8/9/03: Received my black belt today after an exhausting test. This is a life long goal realized. Now it is time to recover and really kick in my English Channel swim training. No time to spare. Today's weight is 163 lbs - a great fighting weight, but not a great cold water swimming weight. My training officially starts tomorrow - tonight I celebrate my black belt...with a hot fudge sundae!!!

9/6/03: Today is a big day. Did a martial arts class in the morning and I get married this afternoon! Friends and family are in from around the country - it is going to be a GREAT day!!!

9/17/03: Just returned from my honeymoon in Fiji. My body is well rested and my mind is hungry to start some serious swim training. 11 months until my English Channel swim may seem like a lot but given how much endurance I have to build, it really is not that much time. Build your workouts slowly and steadily - staying injury free is very important for this undertaking.

9/21/03: Swam a 5.5 mile race today. The water was about 64 degrees and I was shivering for about two hours after the race was over. At one point I thought about stopping - I was really cold and my right shoulder was killing me. I told myself that I have to finish - I can't have in my mind any images of stopping. Mental strength is as or more important than physical fortitude in long distance swimming. Today was a good mental training day.

10/14/03: I hurt my back in martial arts tonight. Man this totally sucks. It is the same thing that happend abou 18 months ago. I can barely move. Swimming is out of the question; it actually hurts the most in a face down position.

10/25/03: The only thing I am doing at this point is going in the ocean near my house and floating. I can't swim - my back hurts too much. At least I am getting some exposure to cold water. It is down to about 61 degrees at this point.

11/23/03: All I have been doing for the last month or so is to go into the ocean and float in the cold water. At least that is something. My swimming fitness has to be shot, but I am gaining weight (since I have not run or done martial arts or for that matter swam in over a month). Well, a big part of the swim is surviving the cold, so I am making progress on at least one front.

12/7/03: My back is finally better to the point where I can swim. I have not done martial arts since my injury in October. I have been seeing a chiropractor and that has helped out a ton to make my back better. I am going to start pushing my swims harder to get some fitness back.

12/13/03: Swam approximately 30 minutes today in 57 degree water. Man that is frickin' cold. It hurts like hell getting in - it actually feels better after 5 minutes once everything is numb, but the first couple minutes just suck. Then, after about 20 minutes I start feeling deep down cold. It takes me about an hour of being in a hot shower before I actually feel half decent after a swim like this.

12/21/03: A week in Cabos San Lucas at Las Ventanas. This is a great way to enusre my back is fully recovered...and to gain that weight!

1/7/04: OK, I am BACK! This whole last week I was dealing wiht pnemonia and other ailments. I have basically been unable to train since mid-October. Now I am hungry mentally and physically (well, not physically - I have been eating a lot) to really pick things up.

1/20/04: Shit, my back is hurting again. Time to see the chiropractor. This is getting old. I really need to be healthy in order to build my mileage. I am starting to fall behind in my training. The last really good swim I had was back in October. OK, just keep focusing on the right things.

1/25/04: Went to chiro and he asked me to weigh myself. I fgured 180 max, but I weighed in at 195!!! Holy shit, that is the most I have weighed - ever - by almost 20 lbs. Well, I guess the extra eating is paying off....

1/28/04: Saw David Bowie in Vegas this weekend, and UFC on Saturday night. Bowie was so awesome - we were about 3 feet from the stage. I have not screamed so loud in a long time. He has so many classics - damn he rocked. Then on Saturday Carlie and I watched the Ultimate Fighting Championships. There were some great fights. Ive got to see one of these again. Being ringside is the only way to go - GO BIG OR GO HOME!

2/11/04: This was my first swim in a long long time where I actually felt comfortable, like I was smooth in the water. Let's keep this going.

2/12/04: my shoulder is really starting to hurt - this is a lingering injury from years ago. Must monitor this carefully. HAVE to stay healthy.

2/21/04: The water is kick-ass cold. It takes all my will to get in and stay in it. It is like 57ish now and I feel like I am going to have a heart attack for the first 5 minutes I am in the water. But I have to push through - these are some of the hardest workouts I will have given how cold the water is.

2/29/04: Today I did a swim with my wife on a surfboard. It turns out paddling a surfboard in the ocean for long periods of time is not as easy as it looks. After about 10 minutes Carlie handed me the leash and for the nexgt hour I dragged her and the surfboard around the Pacific. At one point I thought of that father/son combo you see on all the IronMan broadcasts. The father, Dick Hoyt, drags his son, Ricky Hoyt (who has cereberal paulsey) around on a kayak for the swim, pushes him in a cart for the bike, etc. It truly is an amazing and inspriational sight, but in this context when I told Carlie that we looked like that father/son combo we started laughing so hard I nearly drowned! It ended up being a really good workout.

3/7/04: Did 3 miles in the ocean - starting to feel better in terms of distance and cold aclimation. Shoulder really an issue though.

3/11/04: Saw a great physical therapist - I really have to figure out this shoulder issue. Mentally I am ready to go longer in the water but my shoulder feels like it is going to fall off. I will try ANYTHING to make this pain go away. It is constant.

3/14/04: Swam a 5 miler today in the ocean. Water temerature was 59 degrees, which is actually up a couple degrees from just a few weeks ago. I am starting to feel more comfortable going long distances in cold water. I hope so - I have gained over 50 lbs in the last few months!

3/20/04: It is cold and foggy today and the water temp is 60 degrees - perfect for an English Channel training swim! My goal was to do 6 miles in the ocean today as a means of building up my endurance in general and to the cold in particular. I made it through the whole swim - just under 3 hours (my goal is to hold approx 28 minutes per mile). Thank goodness my shoulder problems are not flaring up. I have been working hard in terms of massage, PT, exercises, stretches, changing my technique, etc - these things are starting to pay off.

3/21/04: Today I did a swim meet where I swam the 1650. My time sucked (24:19 - slower than last year), but I did swim 6 miles yesterday and I am carrying nearly 50 lbs more now than I was at that time. Stay focused on the big picture - getting across the Channel in one piece.

3/24/04: Did 2 kick ass workouts yesterday, one mid day and one in the evening, about 3500 yards each. I felt really strong - I was actually stronger during the second one than during the first. Being healthy and injury free, combined with consistent hard core workouts, is starting to pay off. I have a LONG LONG way to go, but for the first time in a long while I see the path towards my goal. I have to stay healthy and injury free - that is key. The workouts are no problem - I just have to get out there and hammer through the pain. But staying healthy is tough given all the demands - I really have to make an effort here.

3/25/04: Anyone who is standing in line at Starbucks for 5 minutes with nothing better to do than to stare at the pastry display and drink list who then gets to the front of the line and does not know what they want to order should be shot. How can you have been standing there all that time and then when it is your time to order and there are 10 people waiting in line behind you go, "uhm, let's see...maybe I'll get a tall...no, make that a grande decaf...no, actually I feel like maybe I will have a mocha. Do you have any cheese danishes?" SBUX should make a special bullet just for these people and take the appropriate actions....

3/26/04: I was going to do a 6 hour, 12 mile swim this weekend (this is required to be able to attempt the Channel) but the water temp here in LJ has dropped 3 degrees since last weekend (from 60 to 57). That does not sound like a lot but even a 1 degree difference can make or break a 6 hour swim. Rather than taking a chance wiht it, I will hold off a week or two and do the swim once the H2O temp is back to up 60. In the mean time I will put in a couple shorter (as in 2 - 4 mile) swims this weekend. The pool is closed so this will force me to do some colder water swimming. This will be good for me.

3/27-3/28/04: As planned I did a couple ocean swims this weekend including a 2 hour swim sunday wiht the middle half hour being body surfing over at the Shores. I lost my brand new goggles while riding a wave and had to swim the mile back to the Cove sans eye protection. Damn my eyes were red that night! But otherwise it was a good cold water workout. Bumped into Anne Cleveland while out in the water. She did the Channel a couple years ago and has been a HUGE help in my preparation. She is a machine in the water. We train together at the pool and she cranks out the mileage like there is no tomorrow.

3/30/04: If you do not own the CD by the New Radicals entitled "Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too" (the only CD they have ever made) then definitely get it. It is SUCH a good CD.

4/7/04: I went to the UFC fights this past weekend with some buddies - a guys weekend in Vegas. The fights were awesome - lots of stand up striking (as opposed to on the ground grappling). Really good knock outs. We went to the VIP party afterwards at the House of Blues. That was pretty lame - the usual scene of everyone staring at everyone else trying to figure out if they are some B list star or rocker. There was a Pamela Anderson look alike as well as a Paris Hilton wannabe. They got a lot of attention, more than the fighters. Go figure.

This weekend I am finally doing my required 6 hour swim in 60 degree or less H2O. This should be brutal, but a big confidence builder.

4/9/04: Not many entries lately. This time of year - approaching April 15th - is always particularly busy one for me. Thank goodness we had a very strong March at G2 Capital, so that has helped to ease the pain a bit....Speaking of pain, tomorrow is a big day in terms of milestones for my Channel swim training. From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. I will be swimming continuosly in 60 degree water. My total distance should approach 12 miles given my goal of holding a 28 - 30 minute per mile pace plus 1 - 2 minutes per hour for feeding. Despite the fact that my longest continuous swim to date has been only 3 1/2 hours, I feel ready for the 6 hour swim. I have been putting in doubles (2 swims per day of approximately 1 1/2 hours each) about 3 days per week for the last couple weeks, plus single workouts on the other days save my one day off per week. By tomorrow morning my body should be well rested, relatively speaking, and my weight is were it needs to be for warmth purposes. At the same time, I am not underestimating the physical, nutritional and mental demands this swim will entail. Each time I have approached 6 miles in my longest swims thus far my right shoulder has started to give out, so I will have to be very careful on that front. And I have not yet experienced the nutritional demands associated with such a long swim. I will have to rely on my Ironman training experience in terms of calorie consumption. Hopefully I will be able to lift my arms enough on monday to 'log in'.

Separate issue, if you have never seen the movie "The Big Blue" you should rent this - it is a classic (albeit a not well known one, which makes it that much better).

4/12/04: Well, I did it. 6 hours straight in the ocean on saturday, 60 degree water temp. All those cold water sessions this winter - plus the requisite desserts - paid off. Througout the day I learned a lot about nutrition (I barfed about 8 times towards the end of the swim, then a half dozen more times on the way home after the swim), the importance of keeping salt water out of my system, etc. Fortunately my shoulders held up nicely, and the cold wasnt really a factor until the very end of the swim. So I think I will be focusing a lot of my time on long swims in the coming months - just getting out there and hammering it for hours on end, and testing my nutrition needs. That is the only way. I am glad I made it past this critical hurdle in my training.

4/14/04: People will often ask me about, or for that matter comment upon, the most important aspects of being able to make it across the Channel. I hear things like, "well, if you can just survive the cold, then you can always manage the mileage since you can just tough that out...." The reality is that, among the key elements of physical prep, visualation/mental strength, nutrition, ability to withstand the cold, etc, ALL of them are ranked #1 in importance. If any one of them is missing, you are not making it across the Channel, at least not under your own aquatic power.. It is not like a marathon where you can 'fake it' by half-ass preparing and then walking the last 6 miles after bonking at the 20 mile marker. There is no faking crossing the Channel. If any piece of the puzzle is missing, you arent going to end the day with a chunk of French sand clenched in your cold fist. So that is why I feel fortunate to be testing myself in so many different realms since I can not be anything but 100% prepared in all of them. Fun stuff.

On another note, my shoulders are holding up nicely despite a pretty big increase in mileage. Kudos to my PT Derek and my masseuse Larissa. Those guys are awesome, even though my sessions with them are anything but relaxing!!!

4/19/04: Saw Kill Bill, Vol. II this weekend. I liked it even better than Vol. I. If you enjoyed the first, definitely see the second one - had much more of a story line and varied action (Carlie and I went to celebrate her getting her brown belt, 3rd degree). On the swim front, this weekend was pretty relaxed after a major weekend a week ago. Just did about 1 1/2 hours each day to get a little mileage in.

One of my training partners, Jay, has been joining me in the ocean the last week. Jay has about 3% body fat (see photo of Jay in the swim section) so he usually does not get into the ocean until it gets to about 65 degrees (it is currently about 61). His propensity to get cold is forcing us to minimize the chit chat at the 1/2 way buoy (now about 20 seconds worth down from about 30 seconds worth!). It is great having him out there.

4/26/04: This past weekend I did a 4 hour, 8 mile (approximately) swim on Saturday. It was a fairly flat day - unusual for the La Jolla Cove where I swim - so it was actually a joy. Anne Cleveland, also training for the Channel, and I crossed paths several times during our respective swims (she was doing 10 miles that day - she is hardcore!). Unfortunately my left shoulder is now acting up big time. It was my right shoulder for years that was causing me problems. So this is a new challenge I will deal with. For the rest of the day Saturday and all of Sunday I could not even lift my right arm. Otherwise the swim went really well - no sea sickness this time. That was a good training swim.

4/29/04: Here is a HELPFUL HINT for all of you who follow the local news. When there is a report of a SHARK SIGHTING, dont mention it to people who spend a lot of time in the water! Let's put this in perspective. If every so often, say 10 or 12 times each year, it was reported that a shark (or pick some other mammal/animal of your choice) bit, killed, maimed or otherwise attacked someone at a spin class at a local SD gym, do you think that would have some kind of impact on spin class participation?!? Oh, no worries, the chances are sooooo small. You have a greater chance of being hit by a car while walking across the street from your parked car to the gym than getting munched by the proverbial shark while you spin away on your Johny G Spinner rocking out to a classic version of the Mighty Mighty Boss Tones' "Knock on Wood".... It is always some guy at some other gym that seems to get attacked...couldnt happen to you at your comfy, mirror-filled spin room. Or could it???

That, my friends, rationally or otherwise, is what ocean swimmers face EVERY time they throw themselves into the deep blue. We know rationally that we have more chance of getting skin cancer from the exposure to the sun during our swim than we do of getting munched by a shark while out in the water, but nonethless our minds tend to be fixated on whether or not that shadow lurking below us is a big kelp bed or something with lots of sharp teeth, an insatiable appetite, really bad eyesite and a terrible memory. Thus I IMPLORE YOU: whenever you hear of a shark sighting or attack, KEEP IT TO YOURSELF!!! You will invaribly tell us just as we have, for one brief moment, forgotten about the possibility of being at the wrong end of the food chain....

As Barttles and James would say, "thank you for your support." ;-)

5/11/04: Not too many entries lately. Shoulders hurt. Back hurts. Training must be going well.... The real big news is that Carlie and I are heading to the Lakers game tonight - can you say, "HELLO JACK!!!" That's right, baby, courtside for the playoffs (a surprise bday gift for Carlie). The market was up today, our stocks were up today, I need the day off of training, so all is good....

5/21/04: Today's theme is PAIN. Pain is what Kobe inflicted on San Antonio when he scored 42 points to help the Lakers win game 4 of their series up in L.A. People - if you get once in a lifetime oppotunities to watch a playoff game coutside, go sky diving, attend the Kentucky Derby - whatever peaks your interest, GO FOR IT! You never know when the proverbial bus will hit you, so enjoy the ride along with way with some really cool experiences. OK, off my 'experience life to the fullest' soap box, the next application of the PAIN theme will come tomorrow when I do my longest swim to date, namely 14 miles (7 hours) in the ocean. The water temp is now up to 66 degrees, so this is a non issue. But keeping the shoulders from exploding for such a long period (to put this in perspective, I take about 60 strokes a minute, 3600 strokes per hour...or over 25,000 arm rotations over the course of 14 miles. Just for fun, rotate your arms about a hundred times each (obviously with no resistance as you would get if you were pushing water) and see how that feels/impacts your shoulders. Now do it 25,000 times.... Hence the theme of pain, and hence the need for me to get through this critical training swim in one piece. We'll catch up next week, and in the mean time, make a list of all the things you would love to experience at least once in life (siting on some gorgeous beach, staying at some fancy hotel, witnessing one of the great wonders of the world, etc) and BOOK IT!!!!

5/24/04: Well, I did it. 6 hours, 57 minutes, 38 seconds in the water. My goal was 7 hours, but I just happened to land on the beach at that time. This was a big confidence builder. Thanks to training partner Jay for doing 2 hours/4 miles with me during the middle of my swim. Those hours, 3 1/2 - 5 1/2, were probably the toughest of the day, so I appreciated having someone out there to share the constant pounding of the waves (it was a pretty rough day - perfect Channel training conditions). I also met a couple of guys who are doing the around Manhattan race in July, so there was a good group of ocean swimmers out there. Surprisingly, my shoulders are actually feeling pretty good which is a minor miracle in and of itself. I am not, though, taking anything for granted and thus will continue to see Derek my physcical therapist to ensure my shoulders do not totally explode. Man I am glad I got through that swim. My next long one will be 8 hours in 2 - 3 weeks depending on how I recover from this weekend's mileage.

6/4/04: Hard to believe it is June already. Hell, for that matter, it is hard to comprehend that it is 2004 already, but that is life with the acceleration pedal to the floor....Only about 6 weeks of hard core training to go, then it will be time to taper. Everything is right on the edge, which I suppose is where it should be, but I feel very vulnerable physically - - at least as it relates to my shoulders and back. I have been meeting a bunch of people lately who have either attempted, completed, or are scheduled to swim the Channel. It is a small and tightly knit group of very generous people. It is the opposite of a zero sum game. People share their experiences, their knowledge, and everyone is better off. It is really kind of cool. I look back on my days as a competitive sailor and it was such an opposite approach and scenario. Everything was mutually exclusive. I win or you win. I have good wind, you have bad wind. When I would arrive to a competition I would seek out my main rival and we would begin a week of non-stop mind games to try to fluster the other person. Then out on the race course we would stalk each other with the intent of crushing. I really enjoyed and thrived in those circumstances. So I am not saying the supportive environment of long distance ocean swimming is better, it is just different. Crossing the ocean under your own power takes enough energy as it is; being able to tap into the energy of others rather than trying to surpress it is an essential and beautiful concept, one I am glad to be experiencing.

6/8/04: Got in 2 three hour swims this past weekend, one on each day. Towards the end of the swim on Saturday I thought my right shoulder was going to separate on the spot, but I was in the middle of the ocean (fortunately heading to shore on my last lap of the day), so I just slowed it down a bit and finished up the swim. I iced it that afternoon with the hopes of allowing for recovery for Sunday's swim. Fortunately Sunday actually felt better than Saturday shoulder-wise, so I was able to complete my scheduled swims. I probably did 10 or 11 miles across the 2 days, so that was a good, solid 'medium distance' weekend. I have an 8 hour swim coming up this weekend or next, so that will be one of my final super long swims prior to heading to England.

On a separate note, I was swimming with my training partner Jay yesterday. We were hanging out at our turnaround point, chatting for a few seconds as we do before we head back to shore. As we were floating there like 2 apples in a barrel (OK, I am a little bit more like a pear at this point, but I dont want to mix metaphors), up pops this pretty good size fin about 10 feet behind Jay (he was facing me and thus his back was to the fin). Now I know I have counceled you, the reader, not to mention the "s" word around ocean swimmers, so I am going to heed my own advice. I am 99% certain this was a dolphin rather than a sh***. The fin come up for a couple seconds and then submerged. Also, it was rounded rather than pointy (are you supposed to get all big and noisy for bears and small and silent for mountain lions or is it the other way around;-). In any case, I was not about to stick around to find out. I impolitely ended the conversation and told Jay it was time to head back to shore. Now Jay will readily admit that I am faster in the ocean than he is right now. Hell, I better be given the amount of swimming I have been doing. And the old saying goes, I dont have to be faster than the bear, I just have to be faster than my fellow camper. But Jay is my training partner and friend, and at that moment he did not have the 'benefit' of having seen the dolphin/sh*** and therefore his adrenalin was not gushing through his veins as it was for me. It would have been awfully unfair of me to have left him in my wake, so we swam side by side the whole way in. I let him know once we got to shore what the source of my rudness and abruptness had been and he was a bit freaked out to put it mildly. In fact today he phoned me to ask if we could do our swim in the pool rather than the ocean but I convinced him that it you fall off the proverbial horse, the most important thing you can do is to get back on immediately. If I let the thought of a sh*** get to me I would have been doing all my training in a bath tub and would have quite a rude awakening once I hit the rough waters of the Channel. So back into the deep blue we will forge today for another day of preparation for the ultimate goal.

6/9/04: POOL SHARK. Now I am not using the word sh*** in the literal sense, but of course rather in the figurative sense. Therefore I have usage privaleges. So here is the scene. My usual training partner, Jay, is unable to join me for a swim today. So I head down to the ocean solo in search of temporary swimming partners. Two triathlete-types (I used to be one, so I dont say this disparigingly) are zipping up their comfy, warmth & speed-inducing wetsuits. I introduce myself and ask if I can hang with them for a bit since my training partner is AWOL for the day. "Sure", they say as they stare at my not so in shape appearing physique, "we are going to do just under 2 miles (1 mile straight out, then turn it around and head back to the Cove - our starting point)." Great I retort; I have been spotting some dolphins lately so I appreciate the company. We cruise out a mile basically together. I think one of the guys was drafting off of me and the other off of his friend, but basically we are all within shouting distance of each other. Once we got to our approx mile off shore point, we stopped and convened for a moment. "Hey, you are swimming pretty well for not having a wetsuit" one of them says (editors note: a wetsuit can reduce, on average, a swimmers time by 2 - 3 minutes per mile which is the equivalent to a 10% performance improvement...which is huge in sports). I indicate that I think I just got a couple lucky waves pushing me forward on the way out - that I am certain I wont be able to hang with them on the way back as we are going head first into waves and the conditions are a lot tougher than on the way out when the wind and waves were at our backs. Now there was no spoken wager, but guys, especially competitve guys, know implicitly when the proverbial gauntlet has been thrown down. Even in the ocean it lands with a thud that can not be missed nor ignored. So we cleared our goggles and charged back to shore. I think it was on my 10th or 11th stroke that I lost sight of them. By the time they hit the beach I had already showered and changed. "Hey, where did you go?" the faster of the 2 inquired. Oh, I tell them, I got a ride from one of the kayaker chicks he was trying to pick up while we were getting ready to head back to the Cove (the area we swim in is often littered with these single and 2 person kayaks. it is actually really beautiful out there on most days - really nice for paddling). As they were pealing off their wetsuits and I headed off they just gave me a quizical look as though they did not know if they believed less my claim of getting a lift from a kayaker or the amount by which it appeared I had kicked their respective asses.

The whole event made me realize that I could hang out at the Cove with little floaties on my arms and challenge people to mile races for money. I am sure I would do Paul Newman proud....

6/15/04: JELLY BELLIES: This weekend, on Sunday, I put in a 3 1/2 hour swim. It seems as though early in the morning, when the water is calmer (it invariably gets rougher as the sea breezes pick up mid-day), there tend to be these jelly fish floating near the surface, especially now that the water is warmer. These otherwise innocuous looking creatures pack a serious punch - or sting as would be more appropriate. It actually feels like being electrocuted and burned at the same time. Not too bad, but just enough to make it hurt for an hour or so. About 20 minutes into my swim I felt this very sharp burning sensation running down my leg. OWE!!! I looked down to see a 18 inch jelly fish sliding down my quad. "THAT's gonna hurt!" I thought to myself. Fortunately I had another 3+ plus hours of swimming in front of me to cool off the sting (and avoid other similar fates).

Why would this docile creature chose to sting me, the guy who is trying to help out such planktonic marine members? Is it becuase I have such an increased surface area to sting and therfore he/it could not help itself? Or perhaps it is because he/it knows that jelly fish are prevelant in the English Channel and thus he wanted to prepare me for the inevitable sting(s) that await(s) me during my crossing. Or, MAYBE it is because people have not been donating enough money to causes which help such beautiful creatures and thus he/it wanted to give me a wake up call!?! In any case, I am glad he gave me a dose of his toxins as a shock to me system indicating that a lot of work is yet to be done... On behalf of all the marine life, I thank those who have donated to the organizations thus far, and thanks in advance for those of you who do so in the weeks to come.

6/17/04: This weekend I am scheduled to do an 8 hour swim, my longest to date. Therefore I am resting today to get my shoulders ready for the grind. During that 8 hours I will do approximately 28,000 arm rotations. Just for fun, Stand up and rotate your arms like you are doing the freestyle/crawl swim stroke for a minute. Note how your arms feel (remember that pushing/pulling water is tougher than pushing/pulling air). Now think of doing that for 8 hours while getting hit in the face with wave after wave of water....Yeah, should be a fun day! This 8 hour swim will be my last super-long swim before the Channel, so it will be an important one physically and mentally.

6/21/04: ASTERIODS: There are like a zillion not so little jelly fish out there. It is tough enough to swim for hours on end, but when you add to it that there are these 1 - 2 foot stinging/sucking/electrocuting creatures out there which are translucent so you cant actually see them until you are sticking your hands through their tentacles...well, that just SUCKS. I am still reeling from my sting the weekend before last. Just when I thought my leg had healed, now the whole thing is swelling up in a rash that is one of those things that draws attention when I am in my bathing suit. Oh well, all part of the challenge. Re: my swim this weekend, I didnt do it. I swam for an hour (was scheduled to do 8) and I just wasnt into it. All mental. Physically I was fine. That's ok - no one bats 1000. All things considered, my training is going really well, so I am not so concerned with one off day. This weekend it is back to cold water - heading to SF where it is about 59 degrees. Jay, my training partner, and I swam today and the water had dropped 2 degrees to 66 from 68 where it had been. That felt like a HUGE drop. 59 degrees should be interesting.... Better to be shocked now than in England where the water for sure will not be 68 degrees....

6/29/04: SAN FRANCISCO DAZE: I managed a couple 2 hour swims in San Fran Bay this past weekend. As expected, the water temp was about 59. I felt like I was back in Feb here in LJ when it would take me 10 minutes just to get in the water. Unlike air temp, where it is difficult to distinguish 62 degrees from 66 degress, when it comes to water temp, a few degrees is a BIG BIG difference. Someone who can get in and stay in 67 degree water for an extended period sans wetsuit could easily opt for getting out of 61 degree water after just a few minutes (or not go in at all). So I was really pleased to re-aquaint myself with the cold water. I met some really cool (no pun intended:-) people there as well - past and future Channel swimmers (SEE MY NEW PHOTOS UP IN THE SWIM SECTION). These guys and gals were very helpful and inspirational. One woman I met successfully completed the Channel in Force 5 conditions for the last several hours of the swim. You have to be VERY strong mentally and physically to get through that. To put it in perspective, another swimmer who was attempting a crossing that same day disappeared about a mile off the French coast. One minute his boat and crew are gathering his food/drink for him, and the next minute he is gone. He was found in Belgium a week later (decidedly not eating Belgian chocolate, rather he washed up on some beach). That just reinforces the fact that you have to maintain the deepest respect for the ocean.

Back to more pleasant thoughts, and speaking of eating, I had a funny notion the other day when I was stuffing myself with food while walking down to the ocean for an early afternoon swim. "Don't swim for at least an hour after eating " is the old adage. If I abided by that, I would not be able to get in any swims at all!!!

7/15/04: FINAL STRETCH: Hard to believe I leave for England in just a couple weeks. I have put in my final long workouts (back to back 6 hour workouts the weekend before last) and my final cold water training (about 8 miles up in SF Bay this weekend where it was surprisingly warm - at least compared to a couple weeks ago, and at least relatively speaking). At this point my main focus is staying healthy and injury free. My left shoulder has been acting up lately, but it is an old story so I wont go there. I am really glad I did the swims I accomplished up in SF. Real confidence boosters. Now when I hit the waters in Dover it wont be such a shock. I met 2 more people who are crossing during the same window I am. They were hammering out miles up in SF - they did some 3 mile race in under an hour (current assisted I believe) and they got first and second. I joined them for their warm down swim, and they were really fast. But good guys, as has been the case with most of the Channel swimmers I have encountered. So that is cool.

7/23/04: A FAREWELL TO ARMS (and shoulders and lats and....): The countdown is well under way. I make the trek to Dover in less than 10 days. Soon thereafter I will be pushing my arms, delts, lungs, heart and mind to the limits. I look forward to it. As I reflect upon my training and experiences over the last 9 - 12 months, I am reminded of a scene in one of my favourite (note British English spelling;-) Bill Murray films, Ground Hog Day. In that film, while explaining to his colleague, Andie Mcdowell, how he has spent the last 6 months of his life (which for him were the same day over and over), he laments at his suicidal behaviors, "I have been shot, stabbed, burned, thrown off a building...." For the last 6 months during my training for the Channel I have been burned (by the sun), frozen (by the water), starved (on purpose to replicate the effects of pushing my body while being totally depleted of fuel), burned & electocuted (by jelly fish), stabbed (by protruding rocks), deprived of my taste buds (due to endless hours of salt water exposure in my mouth), scrapped (by nasty kelp) and shocked (by the site of a fin - let's call it that of a dolphin - appearing about 10 feet from me a mile off shore). It may sound strange, but I am glad to have had all of these expereinces - they have prepared me well for the invevitable challenges which await me in England/France.

I will let you know how things go....

7/31/04: PROLOGUE: I leave in the a.m. for London/Dover and will be entering the Channel for my swim within days therafter. I will try to post updates while I am over there. My final thoughts before the big adventure begins are as follows: I am both very confident about and very humbled by the challenge which awaits me. Lose confidence, and the ocean swallows you up. Lose respect for the body of water that is supporting you, and it will swallow you up even harder. So it is a weird but vital balance of confidence and humility that I am riding. I did my final swim today; all of my training is behind me. It is now up to the Channel gods to give me conditions that will make crossing the Channel a possibilty. The rest is up to my physical and more importantly mental strength. Regardless of the outcome, I am glad to have come this far in the journey. Everything else at this point is just icing (maybe not a good choice of words;-) on the cake. Thanks to everyone for their support and words of encouragement. It has helped me get this far, and will surely be in my subconscious during the inevitable lows that I will need to push through in order to end my journey with a chunk of French sand in my fist.

8/5/04: IMPORTANT CHANNEL ANNOUNCEMENT! It is 8pm local time in dover and I have just been summoned to swim starting at 1:30 a.m friday local time (as in just a few hours from now). The tide window opens at midnight and the boat official is not wasting any time. I was suuposed to be 3rd in line to go, but spots 1 and 2 opted not to go due to expexted rough (but permissible) conditions. It is raining now and getting dark. I am going to try to rest for a couple hours before heading down to the water, but it is going to be tough to sleep! Hopefully the next time I write I will have visited france in the interim.

8/10/04: JUMPING WAVES: Well, this particular journey has come to and end. As with all goals, the road is (or at least should be) as important and enjoyable as the destination. I can honestly say in this case it was.

As noted above, I got a call late last Thursday evening from the swim official indicating that the 2 swimmers ahead of me had opted out of attempting the Channel on friday morning. "Meet the boat at 1:45 a.m." he instructed me. Needless to say, I did not get a lot of rest in the ensuing hours.

After meeting the boat pilot and Channel Swimming Federation officials in Dover harbour, we motored from Dover to a beach a few miles to the North since the curents were quite strong and that was the best launching point to take into account the expected water flows. Other than the strong tides, the conditions were essentially perfect. It was a warm night/morning, the water temperature was above normal (still cold by most measures, but at least warmer than usual for the Channel). The seas were only slightly wavy. The boat pulled up to the shore and after some a quick application of 'Channel Grease' to my arms, neck and legs, I said my last goodbyes and jumped into neck deep water. At 2:30 a.m., ALL water feels cold when it first hits your body, trust me. I swam the 10 yards to shore, walked up the pebbly beach so that my entire body had cleared the water, and plunged back into the Channel with my escort boat just ahead of me. Two other swimmers (3 total including myself) were attempting the Channel that night (none made it). The first few minutes of swimming were totally surreal. It was pitch black save the spotlight from the boat that was generally pointed in my direction and the sparkles of light that eminated from my fingertips with every stroke through the water. It was literally like swimming through a galaxy of stars. I could not see a thing excpet for the lights from the boats and the self-created aqua-fire-flies dancing around my arms. I didnt know if I were in the film "Contact" or "Apocolypse Now" but it definitely felt like a dream.

The first couple hours went just according to plan. Every few minutes I would do a 'body check' by literally starting at my fingertips and going all the way down my body to my toes and see if everything was feeling good. "Wrists, check. Elbows, check. Shoulders? Feel strong! Lower back - a little tight, but fine...." Then, a feeling I had experienced a few times before - in particular when I did my 6 hour swim back in April - started to creep into my system. As I reported back in April, I got very very sick about 5 hours into my 6 hour swim. I tried everything in my power to get what ever was bothering my stomach out and into the sea, but all I could do was 'dry' (how ironic) heave. When I finally did get on land back after my 6 hour Easter Day swim, I proceeded to paint La Jolla's lovely sidewalk a bright shade of orange. I learned shortly thereafter that it was actually stomach bile, not gatorade or some other liquid, that was coming from the deepest recesses of my guts. Back to the dark waters of the Channel, I started this ugly gut wrenching gag routine. Picture a dolphin doing his 'please feed me some fish' routine gone VERY wrong.

It always seems challenging to relate, really relate, to someone who is sick. When we are feeling fine and someone else has the flu, a sore throat or whatever, we are like, "hey, I am sorry you dont feel good" but we just move on. When WE are feeling sick, however, let's say with food poisining, then it is like the whole world has changed and the only thing that you can think about is how stupidly painful it is to be hunched over a toilet throwing all the contents of your stomach up into the bowl. "MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!" we think to ourselves. Now think back to the last time you were blowing your chunks violently, and picture yourself being tossed off a boat in the middle of the ocean and told to swim 20 some odd miles in 60ish degree water. Making it from the bathroom to the bedroom seems like an impossible task at the time....

So, without overdramatizing it (but telling it like it is), that is how I found myself during my Channel crossing attempt. I could not move forward, I could not feed the fish (AKA throwing up, which was my goal at the time), and as I 'stood' there treading water I started getting very very cold. There is a HUGE difference between swimming and generating body heat, and just sitting there in cold water (I had experimented with this during my cold water training swims). If you do the latter, you can get hypotermia very quickly, no matter how accustomed you are to the severe water temparature. Afrter doing a series of 10 - 15 meter swims interspersed with that above noted dolphin routine, I ended up treading water and doing 'ab crunches' for what seemed like 15 or 20 minutes. I knew my day was over, but I could not get myself to touch the boat and thus end my quest. I was really, really bummed. But my rational mind knew that I could not control my sickness and thus I could not go on without putting myself in danger of hypothermia or worse yet, just disappearing into the water as had happened to a swimmer last year.

Finally I said that was it, I grabbed the back of the boat and pulled myself on board. I was immediately wrapped in blankets and before the boat pilot could say "nice try" I was already hurling sotmach bile all over the floor of the vessel. "Welcome to the English Channel bucket club" the official observer said to me as he put a pail in front of my pale face. As soon as round one of the vommit fest was over I buried my head in the floor of the boat and started to shake from the tears of disapointment flowing down my face and from the cold that was making an appearance like pain after the adrenaline which accompanies shock wears off. This picture was only interupted by round 2 of the bucket filling, bile hurling extravagnaza. This time it was coming from the deepest recesses of my stomach and was a bright orange. "Well, at least I am starting my path towards sveltness and wash board abs" I thought myself. Thank goodness I had my wife Carlie's body heat to wam me up. I needed it every second of the ride back to Dover....

They say it is the journey that really matters. It sounds like justificaiton when one says that after having failed to achieve a given goal. But it really is true. I have been fortunate to achieve and fall short on many major goals in my life. I remember when I won my first world sailing championships and I was so psyched. It was the fulfillment of a 10 year long quest. Then I lost the next one and was crushed. I was not happy at all. I figured that was just due to the disapointment of not attaining my goal of repeat victory. A year or two later I did manage to regain the world champion crown, but this time I did not feel great when I had achieved my goal. And the journey getting there had not been satisfying. That is when I knew I had to retire from the sport. The process, the means, the journey, the adventure along the way - no longer held any pleasure nor provided personal growth. Fortunately in the case of my English Channel challenge, there was tremendous personal expansion, and I am not just talking about my waste line! I met a ton of cool people along the way. More than once I found myself saying, "if anyone had told me 5 years ago that I would be doing this right now I would have told them they were crazy." (e.g., when swimming in San Fran bay without a wetsuit). I pushed myslef mentally and physically for a year, getting WAY out side of my comfort zone. The fact that I did not make it to France on my swim is just and afterthought. It is better to fail trying great things than to only pursue the mundane and succeed. I dont know what challenge awaits me now. I am not sure what wave I am going to jump on next. But I look forward to the ride regardless of where it takes me.

Thanks to EVERYONE who gave me support along the way - in whatever form that took. Thanks to Jay, my swim training partner, for putting in all those miles with me. Thanks to Anne Cleveland for giving me the benefit of her experience in Channel swimming. Thanks to all of those who donated to the great causes for which I was raising money. And thanks most of all to my wife, Carlie, for her unconditional love and support of her 'crazy' husband who feels compelled to challenge himself in strange ways. I encourage everyone to find his or her own challenge and to pursue it. We only get to ride this great wave once. You never know when it will hit the proverbial shore. Most regrets in life are from things not tried rather than things done. Engage life and it will give back ten times over.