring at the little green flecks of algae drifting on top of the muggy water that fills the fen.

I’ll probably catch a disease.

Great.

Cheerful, much?

Breaststroke then. It takes me a good 200m before I even lower my face into the water and then 30 more before I manage to lift an arm over my head and start something resembling front crawl.

In 40 minutes I manage about 1400m. 

In stead of being proud of what I did achieve, the negative self talk continues. I can’t for the life of me fathom how I will ever be able to swim for 6 hours straight in water of this temperature, let alone 15 to 20 hours. That’s how long I expect it will take me to cross the English Channel.

I will have to majorly up my speed or my cold tolerance and somehow my faith in doing either has waned.

My new technique isn’t making me faster it seems and it’s like I am only getting more scared of hypothermia.

I’m shivering and my teeth chatter as I get into the car.

Screw the Channel. Who am I to think I can ever do this? I don’t even want to.

I decide I don’t have to swim tomorrow and manage to judge myself for that decision as well.

The next day I actually want to go for a swim and manage 2.1km.

Two days later I get my period and I want to slap myself. You would think by now I would be able to recognize these hormone-induced dark moods for what they are.

And yet… I don’t.