The small defeats...

After the small victories of my last post come the small defeats....or at least the defeats that I hope are small. For the last week or so I've been experiencing quite a lot of stiffness in the upper back between my shoulder blades. I thought that this was just the result of the muscles adapting to the increased training, especially given the change in my stroke over the last year which now relies much more on the big back muscles than it used to. I've been stretching a lot to ease it out and assuming that my body would adapt to the training. But in the last few of days, this has morphed into something much more painful, especially when I'm lying down, causing trouble sleeping. I've had two days of enforced rest from swimming while my tooth recovers from my latest bout of dentistry which has helped a little, but it's definitely not right. I seem to be falling to bits. I've made an appointment to see the physio on Monday and I'm sure it's nothing that time, rest, and a bit of poking and prodding won't fix. But the timing is terrible with only two weeks to go before I go to Mallorca, especially since I already feel like I'm on the margins in terms of adequate training.

With this in mind, the urge to press on with training regardless is very compelling - each day of rest no doubt improves my chance of fixing the injury, but each day without training feels like it pushes me further away from being able to do the swim. Grrr.

But I am a grown-up, nominally at least, and will be sensible. For now. I need to keep my eyes on the bigger goal - MIMS - and can't risk messing things up by not fixing this properly. As I said....hopefully, just a small defeat.

The small victories...

Sometimes training can feel a bit of a slog. Especially with the pool training, it can feel like a lot of going nowhere. So, since Christmas, I built in a weekly 1500m time trial to get some sense of progress (or not). The results have been a bit mixed, not least because I usually do this on a Tuesday night at the end of a long day of teaching that starts at 10am and finishes at 8pm. But still, with the 1500m time of 24.40 that I put on my MIMS application last November in mind, I've been inching this down slowly. On bad days, it's been around 25.15, but this is usually because I haven't been able to grab food between classes and am too tired and hungry to swim well. But recently, I've been dipping consistently below 24.30, and yesterday, I managed a PB of 24.15. As usual, there's probably no need to alert the swimming authorities, but still, I was chuffed.

I've been using the Tempo Trainer, and have discovered a weird psychological quirk that really helps me. If I set the TT to 1.37 / 100m (which would equate to 24.15 for 1500m), then I get all stressed and tense and inevitably slow down and miss the turnarounds. But if I set it to 1.40 / 100m, I feel buoyed up by the fact that for every 100m beep I inch further ahead of myself, measuring my progress at each beep against the pillars and piles of kick boards and pull buoys along the side wall of the pool. This is what I did yesterday, and the sense of progress takes the stress out of it and makes the beeps more encouraging than tyrannical. It's a bit daft, but whatever works...

But the good news is that I am slowly speeding up, and I'm getting better at keeping my stroke together under stress, only lapsing into my drowning chicken display under extreme duress. I have now set 24.00 as my 1500m goal for the end of the season. Watch this space. But in the mean time, the small victories help on the way to the bigger swims to come.

But you swam the Channel....

This week, I had to go to the dentist. It is a mundane bit of everyday life that has no obvious place in a swimming blog, except that it's not at all mundane to me because I am scared of the dentist. And historically, I have dealt with this rumbling fear by easing myself into a powerful state of denial and simply not going. I eat well and clean my teeth with almost religious fervour, and in exchange, I have allowed myself to give in to my fear of dentistry and only engage with it very sporadically. In this case, it has been 4 years since my last visit. But then, last weekend, I munched on some delicious wholemeal bread, packed full of seeds and grains; biting down on a hard seed, a chunk of one of my back teeth broke off.   Even in my well-rehearsed state of dental denial, I had to accept that I couldn't just leave this - I'm a coward, but not an idiot.

Setting aside the cruel irony of busting a tooth on a food product presumed to bestow all kinds of health and well-being, the reason I'm telling you all this is what followed. I told a few people what had happened, no doubt seeking sympathy and support for my imagined ordeal to come. Several of my confidantes expressed surprise at my fear of the dentist, probably because I'm 45 years old and should know better, but also explicitly because they saw it as at odds with the swimming: "But you swam the Channel..." they exclaimed. I've noticed that this comes up at other times too - for example, if I complain that I'm very tired, or if I express disgust at something: "But you swam the Channel...".

I'm intrigued by what this says both about how I am seen, and about how Channel swimming is seen. When I was training for my Channel swim in 2010, my colleague and friend, Rachel Cohen, categorised for me the negative responses that I had received (and that she had received when telling people about it in her role as vicarious follower of Channel swimming) in the following schematic, drawn on my office whiteboard:

There's a lot of talk within the marathon swimming community, especially in the ongoing debates about maintaining the 'purity' of the sport, that people outside of the sport might underestimate its challenges in the wake of high profile or undeclared 'assisted' crossings. But my experience is really the opposite - that people overestimate it, often projecting their own fears onto their imagination of what the swimming involves. Many people, including competent swimmers, fear deep water because of the inability to see what lies below; others are disgusted by imagined slicks of pollution, sewerage and other sordid nasties. As an aside, my favourite response so far to the news that I'm doing MIMS is: "But isn't it full of bodies?" By extension, then, these assumptions also presume my own bravery in overcoming these obstacles (and perhaps the foolish pointlessness of doing so) - a bravery that is projected into a universal character trait that then presumes my immunity to fears in other aspects of my life, both irrational and rational. This is very far from the truth. 

Firstly, fear is highly contextual and idiosyncratic, especially where fears are irrational or disproportionate. Someone who fears the pollution of dead bodies floating in the waters around Manhattan does not necessarily fear the dentist. And secondly, it's only brave if you're afraid of it in the first place. Swimming the Channel says nothing about my ability to overcome fear, since there is little about it that I find frightening. I have certainly felt moments of fear: for example, at the start of my Catalina Channel swim I was almost paralysed with fear about sharks when it was time to jump in. I have also had moments of profound disgust; a shiver of repulsion still runs down my spine when I recall getting a jellyfish full on in the face in Dover harbour - squishy body, then long tentacles dragging across my face and then down the full length of my body. It was toe-curlingly vile, and it was only the embarrassment of having to explain why I was getting out that kept me in the water. But in the bigger picture, I am neither afraid of, nor disgusted by, Channel swimming, and as a result, I don't experience it as a 'brave' thing to do. (I do think it's pretty pointless, but for me, that's the glory of it). 

In short, then, having swum the Channel did nothing to help me when I sloped reluctantly to the dentist last week, just as my ability to be in cold water for long periods has done absolutely nothing to change my complete intolerance of the cold in any other setting (central heating, layers of clothes, electric blanket...I want it all). Context is everything. 

And my tooth is fine, thank you for asking. Or at least it will be after next Wednesday when I've had the permanent repair done. Perhaps I'll just go swimming instead....

Inspiration...

It's been a difficult month or so, with more work than I had planned for and a lot of disruption to my already tightly packed schedule of eating, sleeping, working and swimming in constant rotation. It turns out that training for long swims while on research leave (as I was for my English Channel swim) and training with a full teaching workload, a big admin job and an endlessly unwritten book are two very different beasts, and I have found myself wondering whether it's even realistic. It's certainly felt rather inhumane at times this term. I have even been thinking about pulling out of one or more of my swims for this year (crazy talk....but it's been a tough term!).

And then two things came along. Firstly - the sunshine! It's about time, but at last, Spring is well and truly in the air. I can almost hear the water warming up, and the nights of trudging to the pool in the cold and dark will soon be replaced with the open water evenings. And secondly, Emma France posted this video - a slide show she made for the CS&PF dinner last Saturday (which I wasn't able to go to, but which looked like a good night). In many ways, training has been a bit of a chore lately than it should be - more like work than leisure. But this reminded me of the reasons to stick with it. Only 5 weeks to the Cabrera Channel, with plenty more fun to come.

The things we don't discuss...

I've written quite a bit recently about things that get discussed a lot within the swimming community; for example, what counts as 'real' swimming is an old chestnut, as is the complicated topic of fat. But I've also been thinking about what we don't talk about....or at least, what gets talked about very quietly among female swimmers, but rarely in public: menstruation.

A couple of years ago, I was on one of the Swimtrek long-distance training camps, and we were having some (important) fun during the infamous "3 P's" seminar, during which we discussed the practical necessities of managing bodily functions (Piss, Pooh and Puke). It was a graphic and light-hearted discussion that recognised the important reality that many swims founder on the handling of these most basic of bodily functions. As the seminar drew to a close, a female swimmer (one of only a handful in a largely male group) asked: "What about periods?" You could have cut the atmosphere in the room with a knife; eyes fell to the floor; people squirmed uncomfortably. The seminar leader rose splendidly to the occasion, and some of the women in the room chipped in with experience and advice. A joke about sharks scenting blood lightened the mood and all was well; and in future camps, the seminar morphed into "the 4 P's" to incorporate this important bodily aspect of swimming.

But I've never forgotten that instant collective reaction in the room to the female swimmer's question - one of mixed disgust and embarrassment at the unexpected airing of a topic that women are expected (and expect each other) to keep to themselves. There's nothing particular to swimming about this - after all, the advertising of what are euphemistically called "feminine hygiene products" is based entirely on the extent to which the product hides menstruation (rendered blue, and never red, in product demonstrations), enabling women to dance around in tight white trousers to their hearts' content. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, a lot of the (quiet) talk among women on the issue of menstruation and swimming is also about concealment - for example, how to cope with it while changing on a public beach, especially given the fairly widely accepted wisdom that it is not a healthy practice to wear products like tampons during long swims.

But I think that there are a wider set of discussions that I certainly know I would appreciate being aired more publicly about the ways in which menstruation both affects, and is affected by, swimming - both positive and negatively. I suffer from a gynaecological disorder called endometriosis which can cause severe pain, as well as a hormonal imbalance that makes my cycle at times extremely unpredictable. I am unwilling to take any hormonal medications (including those that many use to postpone menstruation in order to avoid a big swim or other important event); nor, by the way, did I opt to follow the advice of my socially-inept consultant who suggested that I should have a baby to "straighten things out for a bit".  Instead, I manage my health through a series of dietary and herbal therapies, plus over-the-counter painkillers when necessary. But even though I experience the very occasional days when pain prevents me from swimming (and hope upon hope that this never coincides with a big swim day), I have also noticed a significant pattern of improvement in the months following a big swim. Indeed, after each of my long swims, I have experienced 4-6 months of predictable and pain free menstruation. Even my hardest training doesn't have the same effect - only the very long swims. Periods are often seen as an obstacle to swimming or at best, a nuisance, but it is perhaps not surprising that such an intense bodily experience as a long swim will impact upon the body's hormonal and metabolic functions in all kinds of unpredictable and potentially positive ways.

More recently for me, the early stages of the menopause have begun to enter the picture (and the menopause is, of course, another aspect of women's bodies that tends to be discussed negatively or not at all). With it, I noticed last summer a new unpredictability in my tolerance for cold, and I've since met a couple of other women who, anecdotally, reported a similar problem. In my case, this has proved amenable to herbal interventions for now, but I have no idea how this will manifest itself as the process of bodily change continues...or indeed, how my swimming will impact upon that process.

In short, then, menstruating is just one part of (some) women's lives, but one which tends to be bathed in secrecy and silence (in public settings, at least). Indeed, I have been stewing on this post for a while, unsure about whether to raise the topic at all or how comfortable I was discussing my own body publicly in this context. Nevertheless, I regularly receive queries from female swimmers on this issue, many of whom are wary of raising those questions in more male-dominated public spaces and forums, and it is clear that there is enormous variation in the ways that menstruation both affects, and is affected by, swimming.

I suspect that we have a lot to learn from each other about this.

What I'd like to be doing right now....

It's been a bit of a week. Work has been busy and more than a little frustrating; the weather has been various versions of wet and cold; and I've been ill - nothing serious, but an ongoing, niggly viral thing that's left me wiped out and kept me out of the pool. All work and no play.

And in response, I've developed what I can only describe as a craving for a long, sea swim. I can think of nothing more delicious than a day of nothing but swimming in warm, clear water. I don't mean just an hour's dip and paddle, but a good 6 hours or more - enough time to hit that zoned-out state that is the perfect gift of the long swim.

That's what I'd like to be doing right now.

Has anyone seen the 'real' swimmers?

The marathon swimming community has been having one of its periodical kerfuffles over 'real' swimming and its public representations.

It started with some media reports about US swimmer, Brittany King, who completed an English Channel swim in 2012 with the aid of a wetsuit and fins. An article in Shape magazine set out King's version of the story - she was aiming to swim it by usual Channel rules with the CSA, but suffered from the cold and finished the swim in a wetsuit. "Meet the Woman who Swam the English Channel", declared the headline - a red rag to a bull for the Channel swimming community, for whom 'swimming the English Channel' has a very specific meaning. Some corrections were added by Nick Adams in the comments section of the article: he points out that she swam with the CS&PF rather than the CSA; and that she was also wearing fins. Other comments protested the misleading nature of the article, and the debate was taken up vociferously in the marathon swimmers' forums, ranging across issues of misrepresentation in swimming, the boundaries of authenticity in marathon swimming, and even the old chestnut, CSA / CS&PF relations.

In many ways, I think that these debates display both the best and the worst of marathon swimming. They show the absolute passion of the sport and the desire for the honest representation of it. But I also think that the desire to preserve the 'specialness' of non-wetsuit marathon swimming can make the community (a) take a small number of slightly self-deluded individuals too seriously (see also my earlier post on Diana Nyad), and (b) force people into an unnecessarily derisive stance regarding other kinds of swimming.

In the debates that followed the reports of King's swim, a great deal of concern was expressed about the need to educate the media and the public about what 'real' Channel swimming is. While I think it's absolutely right to correct blatant factual errors in media reports, it's also important to think about the media product and its audience. Shape magazine is a fluffy bit of nonsense whose primary motive is to teach women that their bodies are never good enough and that appearance should be privileged over performance or well-being. If Channel swimming needs defending as a sport (which I don't think it does - it seems to be doing fine), then I doubt that this kind of superficial, misogynistic tat poses much of a threat.

And to be honest, I imagine that for most people not involved with the sport, the difference between a wetsuit and a non-wetsuit swim is utterly irrelevant and most would have no difficulty in seeing a wetsuit Channel swim as a Channel swim. In this sense, and at the risk of igniting all kinds of fury, I suspect that the struggle for definition that is going on within Channel swimming does not even register as a dividing line for most outside of marathon swimming - not because they need to be educated about the sport, but because the debate is too arcane to be important. These internal authenticity disputes characterise almost all specialist activities. Did you know that people who pick mushrooms with the goal of trying to identify and classify them look down on people who pick them to eat them? Or that people who collect dolls for display look down on people who allow children to play with collectable dolls? Or that the quilt-making world is riven between those who hand-sew and those who use machines? (and that the cat has now been set among the pigeons by not knowing how to classify quilts made by machines that have a setting that looks just like hand-sewing). These are all fairly arcane debates (from outside) that are hotly fought from within, and I imagine to most of those outside of swimming, the wetsuit / non-wetsuit debate appears very similar. And I think that Brittany King understands this perfectly...as much as she understands that the use of fins is a completely different kettle of fish in terms of popular perception, which is presumably why this aspect of her swim is never mentioned in her media articles while the wetsuit is.

I have very little time for people who fudge or lie about their swims: it's daft and pointless. But I also baulk at any attempts to police who should be allowed to swim where and how, or who should be able to call themselves what. This is firstly because it's only swimming and I'm just not clear what is at stake here that would warrant such an exclusive approach. Someone swimming the Channel in a wetsuit in no way stops me from swimming it without a wetsuit. And secondly, I think that the snootiness about wetsuit swimming that is evident in the marathon swimming community is utterly (but inadvertently) complicit in the mis-representations that crop up from time to time. If you treat wetsuit swimming as something shameful that has to be 'confessed' and derided as a non-achievement, then you make it a million times harder not only for wetsuit swimmers to be clear about the conditions of their swims, but also to take pleasure in what they have done. And especially this latter just seems a shame and quite unnecessary.