First "Long" Swim of the Season!

This is the first weekend of spring training in Dover Harbor - where channel swimming aspirants will begin to acclimate to swimming in cold water. The water temperature in Dover Harbor was 49F and everyone did two 15 minute swims on Saturday - I haven't heard yet about Sunday's swims.

In honor of this, I did the first "long" swim of my training for my one-way English Channel swim in July of 2007 - 4 miles in the ocean off of La Jolla. I've decided to ease into this gradually. The first two-mile lap from the Cove to the lifeguard tower at the Shores and back I did alone, and my fast-swimming friends Heather and Ruthy from the pool joined me for the second lap. Next time I will do it the other way around and start out with the girls and finish by myself. The sun came out during the second lap and the ocean temperature hovered around 58F - it's hard to call this "training" - we all agreed it was more like fun!!!

Starting the Long Ocean Swims Again

It's April now, and time to start long ocean swims again. The water temperature here in the La Jolla Cove is 60 degrees - perfect for training. My long swims will be from 6 - 12 miles and will be done on the weekends. During the week, I will do quality interval workouts in the pool with the JCC noon Masters Swimming group, some days with an ocean swim first. This year, I am training for the training.

Starting to Train Again

On July 30, 2004, I became the 17th person, 8th woman, 5th American, 2nd American woman and the oldest person to swim the English Channel two ways. I have another one-way swim of the English Channel booked for late July of 2007.

I've been in the water a lot since my double English Channel swim, but only for fun - enjoying social swims and going to lunch afterwards with friends, and spending leisurely afternoons at Windan'sea beach near my home. Now it's time to start thinking about training again, and breaking out of "warm-up freestyle". I'll be doing some quality interval workouts in the pool with the noon Masters Swimming group at the JCC, and meeting up with friends at La Jolla Cove on the weekends to swim in the ocean. Even though we swim fast and hard when we are working out we manage to have a good time and a few laughs, too. Great training partners make all the difference in the world!!!

For the rest of this year I'll start to ease into training mode - it's very difficult to be dedicated to a tough workout routine during the holidays. However, starting in January it will be time to get it going again....

Stay tuned for more news!