'Tis The Season 39

Below, senior year.  The flat-top from local barber Tony who got rich from customer stock tips and retired at 50.

I was going to shave it all for the Northcoast Championships only the finals were the same day as Senior Prom and my girlfriend Malaika was having none of that.  Going into Northcoast I was seeded first in the 500 yard and 200 yard freestyle and came in 4th and 6th, respectively.

Well, and here we go, the English Channel season is open with water temperatures at 16C (60.8F).  A few awesome swimmers from the Croatia camp have now made it across and also reaching Calais this week is Berkeley High senior Maya Merhige who finished in 11 hours and 39 minutes (no pressure here) making her one of the youngest swimmers to complete the Triple Crown of open water swimming, which includes the Channel, the 20-mile Catalina Channel and the 28.5 miles "20 Bridges" around Manhattan.  Maya has one hell of a college essay.

The Coaches 38

I am indebted to my coaches Tim and Nils at Red Top Swim for focusing my imagination on the English Channel and convincing me that I can do it.  Both have swum the Channel and Red Top has successfully taken c 200 swimmers from Dover to Calais.  In short, good hands.

I do not train with the club given the Red Top pool is located on other side of London yet I feel Tim and Nils' influence on most things I do in the pool.  Specifically, beyond the coaching, they have devised a distance program, including the Croatia camp, and held me accountable; secured the VP2; provided a hydration and nutrition schedule for the crossing and carbo-loading beforehand; and offered encouragement throughout.

Nils, at the bottom of the photo, will be on the boat and is intense. I fear that he is going to make me do 100 push-ups once I reach Calais.

Spider Man 37

I wore the yellow cap and embedded goggles to age-group and early HS meets concerned that my 'compi' goggles (no longer made) would fill with water from the block-dive.  I was aware it was intimidating to the others swimmers.

The picture appeared in b&w in the 1983 Berkeley HS year-book with the singular caption "spider man" and the original photograph lost forever until I visited the newly rebuilt, and modern, Berkeley High School pool several years ago when, there it was, taped to a metal cabinet in the coach's office.

For the Channel crossing to be valid, the English Channel Association dictates a latex cap, pair of goggles and a swim suit not falling below the groyne.  Animal fat smeared on the body is optional - some use it, I won't.  There will be an official ECA observer on the Viking Princess II to ensure the regulations are met.

The Pied Piper 36

Simon, pictured below in the River Thames, I call the 'Pied Piper' as he has 'led', for 20-years, a group of 30 masters who gather weekly to swim in an open bend of the river west of the Teddington Lock so non-tidal. 

The group is seasonally agnostic and happy to toil in the pitch dark pre-dawn wintertime, wearing luminescent lights, when the water temperature can drop to below 5C. Wet suits are optional.  The comaradarie is obvious from the complaining.

I join Simon and maybe one or two others to head further up the river and back, sometimes as far as five miles.

A comment on water quality : UK rivers struggle from under-investment in infrastructure and lack of care for >20 years.  Thames Water faces bankruptcy and will likely be nationalised again soon.  Yet, on the up, there are 24/7 monitoring sites for all UK rivers and available apps show most days are clean and green-lit for swimmers (in short: don't river swim after a storm). 

A better sign of the river's health : we are joined by a friendly seal checking us out two weeks ago.

Simon is the founder of Outdoor Swimmer magazine, at your local news rack anywhere.

On Distance 35

I was (am) a distance swimmer for the simple reason that I was less good at the shorter lengths and other strokes.  My freestyle technique, a two-beat crossover, was not pretty and, further, I was a small kid, 5'8", 98 pounds, until Switzerland when I grew three inches in one year.

To compensate for the lack of, well, everything necessary to be fast, I worked and worked and worked.  School mornings were two pool hours before class, by myself or with Katie, thanks to Berkeley coach Bill G. who made special workouts for the two of us from age 11, and afternoons with the team.  I added weights, chords and stretching to the routine, showing up to workouts early and finishing late.  By 9th grade I snuck into the Cal Memorial football stadium to run bleachers (80 rows) before practice and to this day the hardest and most painful thing I have ever done to myself. 

There was zero distraction and little teenager angst given the family and community around me.  Today I train with a similar group of committed diehards who are often chasing personal objectives beyond PBs or winning.

From today I start tapering, reducing from 37km last week to 20km this week and 10km the next.

Photo from 8th grade:

The Berkoff Blastoff 34

An athlete changing a sport is a rare thing while there are many swimmers/ races that have reset the high-bar - to name only a few, Mary T Meagher's 200m butterfly WR in 1981 took 20 years to break; Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps of course.  Tracy Caulkins was the greatest multiple-stroke competitor of a generation and the marvellous Katie Ledecky still reigns supreme in the distance events.

But here I focus on Dave Berkoff, Harvard '89 (my graduation year and friends with sister Katie, also on the Harvard swim team). Physically unremarkable at 5'10" and 155lbs, his revolutionary backstroke start and turn dove underwater for 35-40m in a 50m pool using a wavelike dolphin kick and streamlined locked arms.  It was a novel thing and, Berkoff realised, faster than surface swimming.  

Using this technique Dave won NCAAs, US nationals and four Olympic medals and set backstroke WRs across his career.  Berkoff's races elicited loud uninterrupted cheers until he popped up to take a breath and stroke or two before the wall then back underwater. 

Today most every elite swimmer has strong "underwaters" regardless of the stroke.  Fittingly, Dave's daughter Katherine qualified for the Paris Olympics in the 100m backstroke.

Photo of Dave Berkoff from the collection of Carl-Johansson/ Olympedia (1987)

The Great Vladimir Salnikov 33

Soviet distance swimmer Vladimir Salnikov was the first person to swim the 1500m under 15 minutes which he did at the 1980 Moscow Olympics with a time of 15:58.27.  It was then the equivalent of the mythical four-minute mile or today's two-hour marathon.

I had the below poster of Salnikov pinned to the wall of my bedroom next to back-stroker John Nabor and Cheryl Tiegs.  According to Swimming World magazine, Salnikov trained like blood and nails which, in an era of more-distance-is-better, was something I could relate to.

Salnikov dominated the late '70s/ early '80s winning every race he swam (400, 800 and 1500m) accepting once against Californian Jeff Kostoff in 1981 in the USA-USSR "friendship" dual meet. During this time Salnikov bettered 12 world records yet never received broad recognition due to the US boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the Soviet Union staying away from LA in '84.

Today the 1500m world record is held by China's Sun Yang in 14:31.02 (highly likely doped) while there are six 16 year-olds who have gone under 15 minutes with Turkey's Kuzey Tuncelli finishing the distance in 14:41.90 at the Euro Junior Nationals last week Thursday (July 4).

My best 1500m time was 16:35 at 16 swum in Switzerland.

Vladimir Salnikov under 15 minutes, first time, July 22, 1980.

L'Equipe Suisse 1984 (32)

My junior year of HS (1983-84) was spent in Geneva training with Geneve Natation 1985.  To do so, following manoeuvres by the Berkeley Barracudas, my parents and the Swiss national swimming coach (Tony Ulrich), I found myself living with a Swiss family (strictly French speaking) on rue de l'ecole de medecine while Claude, on the counter-exchange, stayed with my family (which btw did not work out as Claude expected Baywatch and got Northern California).

During this time I attended College de Candolle with all my coursework in French, a language that became helpful later in my professional life at Astorg, a French investment firm in the Paris 8e.

The real motivation for the year was, of course, the swimming where I trained with Dano Hallsal who set a world record in the 50m freestyle in 1985; Etienne Dagon who won Switzerland's first Olympics swimming medal, a bronze in the 200m breaststroke; and Theophile and Francois David and Thierry Jacot who competed in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics.

From the right, Theo, Dano and Etienne (I do not know the fourth) at the 1983 Euro Championships.

Water Logged 31

 My training so far (NB I committed to the Channel on December 31, 2023) :

For comparison, as a kid thru college, I spent four hours a day in the pool typically hitting 14,000 daily yards across double workouts equalling, roughly, 360km (225 miles) a month (assuming Sundays off).

The below photo, maybe 1981, is pretty much how the weekends went - my Dad, in the blue hat, examining a time-sheet or doing some legal work.  Kirk, the barracudas' coach, passing the day between events.

Katie 30

Ours was a swimming family which meant up well before dawn and training in well-lit pools after dark, rain or shine.  

My dad enjoyed the morning company since he was on his way to work anyway.  Katie, on the other hand, a night owl to this day who persevered on limited sleep through high school and four-years swimming at Harvard (I swam two seasons for Brown).  On the car ride to morning practice we counted every stop-light preying for red.

Surprisingly I do not have many age-group photos from the pool or at swimming meets, where we spent most of our weekends, commuting with other swimmers, Moe volunteering as a timer.

Here is Katie, my support team in most things.

The Summer of '86 (29)

The summer following college freshman year I swam with the local club, Little Rhody (eg Rhode Island) at the Brown Aquatics Center, a 50m by 25yd pool too shallow at the competition-end with an odd timber-roof that one could climb on to when one was drunk.  Not that one would do so.

Sidebar: unsurprisingly the roof became structurally unsound and torn down in 2010 to make way for one of the best pools I know - the Katherine Moran Coleman Aquatics Center, which opened at Brown in 2012 and is big, deep and fast (racers feel it).

So the summer of 1986 I trained from 6-8am then painted houses until dusk then washed dishes at the upscale restaurant Cafe At Brooks (in the dicey Providence neighbourhood of Fox Point) which was fun since the head chef, Joe, was a RISD graduate with no culinary training.  He would look at me and say, straight faced, "this one is coming back."

The waitresses were pretty and we were allowed an after-shift drink at the long brass bar after closing hours.  Sometimes Providence mayor Buddy Cianci would drop by to tell stories about Federal Hill or the mob.

For some reason known only to a 19 year old I wanted bleached hair so, after morning practice, I added a lemon juice and salt mixture to my scalp. Below.

Here I am at summer's end painting the stairs of my parent's Berkeley house (Moe informed that my fees to be offset by the rent, a never ending joke between us (of course I paid no rent).

Cor Tenebrarum 28

Everyone, or at least most, has their moment of doubt and I feel nothing less for the Channel. 14 hours is a lot of time to spend in a physical activity dreaming whatever comes to mind and struggling undoubtedly with fatigue and doubt.  Once I start, there is no turning back accepting for the tides or hypothermia.  The rest is mental.

A fair question, then, is why ? A considered answer, why not ? The English Channel is outside my comfort zone at a time (age 57) when the stuff that worries me most is mostly under my control or, at least, I have experienced it before.  We will all be 73 one day or already, Ottis Thaning's age when he set the mark for oldest crosser.  My body is not the limiting factor (says he). 

I have made new friends whose similar journey is inspiring.  The goal itself has given meaning beyond the Channel itself.

But, but, but the Channel - I fear the wide-open space and not seeing the shoreline. The fading-out of sea-light to black beneath my gaze.  My imagination.  Starting in darkness.  The true time of a day.

Level Crossing 27

The English Channel is the busiest sea route in the world and the Dover Straight, where I will cross, is the busiest shipping lane on the planet. More than 500 ships pass through the Channel daily including the biggest super tankers longer than the Empire State Building is tall.

To accomplish this, the coast guard uses radar surveillance and operates an IMO adapted Traffic Separation Scheme (eg two traffic lanes for inward and outward bound traffic; rules internationally agreed).  Channel VTS is jointly operated jointly by the Dover Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre and CROSS Gris Nez in France.  In short, the VP II will be visible.

Ultimately my pilot is responsible for ensuring a safety zone of several 100m minimum at all times.  There will likely be moments when the large ships change course to avoid our path (tankers travel at 17-24 knots).

As I am now a month from the Channel I will swim one more long week of 40km then Taper down to 20km the week before D Day.

The oil tanker Hamilton Spirit, here in the Channel, is 274m by 48m with GT of 81,384 tons and DTW of 158,769 (image by TeeKay).

Paul 26

The Channel swimmers are now going with the water temperature an accommodating 14-15C at the Dover Strait and a nice heat wave to keep things calm for the while.

Swim-camp pal Paul, age 58, was to attempt the 26-mile Moloka'i Channel (meaning "the state of bones") connecting O'ahu and Moloka'i in Hawaii this week as part of the Oceans 7 only the winds uncooperative so instead he is dong the Bristol Channel as a training run - 16 miles point-to-point and work the next day. 

Notably the Bristol Channel has one of the largest tidal ranges in the world, up to 18 meters (43 feet) and today's tide is on the extreme end.

Pictured, Paul at the half-way point of the Bristol Channel (photo from his brother).

The Aquabears 25

The summer of my sophomore year of HS I made the jump from the Barracudas to the Walnut Creek Aquabears in the suburban valley. The squad had c 300 kids covering the age-groups to the older elites who were broken into groups, mine distance, which was gnarly but also respected.  I spent the day between practice watching MTV with my new best friends whose silver hair was as bleach-blonde as my own. I fit in perfectly.

The Aquabears' success was driven, in large part, by head coach Mike Troy who was on the cover of Sports Illustrated for winning two gold medals in the '60 Rome Olympics and then a Navy Seal - in short, hard corps. 

Mike sat in a fold-out deck chair under a sun umbrella with his clipboard in the baking heat, legs crossed and flip flops dangling from his toes, asserting himself across the 50m pool.  He was aware of every swimmer's repeats or at least (more importantly) we thought so. 

Mike had his favourites and, on occasion,  he would bark out to one of us that we could have "the geek" (his beautifully preserved 1960s Karmann Ghia automobile) for the weekend if a specific time was held during a set. We went nuts.

It was a fast squad with bronzed HS girls and high standards.  A combo so compelling that I qualified for my first Junior Nationals in the 1500m at 15.

Mike Troy at Heather Farms Aquatic Complex in Walnut Creek in 1983.

Muscle Mass 24

Every day I mark, with a thick black marker, my work.  An "X" indicates a rest-day, so March had only two, a month I swam 125.6 kilometres.

Since January I have gained six-kilograms and, when I mentioned it to Coach he asked if my trousers still fit - they do - so it is mostly upper-body muscle.  To put it another way, 1kg equals 900ml of muscle mass (1,100ml of fat) so I have added 5.4 litres of muscle volume in six months.  The question, then, really, are my shirts, which still fit. 

Viking Princess II (23)

The Viking Princess II, piloted by Reg and Ray Brickell, will take me across the Channel.  Reg and Ray are a father-son team who I have yet to meet while their reputation precedes them - they piloted both the men and women Channel record holders, an accomplishment of knowing the tides as much, or more so, than the swimmer's ability. 

The Brickells are otherwise all-year fishermen excepting the two-months of the year when guys like me are willing to pay more than the daily catch.

In total, there are seven English Channel Association sanctioned boats chaperoning maybe 60 swimmers (including relays) in a season (NB the only crossing direction allowed is from England to France). 

The VP II is a category 2 (NB "2"=60-miles from port or safe harbour) commercial catamaran that can hold a crew of 12.  Initially I thought it would be nice to have supporters on the VP II but coach said "no way" as the likely outcome is PTSD from 20 hours of seasickness.

Here is the VP II which may be dragging a swimmer across the Channel.

More Training 22

Since committing to the Channel on December 31, and following a two month ramp-up, I now swim 30-35km a week, six or even seven-days a week, often twice a day, and finding a pool when travelling has become a thing.  The laps are now my quiet place.

A staple of the training is a Monday morning set of 8x400m freestyle intervals on a 6:15 clock with a serious crew at the Richmond pool (NB three completed an Ironman on Saturday each finishing top-10 in their age group after the 2.4 mile swim with over 2,000 competitors). 

In January, I was unable to make the 400 repeats. By February I finished but under extreme duress. By March I was averaging maybe 10-seconds recovery between intervals and now I can hold 5:45s.

Ron here usually leads the morning sets while I sit at the caboose of the five to seven of us doing the 400s set.  

As a wise man once told me, "you always want to feel like you are on an upward slope" which swimming at 56 has certainly been.

Shepperton Lake 21

Several have commented on what a sweetheart Matt Biondi was at Cal.  I recall, on one ocassion, an over-sized dude on a two-wheel mini-bicycle cruising down busy Bancroft Way, knees wide-out, back hunched over and feet barely on the pedals and spinning furiously. Of course Matt on his way to swim practice.  Legend.

Today's anticipated nine-mile race in Dover Harbour cancelled, last minute, by the Harbour Master: with winds reaching gale force by 10:00am leading to high swell with the harbour there runs the risk of the safety kayaks not being satisfactory craft for assisting persons in the water. 

I aim for better weather from July 26 to August 5 (NB the pilot has the final call on suitable conditions. If No, then it is next year).

Instead of Dover I swim at Shepperton Lake for about three-hours or 10km - 12 loops around and round and round.

Photo of Eitan and me at the lake last summer.

Heroes 20

Continuing on the positive influencers, Sam, Ray and Maggi, on the Berkeley Barracudas, played an outsized role in my early theatrical life.  

Sam was five-years older so we did not cross on the HS team when he set the BHS record in the 50 yard freestyle (21.04) which remained for over 20 years. Sam was tall, handsome and Larger Than Life, dating the older sister of a friend, and treated me like an insider even while I was a non-classmen, which felt pretty cool as a 95lb eighth-grader without much to say to girls (or anyone).

Ray, a ferocious breast stroker, saved the BHS swim team when the program was to be cut for budgetary reasons. Ray testified at a city commission that swimming kept him from the streets and had profoundly impacted his life. Without Ray, no BHS aquatics. He is now an artist and I have one of his paintings in our house.

Then there was Maggi, a backstroker, and we all - and I mean all of us - had a crush on her.  Coach asked her to marry him but that is for another story (and era).  Maggi, like Biondi, was a world class water polo player and a member of the US National team for ten-years. She competed in four World Championships, was named USA Water Polo Female Athlete of the Year in 1992, and inducted in the US Water Polo Hall of Fame in 2004. Maggi would have gone to the Olympics were women's water polo a sport in the 1980s and 90s (it became one in Sydney in 2000). Maggi contends for the greatest athlete I have known in my lifetime. She is now a professor at UC Berkeley.

Sam, Ray and Maggi live in Berkeley. Phot of Maggi from the Berkeley High Year Book.