Glenn's Swimming Adventure

Swimming can sometimes be a pain in the elbow...

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:33:04 +1100

If you have read my tech blog, you would probably see that I have been extremely busy over the last few months due to a new arrival and an insane workload. As a result there is no change on the injury front. I've been to an orthepedic surgeon, had some ultrasounds on the elbows, and they are highly inflammed. What I need to do now is get some major physiotherapy on them for several weeks in order for them to heal. What this means is that I have essentially written off the entire swimming season for this year. Because I have so much on at the moment I am not worried about it too much. I remember Des Renford first swam the Channel when he was 40. I've still got 8 or so years until I'm at that point, so it doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm trying to manage my downtime, so that when I start preparing I will have 100% focus and be injury free. I fully believe that I will swim the channel and have to accept this setback or otherwise get caught up in a depression zone that many athletes can. I am grateful what I have especially after events like the tsunami last year and the journey of where I came from. It will happen someday, just not in the next year.

New Plan of Attack

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:31:21 +1100

I've got a new doctor and we've got a new plan to sort out the injuries. At the moment I'm on heavy anti-inflammitories and if that doesn't work we'll be looking at injections to assist the healing process of the elbows, and if that doesn't work there will be a trip to an orthopedic specialist who deals in elbows.

Its not the best news, but its one of those things where it is at least moving forward. Its so disheartening being on the side lines for such a long time. I know once I get to the point when I'm in the water again it will all be good.

When elbows suck

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:31:22 +1100

My arms have started to feel bad again. I don't know what to do about this and it is damn frustrating. I feel like the advice of my doctor has been bs. He specialises in skeleton issues and has corrected my posture. Remember the saying 'To a man with a hammer, everythings a nail'. I think that applies to my doctor at the moment. I feel like I've been taken for a ride and I'm pissed off as a result of it. I will be seeking advice and talking with some other doctors. Bloody frustrating.

Recovery still going slow

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:31:22 +1100

Just thought I'd give you an update on how I am going. I've had some attempts of swimming since the injury and the right elbow seems to be fine, but the left is still struggling. I am now doing a customized weight session to alleviate the problems and after a week of this my elbows are starting to feel normal again. I am hoping that I will be able to be in the water come September and am looking forward to at least swimming in the open-water season races.

I've reserved to swim the channel and I don't care how long it takes me to do it. Des Renford did his first channel attempt when he was 40 and I turn 31 next month. I don't believe just because I am injured that I will drop out. Failure is giving up. Success is learning from your mistakes and being intelligent about the decisions you make to achieve your goal or goals.

What I've been doing lately

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:31:22 +1100

Well its been almost two months now, and I have't been in the water that much due to injury problems with my elbows. Once that goes away then I should be ok. My goal for the upcoming year is to get used to cold water, so most of my training will revolve around that. I will probably be doing around the 25km/week mark through winter when I get back into it, but thats the main thing. I am hoping to do a 6 hour swim in Penrith around the start of spring to qualify for the channel. I'm just trying to keep a positive mental attitute.

Rottnest Report

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:31:23 +1100

Rottnest 2004. How did you go? Glenn Stephens Rottnest Channel Solo Crossing 2004

This is the question that I get asked the most about swimming Rottnest. So how did I go? I think I did ok. I swam the distance from Cottesloe to Rottnest Island in 7 hours, 7 minutes and 20 seconds. That is quicker than I thought I would do it. Rottnest is something you can't race, although some do. With endurance events like Rotto you cannot feel that you are better than the race, otherwise you become unstuck, blow out, nature bites you in the bum and you end up struggling. It feels like you need a very different mindset, and the preparation needs to be extremely mental before the race. I basically made a promise to myself that I would not give up until I reached the island. There are many mind preparation tricks I used. I would imagine my perfect race of me walking into the water slowly at Cottesloe and then doing a pace that I could maintain until I reached the island and then imagined myself running up the beach through the chutes at the end. I also used the Alison Streeter (Queen/Monarch of the English Channel) quote of "Prepare for the worst and hope for the best" in my preparation.

But enough about the mental preparation. Lets talk about the race.

The race started at 5:45am, which was a nice early start, but because there were about 170 solo swimmers, they split the solo start into two groups. The first group went at 5:45am and the second at 6:00am. I was in the second group which was awesome, because I figured the more sunlight I had, the less chance the jellyfish would come to the surface and I'd get stung. This didn't end up happening and I got stung across the face in the first 20 minutes. (b.t.w. Claratyne an anti-histamine is good for getting rid of the stinging pain while swimming). Sean who was my training buddy for the last few months was also in the second wave, so we helped each other prepare at the start. Sean is a great swimmer and since he's been training for Rotto he's been placing really well in the Sydney swims, getting in the top 20 or 50 in most races lately. Anyway the reason that I bring this up is because of some of the quotes that you get while preparing for the race can be quite harsh, like what Sean got on the morning of the race. Anyway when Sean caught the cab to Cottesloe his taxi driver kept on hassling the whole way saying stuff like "You're f&*king crazy", "There's sharks in that water", "I know a guy who did it and he couldn't walk for..". Well you probably get the idea. Sean's pretty competitive so that didn't phase him, but it was something worth laughing about at the start of race.

So I was waiting for the start with butterflies floating in the stomach. I was trying to prepare, but couldn't get my goggles clean. I had grease all over me so I had to ask a bystander at the start of the race to clean my goggles for me. The lady was very gracious and she may have been a swimmer herself and spat in the goggles, just like a pro. If the lady in question is reading this then a big thanks goes your way.

So the race starts and I walk in the water and swim off in a direction of the boats. The water was a great temperature at roughly 22 degrees and it felt goood. I had barely swam the week before the race (3km in total) due to a shoulder problem and was having doubts about the race itself, but once I started to swim it felt like it all came together, which lifted my spirits. Swimming to the boat pickup point was ok and I made the first km in about 17 minutes. I was using a helium balloon from Toy Story to find my boat and was looking everywhere for it.

So it was a matter of looking around trying to find the boat. I didn't have a paddler, so I just kept swimming and went looking for the balloon. I eventually found it and found my boat which was really good. Mind you my sight is not very good as I normally wear glasses and I couldn't see the Toy Story shapes, only the outline of a helium balloon. Next year I will get a balloon with a distinctive shape such as a toucan (my original choice). So I spotted my motley crew which consisted of my father-in-law Reg and his friend Peter.

Reg is an ex- navy sailing instructor and Peter is ex-Army, so I had a pretty reliable crew. What is more amazing is that my crew actually drove from Bundaburg Qld to be the crew for the race. They had a great time dropping in at friends along the way, so I'm very happy they chose to do this, although they mainly said that they didn't do it for me. But I'm glad they came along. You need a crew you can trust.

Anyway I reach the boat and we start heading off to the island. I had a feed of some Maxim at that stage and kept going. I had not fed from a boat before , but it seemed ok. It was just a matter of treading water, taking the food or drink and getting on with it. I ended up having a drink break (Maxim only) every twenty minutes and eating one banana on the hour. It all seemed to go well. I prepared feeding by swimming, having drink breaks every 20 minutes and jumping out of the pool every hour, quickly eating a banana and jumping back in. These were only for my swims that went longer than two hours though.

Back to the swimming, It took me a while to get used to swimming in the ocean. The swell was getting progressively bigger at the start of the race and I felt like I was either getting seasick or my butterflies were flying up again, and as a result I felt terrible in the first two hours. After that it felt much better. At hour three I felt like I was still doing a good pace. The race went rather smoothly for the first three hours and I just got on with the job. The only issue I had was the swell. During these long races its not a good idea to use your legs too much, so it felt like the swell would just through me around every which way. Sometimes I felt like I was sinking slightly in the water during the big swell, but that was just another challenge that eventually go away. After about three hours the swell was gone and it got fairly flat.

After the third feed I asked how far I was figuring I would be about at the 10km mark. My crew told me that I was past the 10km mark about an hour ago and that my Sean was about 200 metres ahead. It wasn't Sean, but another Solo swimmer who was using a yacht). This was another pick me as I thought this might mean that I was doing good time. So I swam on for another hour without much challenge. But that's when the pain started.

At this point I started to feel my first bit of pain which was some minor discomfort in my right elbow which lasted for the rest of the race, although after another hour it felt lonely, so the other elbow felt like it needed some pain as well. This went on the for the rest of the race and I basically had to swim through it. The pain was there but I remember getting up some mornings for training feeling so bad that I could barely swim after not sleeping and felling completely drained and then swimming 6km. But even with the elbows that bad I still felt better than on those crappy mornings. So I got on with it and just did stroke after stroke until I went a bit further. And I went through the same stuff. The only other events during that time is that from the water I could clearly see Rottnest Island at about the 14km mark, so that was pretty good, and I knew that I didn't have much to go, and I would get there.

One scary thing that came up is with about two hours to go the boat when for a spin to clear the engine. I went swimming but the back of the boat came within an arms length of me and it completely freaked me out. Whoa was the only thing I said, but what I was thinking was 'you freaking idiot'. It turns out that the pilot had been drinking which I wasn't too happy with when I found out. Blade damage is a serious risk for swimmers at Rottnest, and it pales in significance with the unlikely possibility of a shark attack. Blade damage happens and while I was getting some ice and stingose at the first-aid centre at the end there were two gentlemen getting treated for blade damage. I was talking with one of them and he said it was just a flesh wound. Monty Python fans are everywhere even in marathon swimming.

Anyway the last hour and a bit of the swim was challenging. If you read any of the books on marathon swimming you will notice that most say that around the 6 hour mark the body may start eating the muscle and the brain doesn't like this and you will play tricks on you to try to stop. I didn't get this. Instead my brain went to putty and I had difficulty listening to the crew, and they were calling me. Because my brain was just bla, I would just swim off in the direction I thought was right and I would look below and watch the fish which was nice and pleasant. It was just like watching the fish scenes from Finding Nemo. At these times I would just sing Dory's "Just keep swimming, swimming. What do we do we swim. Ha. ha ha ha. ha haa. I love to swiiimm". So that kept me amused for a while. For most of the way across to the island I kept on singing Billy Joel's "I go to extremes" in my head. I thought that was a bit fitting.

For the last 40 minutes anytime my crew asked my anything, I would ask if this was the 400 metre mark. It wasn't there for a long time. Once I got to the last bit where you have to swim between two sections of moored boats I got a major pickup. I picked up the pace in the last kilometre and did pretty good. There was a rope for the last bit, so I stuck my Rotto lane rope and swam hard to get out of the water, even swimming past a few swimmers in those last few hundred metres, stopping only to get stung by a jellybox. I got out of the water just as I had planned and running up the chute. It was great to be out of the water and to have finished the Rottnest channel swim. It started out as an idea in November 2002 to swim it and I had been training between 20 and 41 kilometres every week in order to do the swim. The preparation was the hard bit, and the swim was just a glorious day in the water.

I got out of the water at 7 hours, 7 minutes and 20 seconds. I was very happy with that time due to the fact that I was shooting for about eight hours. But because my brain was bla, I miscalculated and thought I was getting out at the 6 hour mark. Maybe next year I'll try and cut that time down. Sean greeted me at the finishing tent and he did a sub six hour time (5:54:51) which is pretty bloody good considering he started training around late November. It is worth noting that there were a few Sydney siders that did good solo swims. The winner, Mark Saliba, I think comes from Sydney, and he did a freaky time of 4 hours, 2 minutes and 44 seconds. But I tend to think that anyone who completed Rottnest probably views it more like a challenge than a race. The only other two people I know who did it were Kylie Elbourne who did 5:43:49 and Scarlet Reid who did 6:06:56. Kylie and Scarlet have done Rottnest as a duo for the last two years and took the plunge this year. I only met them at the Bondi-Bronte race this year, so it seems that we only talk at very challenging races. Congrats to those two.

So now that the race is over there are many things to think about. My elbow pain is basically tennis elbow as a result of incorrect technique. I need to sort this out at the moment as I can barely swim at the moment, but I'm just taking it easy for the month after Rottnest. After that time, I'll start training again and fix the problems that I have. The things that am going to change is my technique, get some more strength in my upper body from weights (I still have a runners/cyclists legs from Ironman/running training years ago) and do some cross training in the form of running. I plan on doing Rottnest again next year but I enjoyed the Sydney open water races the most of all this year.

My congratulations to all who finished whether you were a solo, duo or team. Its a big effort.

Shit its close now

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:31:23 +1100

There's now less than two weeks until Rottnest. aaaarrrrggghhh. Am I prepared. Is everything alright. Will I barf from nerves? All these questions are going through my head.

But I'm ready. Last week I did two long swims in a row, and 8km and a 10km the next day to see how I was feeling. It felt fine and I'm now going into the race feeling prepared. Today I did a swim at Cronulla in choppy conditions and felt fine. Physically I feel fine and am preparing quite well, but am just getting over the last bits of a stomach virus, which hasn't sapped my endurance, but has left me conjusted. The worst thing the flu did was made me feel like I wasn't getting any nutrients from the food.

So two weeks to go, and I'm in serious taper town. This week I'll probably do about 22-24km, and next week about 12-15km before the race. I have to watch what I eat, which means lots of carbs, and I'll be set.

Phrase of the day is from Finding Nemo the movie - "Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming, what do we do we swim, swim. Ah ha ha ha ha haaaa, I love to swim...."

The next journal entry should be just after the race. So stay tuned. I'm going to make the decision after Rottnest if I will be attempting the English Channel this year in September. We shall see.

Last post for the year

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:31:23 +1100

This will probably be my last entry of the year, but I've had a great week training, doing 41km in the last seven days. The weeks before that I had been doing about 25km/week due to work, and I thought I needed to mentally get myself ready for Rotto, so I decided to swim the typical training week of someone who was swimming the English Channel. Des Renford said to do about 25 miles a week and Marcia Cleveland did 45000 yards a week, which equal roughly 41kms.

Having done the training for a week, what I can say is that it is tiring and I have been spending a lot of time at the pool. Heres what the week looked like:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
6km straight	5.5 km Ladder 100m - 1000m 0.5 drills	8km long swim	day off (It was Christmas)	5km straight 0.5 Hypertoxic 0.5 drills	5.5 km Ladder 100m - 1000m 0.5 drills	AM 4.5km straight PM 3.0km straight 10 x 100m 0.5 drills

Its probably a good idea that I did this much training. There was a lot of Christmas functions and BBQs over the week, and I could have quite easily put on a ton of weight. Lucky that wasn't the case. I also noticed that I felt fine after this week, no problems with shoulders or anything like that. My change of technique to a shorter entry and not crossing the middle line is helping.

The things that I learnt from this week are:

Its tiring. I had three days in a row where I was severely napping. I don't normally nap at all except when I am sick.
Because of the tiredness, I will need to shift my long swim to the weekend, otherwise I'm going to be a plot-loss at work
Doing two 4.5km sessions is less tiring than doing one 8km session
I need more variety of workouts. I have a small set that I like and do races on the weekend (none this weekend because of races).

But its encouraging. After Rotto I am planning on working on cold water acclimatization. I have given myself a year for this and intend to get this out of the way.

Not long now

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:31:24 +1100

Not long now until the race. There are less than three months and I've got to make sure I'm ready. Last week wasn't the best at training. I had a session with Terry who coaches Tanya and he altered my technique. I went back after the lesson and tried to incorporate it into my training and I ended up with such sore shoulders that I had to take a couple of days off to settle them down. I am sticking with my old stroke for the time being, until I can talk with Terry about what I'm doing wrong.

One of the exciting things this week though was going in the Bondi to Bronte swim. It was only a 2km swim, but it was a tough one. We had to get out through 19 degree water (I didn't find it cold, but others did - this is a good sign for Channel prep) rough surf, swim in rough surf around a corner where there were no buoys, and then come into the beach where there was rough surf and also a rip in low tide that was pushing you into the reef. A lot of people struggled in this race (I loved it), and about 100 people had to be pulled from the water and one guy was taken to hospital for hyperthermia. It was a tough swim and I think it was a good preparation for what Rottness might be if the weather turns bad.

The upcoming week looks pretty good training wise. I seem to be hovering around the 25 - 28km a week at the moment, but I have plans to do a much longer swim in the next couple of weeks. I am thinking of doing a 4 hour swim and see how it feels. A lot of people think that you don't need to do that much in training, but I am only doing the really long swims once a month. I think doing this kind of distance is good training for dealing with things like getting your mind used to swimming for such a long time and also to get your body used to swimming tired and geting used to your body cramping and being sore. I find that I only really cramp as a result of doing tumble turns at the pool, so it should be ok for Rottie.

Also Sean's now doing Rotto as well. That's a brave move considering he's only been training for a few weeks, but he's got a solid swimming base and I think he'll do well if he paces himself right. Good luck I say. Its interesting how many people I have met in Sydney now that are doing the Rotto swim. Its pretty good and the ocean swimming group is definitely more social.

I'm having a week of racing this weekend, seeing how the race is only 1.5km. I'm not really into doing too short a distance, so I'd rather do a longer set than do that. Tomorrow I'm thinking about doing the 4 hour swim, but I'll see. I guess it depends how much time I'll get in my schedule. I'll do at least 7 though tomorrow.

Its also a sad time for ocean swimmers due to the death of the first lady to swim the English Channel Gertrude Edelie. Not only was she the first woman to swim the English Channel, she was the first person to swim it freestyle and held the record for the crossing for roughly a quarter of a century. She is an inspiration to what you can do especially when you are labelled with doubts as she was. The English Channel was thought too daunting to be swum by a female, but she proved otherwise. I don't think you need to be male or female to appreciate the magnitude of an achievement like this. She also had the right spirit. Her coach wanted her to give up the swim, but she refused. Mental toughness and Mental preparation is what is needed for the English Channel.

Speaking of preparation, I'm preparing myself mentally by getting used to rough surf, going under the assumption that I will be swimming for 20 hours and that I will miss a tide, but I will NOT give up. People do not finish the challenge because they give up, and you need to use every trick that you have so that you don't. The swim is all mental, which is handy because most people I know think I'm mental.

Sitting around being sunburnt

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:31:24 +1100

I'm sitting here today massively sunburnt. The last week was huge from a training point of view. I did 30km last week and only trained 5 days. I had a rest day after the Penrith/Balmain swims, and then did a 10-11km on Wednesday (it was basically 3 hours 20 something minutes in the water) as I had planned. I had another rest day after that, but only because I thought I should. This weeks training was interesting. I did the Saturday session at Engadine pool which was pretty good, although I misses the connecting train, so I got there a little later. I still ended up doing about 4 and bit kms though.

Yesterday I also swam the Wedding Cake Island swim at Coogee. That was a lot of fun, but the sea was pretty rough. I did 40 minutes for the 2.4km, and an 16 minutes something for the 1km (although my navigation was horrible for that one). It was a good swim, and the only downside is that I am massively sunburnt on the back and the legs.

And after the Balmain swim, I got my picture taken by oceanswims.com, although I was unaware of it at the time. That's Sean, Tanya and me down the bottom just having a chat. Tanya's training for Rottness as well, and Sean goes to the races and barely trains and thinks that we're both nuts. [Ed: A huge thank you to Paul Ellercamp for taking the photo. In a previous incantation of this page, I forgot to acknowledge him for taking the photo. He does a fantastic job of promoting ocean swims around Sydney]

Speaking of Rottness, I finally have a boat. Its a 10 metre one which apparently will be luxury, so I hope I don't get too annoyed when I see people enjoying themselves on the boat when I struggle in the water. This now means I can put my entry in.

Heavy week of training

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:31:24 +1100

The last week swimming was huge. I had a huge week training, but also a huge week racing. I swam a 5km at the Penrith Regatta Centre and pushed really hard for the last 2.5km (basically pushing as hard as I could). I also raced on Sunday at the Dawn to Cockatoo swim, which was a 1.1 swim and then a 2.25km swim. That was a blast, and I felt majorly stuffed on Sunday. Sunday was especially fun since I got kissed by a couple of jellyfish and I've got some nice welts on my arms. Swimming in a lake is totally different to swimming in the ocean. The Penrith regatta centre is plain, the water is hard to swim through and you don't get the buoyancy that you get in the ocean. But I guess you don't get the jellies that you get in the ocean. Plus the ocean swimming lot are much friendlier that the lake swims. Its more like an event, but its pretty cool none the less. Less than three months to go to the Rottness Channel. Yeah. I think I need to up my long swim, and I'm going to start doing some 10-15km every second week on the Wednesday. I need to do some major distance in the next two months. I figure most of the last month will be taper, so I am going to go sic in the next month.

Special feature: What I've given up for training
1. Snowboarding :( I've told myself that I'm not going to do this until the English Channel is done, and I totally love snowboarding. It is one of the funnest things, but I would get so upset with myself if I broke a leg/arm or something like that.
2. Late nights. going to bed early. Swimming makes you feel younger. Going to bed early makes you feel like your older. I don't really get it.
3. Doing Piano shows. I haven't really done this for a while because of training. Oh well. Still writing though, and playing the clarinet that I got for my birthday much more.

Songs in my head this week: Garson from the Disney musical Beauty and the Beast. Its annoying when you get reaaally reaally annoying songs stuck in your head when your swimming.

First Swim of the season

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:31:24 +1100

I had my first open water swim of the season on Saturday. I was anticipating this a fair amount because I had done all the training over the winter and wanted to see how I would go. So it was a 5 kilometre swim at Terrigal. And I did a time of one hour 16 minutes and I felt like I had plenty more in the tank. Now this time completely freaked me out, especially considering that my last 5km, I did one hour 32 minutes. That's a big improvement and obviously doing a huge amount of training, lots of endurance work, drills are actually getting me somewhere.

Also it was good because I could I met someone else whose doing the Rottness swim, Tracy and she trains with two other people who are doing Rottness and they meet on Saturdays at the Engadine pool. Which is good for a couple of reasons. The first being that Saturday it is near impossible to find a swimming pool locally especially in morning. Epping pool has the pool team, and I'm not really interested in doing 50m and 100m races. I went to Homebush last week and the pool is a mad house. So finding a squad who will do decent training focusing on the same kind of distance will be good.

Increasing the training

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:31:25 +1100

The last week or so has been very hectic and annoying. About two weeks ago, I got a small injury where I hurt something in my neck. This was due to the fact that I was moving at the time and was carrying extremely heavy objects to do so. All the moving, training and other things took its toll last week and last Thursday I caught a virus, and ended up having two days off works and three days off training. :(

The virus was very annoying as I would feel ok for much of the day but have busts of extreme tiredness or extreme headaches and I would have difficulty concentrating or even walking and would have to rest. Most of Thursday I spent on the couch reading Jeffrey Archer or sleeping.

Sometimes I think that injury and illness are just a normal part of training. I remember when I did the Ironman that I was probably injured about three times in the five month preparation period. The first time when I got hit by a car on the bike (ouch), and a few other times when I strained the ligaments in my legs and couldn't run. Eventually I got through it and returned to my good training state within a few weeks. It feels like that in the water at the moment. Yesterday I went swimming after three days off and felt absolutely wonderful, and I didn't feel like my stroke or strength was affected. I just have to look at the positives. Even though I was sick, I still did 18km for that week. That's more training than I did about a year go on my busiest week.

Just a few notes about the swim at the moment. There is now less than four months to go until the swim and I am about to change my training schedule for the racing season. I need to be doing much more open water swims so I am going to move my weekly long swim (7-8km) to Wednesday so I have more time for the open water races on the weekend. My plan is to do as many of them as I can. The next two weeks I have a couple of 5km races and I also have a few shorter ones over the weekends. I'll probably feel tired towards the start of it, but I think after a month I'll be fine.

So my schedule will be the following until April

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Day off :)	5.5 km Ladder 100m - 1000m	8km long swim	4.5km 3km Warm up 1km intervals 500m drills	4.5km easy	Open Water Race or Swim	Open Water Race or Swim

The rule that I will have in place for the weekend is that the two days need to total at least 9km. So this should mean that I should swim at least 31.5km for the week which will be pretty good I think

Another weird thing of the week is that more people at the pool have been commenting on how much I swim to the point where people are joking that I am not doing enough. There's one guy Mike who freaked out when I told him I do 80 or so laps during the weekdays. When I mentioned that I do about 160 laps on the weekend we was totally shocked. It's good to think that sometimes the goals I set for myself are so big that many people don't fathom them easily. I told Mike that this time last year that I was doing the same amount of swimming that he does, which was about one mile every other day. It's all a mater of building up your endurance. I haven't felt this fit for a long time and am really enjoying it.

Just a note about the Rottness swim. Apparently the team events filled up in three days which is pretty good. Because I am attempting a solo crossing, I have until mid January to enter, which means that all I need to do is organise a boat and a boat pilot and I'll be cool. I'm looking forward to it.

Aswesome Week

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:31:25 +1100

Wow. I'm having an awesome week, and feeling really good about the swimming. The last few weeks of training have been really good. And this week I hit the magic 30km/week training mark. This is a good milestone for me because it means that I'm doing ample training for the Rottness swim and that I'm only about 2 more swims a week before I'm up to the Channel Swimming training distance. Paul Beukelman did the Channel swim a few years ago and I emailed him about how he built up his training, and this is an except from his email.

"In regards to building up distance, I wanted to follow Des Renford's concept
of 100 miles per month for 1 year prior to the swim.
This is about 40km per week. I built this up over about 3 months, prior to
the 12 months of 40 km per week.

Looking back I did not really need to do that much, but I wanted to make
sure that I could handle the channel crossing, so I was conservative."

Lately re-reading things like this have really inspired me, and it means I'm on the right track distance wise, and should be making a good solid effort over the next year. Its funny when I think that in 4 months and 2 days I'll be swimming the Rottness channel and then I'll be on to phase two, swimming the Channel Qualifying Swim. I'm just really pumped that its all working well.

So I thought I'd also plot out what my current training is and what I plan to finish with. This is how my last week of training looked like.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
4km Fartlek	4.5 km Ladder 100m - 900m	5km straight swim	4.5km 3km Warm up 1km intervals 500m drills	4km easy	8km long swim	Rest day :)

And this is what I'm hoping to end up with over the next few months

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
5km Fartlek (AM) with drills 3km Squad Masters (PM)	5.5 km Ladder 100m - 1000m AM Weights PM	6km straight swim 3km Squad Masters (PM)	5.0km 3km Warm up/easy 1.5km intervals 500m drills Weights PM	4.5km easy with drills	8-10km long swim	Rest day :)

I think that this is more than achievable especially over the course of next year. I think I can sit on my current training until after Rottness and ramp up the rest later. I plan on introducing the weights fairly soon, and will increase the weekday morning sessions, but that's about all.

I just want to go back to the 30km mark comment for a minute. In Des Renford's book Nothing great is easy, he said that in his first year of swimming he clocked up 1760km in the year. That works out to be roughly 33.8km per week. And he swam the channel 19 times (dead set legend), so you can see why I'm excited to hit that mark. It mean's that by applying the 10% rule, I could basically be doing Des' mileage next week. Awesome, awesome, awesome... I'm doing the distance and am feeling really good about it. Yah Yah Yah.... :)

I know I haven't updated this page for ages, so I thought I'd write down some stuff that's been going through my mind, for aspiring marathon swimmers.

Book Reviews.

There is not a lot of information on marathon swimming, so if you can find a book it all works well. I thought I would review the ones I have and let you know how I find them.

Nothing Great is Easy - Des Renford

I love this book. Des is a genuine person, and he personifies what the open swimming movement is like in Sydney. It is a very social thing, and he describes what it is like, how he came upon the sport, his struggles with combining family life and swimming, and his final struggle with heart disease. From a training perspective it gives you a huge insight into the mental preparation of the swim. I get the feeling that many people pull out of endurance races because they feel they are too good, and don't respect the race or event. It was good to see that Des showed you that you should respect the race, and you should never give up. Its very inspiring. Last year during a 5km race, I pinched something in my leg before a race and then during the race around the 3km mark my left leg just wouldn't kick. I thought how Des swam with a dislocated shoulder after a wave threw him against his boat after he already swum back to France from England and how he was on his way back. My leg was nothing to complain about compared to this, and I just saw using my arms only. I had plenty of juice in the tank, and finished the race strongly even sprinting as hard as I could.

End result. Get the book. Its inspirational, funny and extremely sad at the end. One day I'd like to meet Des' family just for a chat, as they are you get an awesome amount of perspective into their lives. I really connect with Des in this book, as he just stumbled across marathon swimming by incident. I love this book and would give it a solid 9/10.

I'll chuck in another review next week. Its getting late, and I've got to be at the pool in the morning.

Before I go, I thought I'd start writing down the songs that play in my head while I'm singing, just for fun. This week the song has been 'Bigger than my Body', by John Mayer, and last week it was 'Stacys mum' by Fountains of Wayne.

Latest Update

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:31:25 +1100

Its been a while since I wrote in the journal. So I've been swimming over the winter, and there's six months to the Rottness channel, and I've started to ramp up the training. Up at 5am, off to the pool, and home about 7.

I had suffered a lot with motivation over the winter, especially with the amount of training, but I re-read one of my books called Dover Solo where the woman who swam the channel stated that she was only swimming 20, 000 yards per week before she started on her training. This was pretty much about the amount that I was doing, and this gave me a whole bunch of inspiration. I have been training really well, and have not gotten sick, which is what normally happens when I really ramp up the training.

One of the things that I have found is that I have begun to think of nothing but swimming. Almost to the point of obsessive-compulsive disorder I guess. It's kind of strange. On the plus side, I've given up spending huge amounts of time on the computer like I used to.

Why am I doing this?

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:31:26 +1100

So I got asked a few questions about why the hell am I doing this. Well the main reason is that I think I can. In 1995 I did an ironman triathlon in about 11 hours 30 minutes, and I figure the length of time is about the same for the English channel. Even thought the water was cold when I did the Ironman I was one of only three people who did the swim without a wetsuit. So I think the cold water is achievable. And the last point is that I feel like I have found a swimming pace that lets me go on for a long period of time without getting sore.

So these days I am swimming roughly 20km a week, with a large swim of between 6-10km once a week. To do the channel, I will need to be doing about 40km a week.

The beginning of swimming

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:31:26 +1100

It all began at a cafe at Sydney's Darling Harbour. I was having lunch with an buddy from Georgia called Neal Ford. I find Neil to be fantastic company. In an industry where people live on Pizza, Star Trek, pale skin and be hassled about being social outcasts, Neal has been a trainer and author much like myself and also has views on a cultured active lifestyle, enjoying things such as fine music, and triathlons. I actually did an Ironman triathlon in 1995 doing a respectable time of 11 hours 30 something minutes.

So Neal and I started talking and it turns out he was due to do an Ironman about a month or so after we talked. I was mentioning to him that I would like to do another Ironman triathlon in the next few years, and then we agreed to do the New Zealand Ironman in 2004.

So I started training...

I have barely been running and riding in the last ten years, so I started out swimming - a lot. And then it hit me that there is something on my life list that I would rather do. I have done many of the things I wanted to do, such as writing a book, doing an ironman triathlon, getting a black belt.

So the big thing that was left was...to swim the English Channel. And that's why the page is called Insane :)

As a result, thats a big 43 kilometres, a predicted 14+ hours in the sub 60 degrees Fahrenheit water.

Now the plan is the following: Currently I am training for the Rottness Crossing, a 20km swim from Perth to Rottness Island. That should take about 7 hours and be loads of fun. The next step after that is to do the qualifying swim for the channel, which involves doing 6 hours in sub 60 degree water. brrrrr..

This page is going to be a journal over the next few years. As a result this is a message to let people know how I'm going, so check this page every month or so.