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.

The Good And The Great 19

From an early life-time in the pool I have had the fortune of swimming with/ against/ observing some of the very best in the sport including a GOAT (at the time), American and NCAA record holders, World record holders, Olympic medalists, NCAA champions, a runner-up NCAA championship team (Cal) and the Swiss national team during an Olympics year. All of it before I went to university.

Starting with the easiest : Matt Biondi, a tall muscular kid from Moraga (over the hill from Berkeley) dropped, full-prime, into my sophomore year of high school when, in 1983, he stepped onto a racing block at Cal's new Spieker pool for the 50-yard freestyle final at the Northcoast Swimming Championships. With the sun blazing and the stands screaming "Bee-On-Dee", Matt went 20.40 - a national high school record. 

From HS Matt went to the summer Olympics in '84, '88 and '92 winning eleven medals including eight gold. He set world records in the 50m and 100m freestyle. At Cal for college, he swam and played water polo with NCAA titles and American sprint records from the get-go.

I trained with Cal my senior year HS so Matt and I were in the changing room though, really, he paid me no mind.  It was hard, for me, not to be star-struck especially when seeing him hit NCAA automatic qualifying times (top 16 from the prior year) in mid-week practice.

Also on the Cal team was John Mykkanen, a Cal freshman and with me in the distance lane.  Mykkanen won a silver medal in the 400m freestyle in the LA '84 Olympics; he also set a US high school record in 1983 in the 500yd freestyle at Socals with a 4:19 only it was second-place to Jeff Kostoff who went 4:16.  John had an awkward technique with one arm crossing his head on the catch-up forcing an extraordinary body contortion mid-stroke. He was also overweight which is difficult when swimming so much. But, hey, it worked for him. His daughter Courtney went to Cal and swam at the 2012 Olympic trials.

Matt Biondi at the '88 Seoul Olympics. Photo from the Cal Top 100 Athletes website (Biondi number 10).

The Rhine 18

Visiting childhood friend David in Basel I swim what's there, or at least nearby, which is the Rhine.

There has been considerable rain in the Alps and the water level of the river is about 15 feet higher than normal and the current is easily 8 knots.  So David and I check it out and thumb it 'safe,' as long as I swim close to the river's edge. 

Next morning I skinny down the steep granite steps, flippers in hand, and think to myself, "this is rather stupid," and edge into a hard current and start wailing away as hard as I can, heading down stream - wrong way - thinking: this could actually be dangerous.

Eventually I find purchase and work my way back, against the current, averaging maybe 20 meters every 2 or 3 minutes until I find an inlet that allows me to hold my place.  Long and narrow commercial boats go by. Pedestrians look down and watch me like I'm crazy.  I swim for 80 minutes. 

As my coach Tim says, "you swim what's in front of you" which is true for many things beyond the Rhine.

Random selfie at David's house nicely suggesting the "why" of what I am doing.

Some Geography 17

The English Channel ("La Manche" in France) is an 'arm' of the Atlantic Ocean that links the southern part of the North Sea by the Dover Strait at its northeastern end.  It was formed by a complex structural down-folding from c 40 million years ago though geologists debate that its downward tendencies began as early as 270m years ago from off-and-on movements of the glaciers, rock and ice.

Its deepest point, Hurd's Deep, is 180 meters below sea level (the average depth is 63meters). The Chunnel, for context, is sunk to 75meters. By contrast, the Channel is 560km long and 240km wide at its extremes; the narrowist, where I will swim, is 35km from Dover to Calais.

The surface area measures 29,000 square-miles with water volumes of approximately 2,200 cubic miles so, basically, the Channel is a giant funnel that boosts the tidal range (the difference from high to low water) from less than a mater at sea level to over six meters.

Rusty checks out the Dover Cliffs, below. It is the kind of day I am hoping for.

Station 62304 (16)

Station 62304, also known as the Sandettie Lightship, provides a general sense on how at least one micro-climate is developing in the middle of the Channel.

Were I to swim today, the wind-speed would be c 16-knots in a northerly direction (10 degrees true) with wave heights of around four-feet and an average period in-tween of six-seconds. Note that a wave is measure from the backside from the crest to sea level; the face can be up to 2X bigger when facing front, as any surfer knows.

Today, at the buoy, the measured water temperature is 12C. Visibility five-miles. The readings, while normal for now, are not ideal for swimming and can readily cause hypothermia or sea sickness.

The official season for a crossing really begins in July, when water temperatures are around 14C (and climbing) and the weather calmer.  June may be a few degrees colder but there is less competition for a pilot.

On The "Now" 15

And so why now ?

I lost my hard-earned swimmer's identity sophomore year of college when I quit the varsity team, a group I found to be a real bummer, to join the cross country and track teams - the best Brown has produced for the distances.

My swimming interest rekindled c ten years ago when a group of childhood friends introduced me to the SF Bay, whose cold water in wintertime a novel and eccentric experience. Yet there I was, re-united with some awesome dudes, yelping with the best of them when the water temperatures below 12C. Often enough, ADHD'd from jet lag, I was in the pitch-black bay watching the sunrise across the SF skyline. Or, equally good, in the bay within one hour of landing at SFO.

From there, I began pool training in London but never more than a couple thousand meters since .. boring. Also lap swimmers hated on me (tumble turns !) and the public pools are, well, public, so there was not motivation to routinise a training program, no matter the health mind benefits.

The spur was Diana Nyad's attempts - and success - swimming from Havana to Key was (105 miles, 52 hours) at 64 (Yes, I watched the film). Nyad is from California. She had a purpose. If Nyad, why not the Channel ?

I signed up with the English Channel Associations and then Red Top Swim whose Head Coach, Tim Denyer, a serious guy. the Viking Princess II had a slot in July (the wait time can be two-years) and I was good to go.

At the Dolphin Club, SF Bay, with Ken, a fellow deep swim enthusiast :

The Value Of Coaches 14

Kirk Ciapella, my first coach, oversaw the Berkeley Barracudas and was part of my daily life until about 8th grade, a period covering 1977 to 1982.  The Barracudas was a rag tag group of committed swimmers and personalities - Kirk himself a holdover from the hippie era or at least carried that vibe - in a sport many would consider intense, everything with Kirk was chill and fun, a perfect attitude for my early career.

Next came Bill Gaebler who guided me from 7th grade through High School where he coached the men and women's water polo and swimming teams. When I started doing double workouts from 7th grade (age 11) Bill opened the King pool, 6:30AM sharp, for the Berkeley lap swimmers and provided me a lane and individual workouts every day of the school week. I believe Bill took particular pride in my high school class given those were his early years of coaching and the squad set a number of school records, a few which stick today.  Bill recently retired as head of BHS Aquatics after 40-years and generations of athletes.

Then came Kim Musch who headed the Golden Bear Aquatics program for the all-year age-group swimmers and local Cal swimmers who needed a summertime club.  Under Kim I qualified for "short course" Junior Nationals in the 500 yard freestyle (consolation finals) and 1650 yard freestyle (top 10) in 1984 and Senior Nationals in the 4x200 freestyle relay in 1985.  Because of Kim I trained senior-year with the California Gold Bears and the late, great, Nort Thornton who was Head Swimming Coach from 1977 to 2007 winning NCAA Championships in 1979 and 1980. Nort had a collapsed left lung and could only whisper making him even more formidable than he already was.

Photo of Bill Gaebler on the sideline from the BHS 1985 year-book; Ivor, touching chin, a Berkeley and cycling friend to this day.

High 5 Anyone ? 13

Nutrition is one of those things that athletes generally freak on, maintaining an over-confidence that the right product mix will unlock unimaginable success or prevent collapse. In any case, it offers a never-ending debate on what brands/amounts/timing are best for competition/training/recovery. 

Indeed I, too, have a plan, calculated on the amount of sweat-loss, by weight, during a measured one-hour hard swim (about 0.9kg) indicating the electrolytes and water I should consume for the 14-hour swim to Calais. No approximation here. 

On the Day and after the first hour I will feed every half-hour on the clock, baring in mind that when I am not swimming the tide is pulling against me so 20x2 minute pit-stops adds a lot of time - I will aim to keep it under 30 seconds. To do so, my coach will chuck a tethered bottle at my head containing various tested solutions. Yes, it is not unusual to barf it right up.

I admit that a nutrition strategy is something new for me, which I did not apply during the five marathons I bonked whilst chasing the magical three-hour barrier up to age 43.

King Novice 12

My swimming career began, age 8, on a summer program for novices in Berkeley hosted at King Junior High School (I was later a "King Cobra," 7th and 8th grade at King) where, for two months, we had daily afternoon "practices" and I was told to "burn off some steam." 

Not much to recall, really, other than the end-of-summer swimming meet where I competed against the mighty David Abalar, a chubby kid from Albany known amongst us punters to be fast. It came down to a 50-yard crawl and we went finger-tip-to-finger-tip for a judges decision as the watch keepers scored us a tie to the tenth of a second. I was declared winner - celebrity ! - and the following year signed up for the local swim team, the Berkeley Barracudas, who also trained at King. I would have joined the Barracudas sooner but I had an afternoon paper route to contend with.

Below is the King Jr High School swimming pool with the fast lane on the far right and where I spent hours of my day as an age-grouper.

Water Temperature 11

The Channel's water temperature limits the crossing-season to late June (c 14C) to September (19C or 20C). The coldest months, January and February, 5-7C. An Olympics competition pool, by comparison, must be 25C to 28C.

Hypothermia, generally a concern below 10C, may occur at 20C in prolonged exposure as the core body temperature can crop to 35C (95F). The tell signs include claw-like hands unable to touch thumb-to-pinkie or, counter intuitively perhaps, feelings of Euphoria.  Mental cognition also goes but harder to judge when swimming. If observing, the lips or upper-back may turn blue or purple.

Hypothermia can occur anytime and rapidly, the swimmer losing muscle control, all the while aware s/he could be drowning. If to hospital, warm blood transfusions are given as the body cannot warm itself to normal.  For this reason, a cold water partner is critical - advise, of course, I rarely follow. 

This past winter, with a friend, I swam in the Thames west of the Teddington Lock where the river is non-tidal, flowing generally south-eastward from its source near Oxford. It is also less developed and, for long stretches, makes me think of Tom Sawyer's Mississippi River with its old river boats and unkempt shores. The Thames drops to 1C in winter so a wetsuit, thermal gloves, booties and cap are mandatory.

I do no anticipate 17C on the Channel swim being a problem; equally comforting, the water during the six-hour qualifier was 15C.

Photo of the Thames River at the Barnes Bridge :

More On Technique 10

When I was an age group swimmer, my stroke was a two-beat cross-over - in other words, my legs crossed hitting at the calf on every stroke. As noted, it was not an uncommon technique in the 1980s for long-distance events like the 500, 1000 and 1650 yards freestyle (NB US college-swimming is in yards and so the US competes "short course" 25-yards in the winter-spring season and "long course" 50-meters in the summer). 

My stroke, combined with breathing every three-rotations, served its purpose while also limiting - coaches in the 1980s emphasised distance vs efficiency.

As for training, as a kid I swam c 14,000 yards (c 12,900 meters) a day, five days a week plus Saturday or competitions on the weekend. That is a lot of muscle memory. To break the mode in my adult years I started using fins about ten years ago and, presto, slowed the arms, abandoning the cross-over and placing more effort onto the glutes, allowing me to concentrate .. on the hip-driven rotation.

Photo from 9th grade, inclusive of chlorine blond hair ont its way to green. 

NB my first 'button down' shirt in the photo purchased at The Limited, a new women's chain with a store at the Hilltop Mall in Richmond, CA (now for zombies) before Les Wexner was a business celebrity eventually associated with Jeffrey Epstein.

Tall Flat & Side 9

I will use two stroke techniques during the EC - both tall, flat and with side rotation.

Modern freestyle swimming has evolved to a hip-driven stroke, which is identifiable by a catch-up and glide at the top of the rotation providing maximum core engagement and  power.  For long distances, it is accompanied by a two-beat kick to stabilise the body; for middle-distance to long distances, a strong accompanying six-beat kick can drive propulsion but at a cost : the glutes are the body's largest muscles and use an enormous amount of oxygen when engaged. Ian Thorpe, the GOAT before Phelps, nearly touched his fingers on the glide. I watched Matt Biondi crossing 25-yards with seven rotations.

Alternatively, a shoulder-led stroke has a faster turn-over and less core power with an early, hard 'hook' a the top without a gliding pause.  The legs can be awkward and often do not play a role or a two-beat cross-over to keep the body centred. I think of Janet Evans, whose 'windmill' broke world records in the 400, 800 and 1500m in the late 1980s.

Depending on the event, hip-led and shoulder-led can be used together on opposite arms, creating a powerful "loping" effect - Katie Ledecky is the only woman I have seen do this.

Some data : when I use a hip-driven technique I complete 100m with 72 strokes. When shoulder-driven, it is over 90. Shoulder driven, for me, is more taxing but also c 5% faster (my guess).

So, that out of the way, adapting to the Channel conditions will play its part - if the water is calm, the hip-led stroke offers greater efficiency; choppy waters and it is the shoulder-led stroke allowing more  adaptability to the waves.

Finally, I am able to breath on both sides which will allow me to swim either side of the boat, useful depending on the direction of the winds and therefore the chop.

Here I am using the hip-led freestyle at the catch-up or top of the stroke :

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ZC2 Buoy 8

A major bogy to hit in the Channel is the ZC2 buoy, below, which is 5.5km off Cap Gris-Nez (the closest point in France from Dover). The buoy marks the division between the Northeast shipping lane and the French inshore waters.

Ideally I pass inside the buoy (to the East) by the time the second flood tide begins (more on tides later).  When this happens, the ebb may be working for me and the chances of making the shore improve considerably.  Missing the tide here means swimming in place for six-hours until the tide turns again. Or bailing.

As for strategy, I will aim to hold a strong or even fast pace for the first stages of the crossing to a) avoid being swept out after the separation zone (mid-way thru) or stuck at ZC2 and b) establish a time buffer so when the tides inevitably change I have more options to reach France.. I will not actually know where I am during all of this and it is the pilot's job to navigate the best route. 

A reasonable question : do the pilots actually care if I make it ? I am assured they do as, along with the fee, they seek bragging rights, so happily we are alined.

My boat, the Viking Princess II, otherwise a fishing boat the rest of the year, is skippered by a father-son team that has taken the men and women's record holders across the Channel (7h 17m for men in 1994 and 7hr 40min for women in 1978). 

The below image from Red Top Swim and the CSPF tracker showing the different zones marked by grey lines :

Jaime 7

 Jaime is from Scotland and the charisma of the group, swearing like nobody I have ever met, from a village "north of Inverness" which is like way North. His father a butcher and Jaime's first job, unsurprisingly I suppose, on a clean-up crew at an abattoir.

Following his schooling, Jaime spent 11 years on an oil rig in the North Sea with 300 workers mostly "from prison or just plane crazy."  The sleeping rooms had six bunks ("just disgusting mate") in constant use between 12-hour shifts.  "I saw waves 100-feet as high as the rig" he recalls.  Not holding the stair-rail a sackable offence - "they'd ship you right the fuck home" given how dangerous it was.

Jaime's rig, TOTAL's Elgin platform, 150-miles from shore, experienced the largest gas blow-out on record - the UK 22/4b blowing in 2012 - which sent a gas jet shooting 200-meters out to see.  The blast knocked down Jaime's friend, who is lucky to be alive, and had the sense to pull an emergency lever cutting the power on the rig ensuring no sparks could blow the thing up.

Every helicopter in the North Sea was on the evacuation.  TOTAL, for its part, had no clue how to stop the blowout and called in the Red Adair Service and Marine Company famous for extinguising fires in Kuwait following the 1991 Iraq war. 

Four Texans showed up via a Chinook, removed their cowboy boots, examined the leak for a few minutes, then departed.  The next day they returned with a jerry-rigged vice grip which they attached to the active pipe and turned, capping the valve and stopping the gas flow - "insane how dangerous it was", says Jaime, who estimates Red Adair made $40 million for 24-hours work.

Jaime now lives in Doha and is responsible for a rigs-simulator program. He is doing a solo crossing.

A Typical Ultra Swimmer 6

My campmates each has a story to tell.

Mitch, on the left below, is ex Royal Marines and is training for a never-been-done 'triathlon' in five continuous stages: 1. swim the Channel; 2. cycle 12,000km from Calais to India crossing 12 countries, including Iran, and two continents; 3. run 900km from the Indian coastal town of Digha to Katmandu; 4. trek 350km to the Himalayas and the Mt Everest base camp; and 5. climb Everest (8,849m). All this in six-months beginning in September. Mitch is a wonderfully affectionate and humble dude and causes none of us solo Channel swimmers any shame.

Alex, middle of the photo, gets short-changed by me when I learn he is from one of those forgettable middle England cities like Grimsby or Hull. Only later I learn that he was on the elite army bomb-disposal squad with tours in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s, taking down the really nasty explosives that blow up tanks. Afterwards he did the same in London for MI5 including "neutralising" a multiple bomb threat on the London underground during daytime peak hours. 

From there, Alex sought adrenaline as a "saturation diver" when, in six-hour shifts 150-200m below sea-level, he jack-hammered undersea infrastructure or assisted deep water rigging. To avoid the bends (and need for timely decompression), he remained in "the bell" for two-weeks at a time ("nothing to do but read"). 

Alex has founded five ongoing businesses. And is getting married in a couple of months. He is doing the Channel solo.

Rosey works for the UK Foreign Services and is a project manager in Nigeria. She is swimming the length of Loch Lomond (36km) almost entirely in the darkness of night.