Blood in the Water

One thing I failed to mention in my last post about the open water swim was that Rye Beach provided us with the “Baywatch” treatment.  While David Hasselhoff was not there on Wednesday night, we had two lifeguards, in kayaks, with those big, long, red floatation devices, in the water with us throughout our swim.  Apparently, this is the first time that TNT has been given this treatment, and I would like to think that the reason this happened was because of my presence on the team.  Ok, maybe not.

Now, it is important to realize the logistics and dynamics of having a group of over 30 swimmers, of different swimming skill, in the water at the same time.  A swimming stroke is comprised of a flutter kick (or of violent, karate-esque kicks) and arm-strokes (or arm-flails, as the case may be).  When you have a lot of kicking and arm-flailing, it can be kind of dangerous.  Curious as to what a horde of people swimming at the same time in the same place looks like?  Have a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVyAa_0-vuM&hd=1. 

In order to prepare us for this reality, a couple of weeks ago, our coaches introduced us to a “full combat swimming” drill.  We were lined up in a row of four people, shoulder to shoulder, in a single swimming pool lane.  The row of the weakest swimmers was first in line and rows of stronger swimmers were set up behind them.  Now, there are six swim-lanes in the pool at SUNY Purchase, and the drill was to swim to the wall at the end of the each swim-lane, duck under the rope that divides the first lane from the second lane and then swim back to the end of the second lane, then duck under that rope… and you get the drill… all the way to the end of the sixth lane.  The weaker swimmers were given a head start and were ordered to “hold the line”, which means to avoid getting passed by stronger swimmers who were to follow them.  Between 10 to 20 seconds later, the next row of swimmers was released with orders to hold their line and to chase down the first row, and so it went for each row.  What ends up happening in the drill is that you need to nudge, elbow, claw, and sometimes fight your way in front of swimmers in your row (or drop back, and avoid the churning feet of those in front of you).  Then, as you approach the next wave of swimmers in front of you, you need to avoid the churning feet, find a little space, climb over the backs of swimmers or crawl through some small hole between swimmers, all while trying not to hurt or drown anybody else, or yourself (remember, we all know each other at TNT).  The drill was educational, rough and real, and it created some awkward moments, but the experience came in handy on Wednesday night.

So this past week, to add to the chaos, we learned first-hand that the Long Island Sound, in fact, DOES NOT have swim lanes.  Instead, we needed to sight, or look up in between strokes, in order to attempt to swim in a straight line.  The net result was organized-chaos.  We were told to swim back and forth between specified buoys, with outbound traffic on the left and inbound traffic on the right.  However, the lack of lanes and sighting (foggy goggles add to the difficulty of sighting, which is not easy to begin with) lead to a number of collisions or near-collisions.

Adding to the danger was the razor-wire that connects the buoy that run alongside the area where we were swimming.  To clarify, there is no razor-wire in the Long Island Sound (at least that I know of); there is a heavy duty rope connecting the buoys.  However, something magical happened in the LI Sound and that rope has become VERY sharp (and chemists, marine biologists or know-it-alls, please feel free to chime in and explain how this happens).  How do I know?  Well, while trying to avoid another swimmer, I veered to my left and brushed my fingers against the rope, cutting up the inside of my left ring finger with a 2 inch long cut (no stiches needed, but the cut is pretty deep).  I was not the only one who left the water cut up, either.  But hey, we are triathletes!  We are tough!  And we are fighting for a great cause – the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society!

So if you haven’t sponsored me yet, think about me, bloodied, bruised (did I add that I left the water a little dizzy because I was sweating buckets in my wetsuit, only I didn’t know it because I was enveloped in water) pushing myself to my limits to raise money to find a cure for blood cancer. 

If that doesn’t convince you to sponsor me… man… you are one tough nut to crack!

You can sponsor me simply by clicking here and using your credit card (hit the “Donate Now” button on the right side of the webpage): http://pages.teamintraining.org/wch/wchtri11/aspiraq31y

Thank you for your support!