A Long Swim

Sometimes, You Just Get Lucky

I firmly believe that I am the luckiest guy in the world. 

Consider the good luck of being able to have a long swimming career, and spending four years of it swimming for the University of Illinois.  I was lucky because Illinois was coached by an extraordinary man, Don Sammons, and it changed my life.  Don had a huge impact on me as a swimmer, but he had an even bigger one on me as a person.  The lessons I learned from Don have stayed with me for 35 years, so they’ll probably be with me for good. 

Don is the most consistently positive, optimistic and upbeat person I have ever known.  In a world filled with fakes, Don is so innately genuine that it wouldn’t occur to him to be anything but.  Despite any setback, Don was never got down on himself or his team.  Imagine being a college swimmer, trudging through the cold and snow to make it to practice every morning at 6:00 a.m., and being greeted with a cheery, “Good morning, Mary Sunshine!  Can’t wait to get into that cool blue!  Stronger every day, Trooper!” 

In fact, an Illinois teammate and very close friend, Dave Bishop, texted Susan at the latter stages of our Channel swim to “tell Doug that Mary Sunshine is waiting for him on the French beach.”  That was a lift for everyone. 

Rather than live among complications, Don Sammons makes things simple.  Work hard.  Live clean.  Fair and square.  Be a good citizen, be smart, be organized and be honest.  Everything in moderation.  Follow some straightforward rules, and most things will work out just fine.  Most of all, though, Don instilled in us his absolute certainty that your mind was your best weapon and our most important asset.  If you can control your mind and refuse to let it limit you, your body will follow and it will do amazing and unheard of things.  Not all of us learned those lessons willingly, but all of us were exposed to them by this genuinely good and gracious man.  Don’s wife Marilyn was the surrogate mother of every swimmer at Illinois for more than 20 years.  You cannot think of one of them without the other. 

Every couple of years, a reunion of Illinois swimming alums is held.  We all troop back to Champaign to swap stories and share memories of the unique college experience we shared.  One of these reunions was held a couple of weeks ago.  Despite the fact that we had a million other things that needed to be done, I roped Susan into going because I knew that Don and Marilyn Sammons would be there.  I really wanted to celebrate the Channel swim with them, inasmuch as Don is far more responsible for the swim than he will ever know.

When Don and I had a chance to visit, it was interesting what he didn’t want to talk about.  He didn’t care about the stuff that other people dwell on – the cold water, the waves, the darkness, the feeding or the finish – he just wanted to know about what was going through my mind. 

Don:      “When did you know you would make it across?”

Me:        “When I stepped into the water in Dover.”

Don:      “Did you ever look at the swim ladder on the back of the boat?  Did you ever want to get out?”  [People have often said that the ladder on the back of the boat ‘taunts’ them to get out and get warm.]

Me:        “You know, it’s weird.  I saw that ladder 20,000 times, but I never thought of getting on it.  Not once.”

Don:      “Did you ever have that ‘bonk’ where you really question what you are doing?”

Me:        “I have to tell you, it never happened.  Maybe I was lucky, but it never happened to me.”

Then, Don got real serious, looked me straight in the eye, pointed his fingers at his temples, and said, “That’s because you are strong.  Right here.  Mentally strong; powerful beyond measure.”

That is what I wanted to hear.  I wanted this man, who has probably had a bigger impact on my life than any man other than my father, to confirm that I had done well.  I wanted him to acknowledge that I had accomplished something special.  I wanted him to verbally pat me on the head and say that he was proud of me.  What he didn’t realize, of course, is that so much of me being “Mentally strong; powerful beyond measure,” was due to the precious time I had spent learning from him. 

The other reason I had wanted to see Don was that I had a present for him.  I had brought him a shell I picked up on the beach in Wissant Bay in France.  I gave him the shell and said, “I swam 30 miles to get this for you.”  He gave me a hug, we all sniffled a little and Susan took a picture. 

Since then, he sent this email:

Hi Doug

I can't begin to tell you how much that shell you brought back from the beach in France means to me.  It represents everything that is positive about life.

It will occupy a prominent place on my desk in Arizona.

Have a terrific day.

Don

PS - Please give Susan a great big hug.

 

Who knew that, by walking in to Don’s life when I was 17 years old, something great would happen. 

Sometimes you just get lucky.

I will report back. 

Lions Swim Fast – and Far

One of the unexpected bits of gratification about having swum the English Channel is that, suddenly, people want to hear what you have to say.  I have had invitations to speak to management teams, Rotary Clubs, Kiwanis meetings, and veterinarians. 

The veterinarians were great, but I will always be a softie for talking to swimmers.   Hence, I jumped at the chance to talk to the Lyons Township High School Girl’s Swimming team about A Long Swim, and my sister Ellen and I went together. 

Quick backstory:  Ellen knows the folks over at LTHS because her sons were big stars there, not as swimmers but as golfers.  She had contacted the swim coach, Kurt Johns, about a whole “Swim Across the Channel with Doug” idea where the girls would mark off 30 miles of swimming with the goal of getting a swim cap.  Of course, it took them just a couple of weeks of mid-season training to rack up the mileage, so then it was my turn to go in to talk to them. 

We arrived one afternoon when practice was about to start.  All of the girls sat patiently in the pool bleachers while I yammered on about cold water, jellyfish, five-foot waves and the recent discoveries in ALS.  They asked terrific questions and really listened to the answers.  I can honestly say that I have never held the attention of high school girls so well, specifically including the time when I was a high school boy. 

We couldn’t impose on their practice time any longer, so Kurt read off the names of the girls who had completed the swim.  Each of the girls came up, shook my hand, and thanked me for the swim caps. 

Among girls aged 14 to 18, you don’t expect attentiveness, let alone strong handshakes, eye contact and a thank-you.  If those attributes are any indication, these girls will go far.  A photographer from the school newspaper was there and she took a number of shots of the whole bunch of us.  I couldn’t help but think that this is what is good about high school, swimming, mom and apple pie.  I wanted someone to teach me the LTHS school fight song. 

• There are 50 girls on the LTHS squad
• We handed out 43 caps
• Ellen counted that 35 of the caps were being worn by the time she and I left 

I love this stuff. 

I will report back.

Three Celebrations in One; Susan Gets Her Rock

We finished the Channel swim on August 22^nd in the inky black of 3:00 a.m.  I badly wanted to grab a rock from the beach to give to Susan, as this swim is every bit her success as it is mine.  I felt around in the sand with my hands, but I just couldn’t find one before I started to get really cold.  I swam back to the boat and apologized to her for not being able to find a rock, and she acted like she couldn’t have cared less. 

Our recollections about the beach that night differ; Susan remembered seeing the vague outlines of rolling hills behind the beach, and all I was aware of was the hard sand and the tidal pools scattered around during a low tide.  It wasn’t much to go on, but we told each other that we would try to return to see the place when we could actually see the place.  I still wanted to get her that silly rock.

The circumstances of the swim were hurried, to say the least.  We were still jet-lagged from the trip, we didn’t sleep too well, and the pre-swim dinner was greasy fish and chips.  We had loads of family coming over, but the swim happened so soon after we got to Dover that no one beyond our immediate family had arrived yet.  As the extended family arrived, there was a torrent of congratulations and good wishes.  Since they didn’t participate in the swim like we had imagined they would, we decided the best way for them to experience it was to join us for the trip over to the landing beach. 

So, this excursion across the English Channel was on a very civilized commercial ferry.  There were 12 of us traveling, and as we got a couple of miles out of Dover Harbor, we saw some swimmers and their escort boats on their swims.  I was secretly envious of the sunny skies and slightly undulating waves they were experiencing.  An hour later we pulled in to the port at Calais and confronted a rental car agent. 

Enter, Mack, my 24 year old son who happens to be fluent in French.  All those years of language really paid off in the next few minutes while he jibber-jabbered with the counter guy and we emerged with three rental cars for the bunch of us.  We knew to drive past the town of Wissant and toward Cap Gris Nez (“Cape Gray Nose” to the rest of us) to see if we could find our destination.  Mack also jabbered his way through a charming little roadhouse lunch where they were as startled to see Americans as we were to be there.  It was really cool to see Mack in action. 

As luck would have it, we found a one-lane road at about the point that we imagined the beach would be.  We parked and climbed over the dune to … The Beach.  There were rolling hills, and there were even the tidal pools that I had felt the other morning.  The Beach was postcard pretty.  The sun was shining and the wind was blowing very hard.  We walked down to the water and recalled how difficult it had been for me to even stand up a few days earlier, and I felt lucky all over again to have made it there. 

One of the things that we had planned for our trip to England was to find a church to renew our wedding vows.  We celebrated our 25^th wedding anniversary several weeks ago, and were looking forward to something of a do-it-yourself ceremony when our extended family was together.  With excursion en masse to Wissant Bay, we decided to roll the two celebrations together.  Susan asked her brother Robert to “officiate” and had drafted up some beautiful language for him to read. 

Before he started, though, I had to interrupt.  I found myself to be more emotional than I expected to be, being there on The Beach; about seeing it with my eyes after imagining it in my head, and having so many of the people I love there to celebrate it.  I told everyone about how this place was important because it was the location of a big win for our family – our team – and whether our teammates were on the boat, on an airplane or on screen during the swim, every teammate’s contribution was indispensible.  Celebrating the successful swim and our anniversary was this perfect little, once-in-a-lifetime confluence of serendipity that could never be repeated.  I started crying like a little girl. 

Robert figured that it was time to get on with the whole vow-renewal thing, and read Susan’s prose about how we would always stay together, and how we would finish what we had started.  Saying “I do” was even easier this time than it was in 1986.  We had some flowers for Susan to carry, and we made a big deal of walking to the water and throwing them into the sea.  Someone took lots of pictures.  We found a suitable rock for Susan, and it was nice to be able to pick it out together. 

As we walked around the beach, I was struck with how happy and satisfied everyone was.  The boys were wrestling and throwing rocks, the girls were exploring the tidal pools and the wild flowers in the dunes, and everyone was just really happy.  I was a little sad for the people who weren’t there, including my sisters and my mother, Dave and Bruce.  But they were there in spirit.  So was my father, who would have been so pleased.  He would still be laughing his head off. 

It was awkward to leave The Beach.  We packed back into the cars and headed back toward Wissant.  Wissant is a little town where they have an annual celebration for local fishing and fishermen.  It is just like a festival you might find in Barrington or Dundee or someplace, but in Wissant it is with French fishermen in their blue striped sweaters singing old French drinking songs.  We ate smoked fish and drank local beers and were perfectly charmed. 

At the end of it all, we went back to the ferry in Calais and headed to Dover about 10:00 pm. That ride was 90 minutes, and those waves were rocking that 700-foot ferry like a top-heavy canoe. We were told later that the wind and tides had whipped up 12 foot waves in the Channel, and none of the people we saw earlier had successful swims.  No more envy from me.   

I will report back. 

The Team Goes for A Long Swim (Part 3)

This is the third of a three-part series on Doug's swim across the English Channel. If you missed them, you can still check out part 1 and part 2.

Say “Oui” to the Beach

The finish was not pretty.  Susan had been telling me that we were getting close with these little pep talks, like “five miles – you do that in practice every day,” and “three miles – just a big loop around Lake Zurich,” and “a mile and a half – back and forth to Buck Island.”  Her perspective was appreciated, but I had a problem; I could see lights off in the distance (which I now know was Cap Gris Nez, the prime landing spot) and I could tell that it was a lot more than a mile and a half away.  Then, Lance poked his head out and said, “Mate, you’re there.  I am going to shine the spotlight at a beach, and all you have to do is follow the light.  The tide is low and I can’t take the boat any shallower than here, but you are about a hundred yards from the beach.” 

I was stunned.  I had no idea I was that close to shore, though I had appreciated the flatter water that came with it.  I looked in the direction that Lance was pointing, and I couldn’t even see the shore.  After 14 hours of following this guy’s instructions, I wasn’t about to stop, so I swam for the light.  I finally felt the sand under my left hand, and I knew I could stand.  I had made it to France.  Walking out of the water after a long swim can be difficult, and walking out of the English Channel was almost impossible.  My legs had been cramping for about eight or ten miles, so when I pulled my legs up and stood, I promptly fell down.  Twice.  I staggered onto the beach and kept walking.  The Channel rule is that you have to finish on dry land, and it is a little hard to know what constitutes “dry land” on a sand beach at low tide.  So, I figured I would keep walking until Lance blew the air horn.  Then I would know I was done.  The air horn sounded, the clock stopped and I was the latest member of a pretty select club. 

Immediately, I started to get cold.  I was in a wet Speedo, on an empty beach, and it was as dark as a cavern.  I wanted to pick up a rock from the beach to give to Susan, but I couldn’t find one with my hands feeling around in the sand.  I was getting colder by the second.  So, I walked back off the beach, rockless, swam back to the boat and climbed aboard.  I would guess that was in France for two or three minutes, max. 

The Team Celebrates by Getting Some Sleep

There were hugs all around, a couple of warm towels and some dry clothes that I immediately put on.   We started the ride back to Dover as Lance and Chris wrapped up the paperwork and details.  Susan and I had some quiet time over a cup of hot tea and compared stories about what we had just been through.  I made a couple of phone calls, but mostly just wanted to share that time with her.  The kids found places on the boat to conk out after an exhausting night and slept most of the way back to port. 

I was overwhelmed with the feeling of how lucky I am to have my family, to have them play such critical roles on the A Long Swim team, and the opportunity to be able to undertake this crazy swim at all. 

There will be lots more to discuss after this sinks in a bit.  I will report back.

The Team Goes for A Long Swim (Part 2)

This is the second of a three-part series on Doug's swim across the English Channel. Read part 1 here, and check back on Monday for part 3.

Be Careful What You Ask For

The swim actually starts from Shakespeare Beach, just a little south of Dover.  The pilot boat can only get within 50 or 60 yards of the beach, so you jump off the back of the boat, you swim to shore, you stand on dry land (another one of those pesky Channel rules) and they blow the start horn when you give them a thumbs up sign.  While on that beach, which is really more like graveI, I  gathered my thoughts.  I was buzzing from how quickly it had all come together (jet lag, perhaps?) but I had accepted the offer to go and felt like I had better deliver.  I gave Lance the thumbs up, and he blew the air horn.  I stepped into the water around 1:00 p.m.

From earlier blog posts, I have written about the fact that when I was a pool swimmer, I was really a butterfly specialist.  From 25 yard events as a seven year old age-grouper to 200 meters as a college swimmer, butterfly was pretty much my thing.  The other butterfly specialists I have known over the years are a pretty tight bunch, almost like a little fraternity.  Each and every one asked if I would swim the Channel butterfly the whole way.  It has been done, I told them, but it was not to be done by me.  Having said that, I wanted to be able to say that I had swum butterfly in the English Channel, so the first three strokes were butterfly.  So, if you are reading this – Bish, Bruce, Weasel, Freddie, Riz, Davey, BC, Port and Strokes – that was for you guys.  Go ahead, fellas, try to top it.

And so, the swim began.  We were out of Dover Harbor in what seemed like no time, and then came the waves that Lance had warned me about.  I also learned what force 5 and force 6 mean; wind speeds of 20 mph or more.  We had the difficult situation of the tide and the wind moving in opposite directions, which makes for very confused seas.  When the wind is blowing force 5 – 6, it is very confused seas, with waves that top five feet.  Five footers are not in themselves a huge problem, but the “confused” part is.  There is no rhythm to the waves, and I just couldn’t get a consistent stroke cadence going.  The feeling in one of just getting slapped around by the waves, taking in lots of seawater, and trying to keep on course.  The challenge of swimming in choppy waves is to get through it without fighting the water and getting yourself beaten up too badly; after all, there is a lot of swimming to be done even once the waves dissipate. 

Lance had said the wind would clock around and ultimately follow the tide, and make more rolling swells.  Unfortunately, that didn’t happen either.  Despite my efforts not to fight the water, my shoulders were really aching, I continued to swallow and breathe in a lot of seawater, and I felt like a carnival punching bag.    All I could ask when I stopped for feeding was when the wind was going to turn, as though Lance and Chris would actually have answers.  “Soon,” was all I could get. 

The five-foot choppy waves were with us for 12 miles, probably about six hours.  It was a real grind.  We have chop like that in Lake Michigan – and we do get it there – but I have never spent that kind of extended time in conditions like that.  The choppy water was having an effect on the crew on the boat, and they were sick as dogs.  Susan, three of our kids, and our friend Meghan were on the boat and were busy the whole time, even when they were actively heaving over the side.  In the water, I didn’t realize that they were having such trouble, but hearing the stories afterward, it must have been agony. 

Finally, the wind dissipated to a force 4 (sub-20 mph) and came around a little to our favor.  The five-footers became three-footers and, while that is still plenty choppy, it was a welcome contrast.  Having said that, I never got to the point where the water was calm enough that I could use a lot of the body roll, “hip-driven” freestyle techniques that my trainer, Marcia Cleveland, has taught us, so I wasn’t able to minimize the strain on my shoulders.  I was able to engage my legs a bit more, though I knew that my legs wouldn’t be along for the long term on this swim. 

But, I Was Looking for a Challenge

The English Channel is a busy shipping lane; I am told that it is one of the busiest in the world, with some 600 commercial vessels up and down there every day.  Fortunately, it was a Sunday, which may have made our trip a little more manageable.  Other than two ferries, which were plenty big enough, I never saw any freighters or tankers.  Susan saw several and took lots of pictures, but made a point of not pointing them out to me.  The shipping lanes are quite orderly; there is a northbound lane on the west (England side), and a southbound shipping lane to the east, both of which are five miles wide.  They are separated by a one-mile buffer zone, which is remarkable enough – it isn’t like they have lane markers or anything to make sure they don’t drift into the opposite lane. 

I have a pesky problem that turned into a huge headache for my crew during the swim.  It is very hard for me to swim straight, particularly after I start to get tired.  One of the lingering effects of my herniated disc from last year is that I lost a lot of strength in my left arm, and I wasn’t able to fully re-develop it.  Hence, I am a drift-left guy (is that a hook or a slice?) which led to a chronic process of me pulling away from the pilot boat to the left, then swimming back to the boat, only to drift off to the left again.  It was frustrating for everyone on the boat and in the water, and it wasn’t until both arms were so tired that I was able to keep close to the boat better. 

Hugging the boat was an issue, too, because it was terrifying.  Lance’s pilot boat, the Sea Satin, is 40 feet long and is built as a sturdy fishing boat.  Pitching around in the waves, and being just a few feet from that monster, made it constantly feel like the boat was about to fall on me.  So, I kept a little distance.  The distance meant that I swam farther.  Oh, well; I will be dreaming about that boat pitching and rolling for a long time. 

Two issues I was concerned about before we left were totally uncontrollable, but I worried about them anyway.  Cold and jellyfish.  Jellyfish and cold.  As it turns out, the water was 63F the whole time, and I never got cold.  After midnight, it got a little chillier, probably because we lost a few air temperature degrees, but the cold was not an issue that I couldn’t deal with.  My friend Mike Solberg swam the Channel two years ago, and uses the analogy of the cold to the monster in the closet; just don’t let that monster out, and everything will be ok.

Jellyfish are a different kind of problem.  The Channel is famous for them.  Another friend, John Meunzer, swam through a shoal of jellyfish in 2009 that was a mile wide.  I had a bad experience with a jellyfish in Tampa Bay, and didn’t want to repeat it.  We loaded up on the antihistamines ahead of time, but didn’t know what to expect.  As it turns out, I only hit one, and it was a small one that stung my chest for a second and was gone.  My crew saw a large one, the color of pink, and the size of a basketball.  They did not report it to me. 

As has been reported many times before in this blog, I count my strokes in open water swims.  It is a little bizarre, almost like someone should stage some kind of an intervention; “Hi, my name is Doug, and I am a stroke counter.”  Actually, it keeps my mind occupied, it keeps those annoying songs out of my head (why are they always have to be the annoying ones?), and it helps me keep track of time and distance traveled.  Before the Channel swim, the longest I had gone was Tampa Bay, which was about 32,000 strokes.  I had done the arithmetic for the English Channel, and had mentally prepared myself for 40,000 or so, hoping that conditions would be so terrific that I could get there with a few thousand less.  As it turned out, conditions were a bit more rugged, so it all evened out.  So, now we know – it takes 40,538 strokes to make it across the English Channel.  We should probably write that down somewhere.

The feeding routine for this swim was the one we had adopted for the other long salt water swims we had done.  Thirty minute cycles, which is about 1,750 strokes, stop for a few seconds and toss back some Infinit Nutrition liquid.  My son Gordy was on the rail of the boat THE ENTIRE SWIM and was the chief bottle tosser for feedings, and they worked out very well.  In fact, Gordy stepped up as only Gordy can, and was the real hero of this swim.  He was protective, totally diligent, and did not get sick at sea.  He tells me now that he actually took a couple of breaks to go to the head, but I swear that every time I looked up at that boat, Gord was standing there focused on my.  Gordy’s quiet and unassuming manner belies the inner jokester and wing-man; this is a guy you want on your side. 

As the day turned to night, Gord had Billy heat the water a bit before they fed me, which was a really nice warming lift.  Once again, the Infinit product gave me enough carbohydrate and, while I was tired and sore at the end, I never ran out of gas.  Boat pilots Lance and Chris were very critical of me for not using Maxim, the product that every other marathon swimmer uses, and couldn’t have cared less when I told them that Maxim didn’t agree with my system and that I had found a product that was even better.  I wasn’t drinking the stuff for Lance and Chris, I decided, so let them be critical. 

I am pretty inexperienced at swimming in the dark, and almost seven of the 14 hours it took for us to get across the Channel were in the dark.  We had tested some theories in a night swim on Lake Zurich before we left, which taught us a few things.  For example, putting a waterproof strobe light on your goggle strap makes a lot of sense.  What we learned, though, is if you put the strobe on the back of the goggle strap, the swimmer is invisible if they are facing you.  So, we attached two strobes, one to each side of the goggles, and it worked just great.  The dark also changed the water.  During the daylight, I was surprised to see the clarity of the water; I guess I had expected it to be murkier.  After dark, though, the water was inky black.  It wasn’t colder or more unpredictable, but just gives you this feeling of staring into infinity. 

One of the best bits of news from the whole swim is that my neck was just fine.  I was the grateful recipient of Medtronic’s Prestige Cervical disc a year and a half ago, and it held up like a champ.  I never felt any pain, I was never aware of my little bionic device, and I hope that I was the first replacement disc mule across the English Channel.  I guess everyone has to be first at something.  Seriously, though, if not for that little replacement disc, this swim would have been incomprehensible, and I will forever be grateful to my friends at Medtronic for their technology and their support of A Long Swim.

The Team Goes for A Long Swim (Part 1)

This is the first of a three-part series on Doug's swim across the English Channel. Check back on Friday and Monday for parts 2 and 3.

We Arrive to a Shock

We arrived in Dover after what amounted to a real-life example of “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” the latter of which was particularly comical because it involved actually getting behind the wheel of a right-hand drive car for a harrowing trip down the left side of the road.  The transition to the “wrong side” of the road hasn’t been as bad as I thought, but it does take some getting used to; avoid three-point turns whenever possible.

We found the flat that Susan had rented up in Deal, which is a little town some eight miles north of Dover, and settled right in.  We had heard all the warnings about not taking a nap the day you arrive in Europe, so we did our level best to stay active and moving.  Susan, Ashley and I went for a walk to explore a bit, and the boys stayed back and …napped.  Oh, well.  That evening, everyone was excited about being in England and having authentic fish and chips, so we found a place that was suitably down-market and dove into the greasy goodness.  One of the instructions I had received from our boat pilot, Mike Oram, was that I should check in with him the day I arrived, and every evening after that, all after 7:00 p.m.  Mike answered the phone right away, and was in the middle of escorting a two-way swimmer right then.  Then he dropped the bomb, “I’m glad you’re here, because we think that there may be a slot tomorrow on Lance’s boat, and you should take it if you can.  The weather doesn’t look good for the next few days.” 

I was floored, and sputtered something about the fact that I was supposed to be fourth in line for this tide, that I wasn’t expecting to swim until late in the week at least, and a few other things.  Mike would have no part of it, “Call Angela (his wife) at the house.  She can set you up with Lance.”

I called Angela, and heard pretty much the same message, though she was less confident in the weather for Sunday.  “Call Lance at 9:30 tomorrow,” she said “he’ll know then if you can leave at 1:00.   The next person I called was Don Macdonald, the good friend with whom I have been training for these last two years.   I told him, “I think they must have us confused, because I think this is supposed to be your boat.”  Don was straight to the point, “If they are offering you a slot and you can do it, just jump on it.”

And so I did. 

We’re Leaving – Right Now

The next morning – mind you, we had been in Dover for about 18 hours at that point – I went swimming in Dover Harbor, which is a rite of passage that every Channel aspirant does.  I met the Channel swimmers’ mother hen, Frieda Streeter, who is the local expert in part because  her daughter, Allison, is the Queen of the Channel with some 45 crossings; that is not a misprint.  Forty-five times.  Frieda Streeter is a woman you listen to, and you listen very carefully.  I swam a mile or so in the cold water of Dover Harbor. 

I called Lance at 9:30, and he was talking me through all of the meteorological terms, “It’ll be a force 5 or 6 to start, then the wind will clock around after a couple of hours to a force 3 out of the northeast.  So, it will be a little wavy to start, but then it should go to glass.  If you want to go, we have to go as soon as you can get here.”

Susan and I hopped in the car, still driving on the wrong side, and headed to the flat to tell the kids to get ready; today, we go. 

The kids were nervous, but we just had to tell them, “Look, it isn’t exactly what we planned, but we came here with one goal, to swim the English Channel.  We are all experienced at this, that’s why we practiced it.  We have controlled everything we can control.  Now, let’s get down there and knock this thing down.”

In a whirlwind, we were at the Harbor, we met Lance and his partner Chris, and were off. 

Lance - “How long does it take for you to get ready?” 

Me - “Oh, I don’t know, five minutes?” 

Lance - “Good.  We are five minutes from the beach where we start, so let’s get going.” 

Yikes. 

Oui, Oui, Wissant

I sent this email to a number of members of A Long Swim team from the pilot boat heading from Wissant Bay, France, to Dover, England at 3:30 a.m. Monday.  The longer writeup is in progress. 

True Believers -

Today was a good day for A Long Swim Team.

We managed to swim across the English Channel in a mediocre 14 hours and 18 minutes. But, we made it, and that was the goal.

The conditions were mixed, with very confused seas (five foot waves) for the first 10 or 12 miles, which was pretty rigorous. The wind clocked around to follow the tide, which smoothed out the water a bit. We dodged a few freighters and ferry boats in the two five mile-wide shipping lanes (you've got to appreciate an experienced boat pilot) and as we approached France, the water was actually quite calm.

The water temp was 63 F throughout, and I only got a little chilled well after midnight. And, NO jellyfish! Well, there was a little one that bounced off my chest, but at least it wasn't one of those stingers with the long legs.

Susan managed the crew of Billy, Gordy, Ashley, and our very close Meghan and her daughter Eileen. With the exception of everyone's chronic motion sickness, they were predictably loving, outstanding and perfect. The A Long Swim team is a good team to be on, especially if your job on that team is to the guy in the water.

So we made it to the French beach at a place called Wissant Bay, and I managed to stagger up to dry land to stop the clock. The captain of the Sea Satin graciously blew the air horn, and it sounded like the grand finale at the Barrington fireworks on Independence Day. Highly satisfying.

I'm sure this experience will take a bit of time to sink in, perhaps after a good night's sleep, and I will bore you with a more fulsome writeup.

In the meantime, I was humbled, honored and grateful for all of the emails, good wishes and even promises of prayers for today. I am, indeed, the luckiest guy in the world.

I will report back.

Congratulations, Doug!

We're happy to report that Doug successfully completed his English Channel swim with a time of 14 hours and 18 minutes, Way to go, Doug! We know Doug will have many pictures and stories to share when he returns, but here's a little sneak preview.

 

Transition: Training to Taper

We have trained at a pretty high level for two years, though my spinal surgery in early 2010 forced me to re-start the training in April of that year.  For 16 months, then, I have been swimming between 25,000 and 45,000 yards per week (roughly 15 – 25 miles) and I am tired.  During that time, we have completed any number of longer swims of eight to 24 miles without a meaningful rest, which has added to the fatigue factor. 

As fatigue builds, it is manifested in predictable ways.  In addition to just feeling tired all the time, there is a chronic soreness and deep ache (particularly in the shoulders) that just becomes a part of you.  You wake up with it in the morning and you are aware of it all day long.  You really feel the ache when you get in the water, knowing that it will take a 1,000 yards or more just to warm up and shake through the soreness (“sand in the shoulders” is the way I describe it) to move into a productive workout which, ironically, leads to more shoulder soreness.  It wears you down.

There have been some interesting byproducts of all that training; between the swimming and dryland exercises, and Susan’s commitment to serve top-quality meals, I am healthier than I have been in years:

• I have avoided serious shoulder injuries
• I have lost probably 25 pounds, and am able to enjoy ice cream almost every evening
• My clothes don’t fit like they used to
• My resting heart rate is 46 beats per minute
• I sleep like a baby
• My hair (what is left of it) and fingernails grow like crazy

Swimming is a unique sport in that long periods of training, often and entire season, are focused on a single meet or event.  The training is grueling, and most of the season is spent being tired.  The theory is that a long period of time of extreme fatigue can be followed by a rest that will lead to top performance for a short period of time.  The resting process is called a “taper,” in which the work load tapers off as the swimmers’ muscles heal, repair and get stronger.  Tapering is an art, not a science. 

The early part of a taper feels horrible.  My college coach, Don Sammons, always said that it was because your body was going through another transition, and that coming down from an extended period of intense work was as difficult as the buildup was at the beginning of the season.  As you move through the taper process, however, you begin to feel stronger and “powerful beyond measure,” as Don would call it.  One of the most curious feelings during that period is an illusion, where your new-found strength makes it feel like you are actually swimming downhill. 

It is safe to say that I have never had a swimming season that lasted 16 months, and I have never looked forward to a taper more than this one.  My last longer swim was about 10 days ago, when I swam the length of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin (eight or nine miles).  I viewed the finish of the Lake Geneva swim as the beginning of my taper.

And so, our hard training is done.  We are really winding down.  I am at the point in my taper where I am happily moving past the early “feeling crappy” part, and will begin to feel the exhilaration that comes along with the latter stages of it.  I am just excited to feel like I am swimming downhill again, because then I will know that these long months of training has paid off. 

We leave for England in two days.  We still don’t know when the Channel swim will take place; it seems that the waiting for the weather is another little test that the Channel puts us through.  When that day arrives sometime in the next week and a half, though, I am going to be tapered, rested and ready.  If I don’t make it to France, it won’t be because of lack of preparation. 

All I can hope for is that my boat pilot, Mike Oram, picks a day that the Channel can be swum.  If I can have that much, I know I can swim to the other side.  I can’t wait to start. 

For months, I have closed these blog entries by inviting you to meet me at the pool, the pier or the beach.  The invitation still holds, but now the beach will be in Dover.  Meet me there, and we will go on A Long Swim of a lifetime.

I will report back. 

Hey, Buddy – Do You Have a Match?

The A Long Swim Team is awesome.  I feel privileged to be on that Team.

We started out thinking that it was a good idea to use the Channel swim as an idea to raise awareness – and money – for the Les Turner ALS Foundation.  In our first meeting with the folks from the Foundation, the inevitable question came up, “So, Doug, how much money would you like to raise?  What’s your goal?” 

The first number that popped into my head made me a little embarrassed to even say out loud.  On the one hand, I was embarrassed because I afraid that the Foundation would think my number wouldn’t be worth their time to pursue.  On the other hand, I was embarrassed because I hadn’t the first clue how we would raise the money.  Everyone was staring at me, waiting for me to say something, so I went out on the limb and blurted it out, “$50,000.”

To my surprise, the Les Turner people thought that would be great.  In fact, they immediately dedicated their resources (event planning people, website and IT people, PR people, etc.) to be at my disposal to achieve the goal.  At least I was past embarrassment number one.  As for embarrassment number two – “how on earth are we going to raise $50,000?” – I had more help than I could possibly imagine. 

At that point, A Long Swim became the confluence of three lightning-strike events; Medtronic, the Fern Foundation, and Ellen.

Medtronic stepped in just as we were getting started.  “How can we be the most helpful to your effort?” they asked.  “Match funding,” is all I could stammer out.  So, match funding it was, up to $50,000.  The Medtronic folks have been terrific to work with, and we were finally able to get a news report (watch it here) that appropriately recognized the importance of the Medtronic Prestige disc that is in my neck and allows me to move my head to breathe when I swim.  I look forward to a long relationship with Medtronic, though I wonder how I can be as helpful to them as they have been to A Long Swim. 

We made it to the initial $50,000 in donations, Medtronic matched it, and we felt like there might be some scattered donations beyond that.  Then, as another complete bolt-from-the-blue, A Long Swim was blessed all over again.  A Chicago-based foundation, the Gilbert and Jacqueline R Fern Foundation, issued another challenge to us.  The Fern Foundation has been a longtime supporter of the Les Turner Foundation, and has offered to match up to $25,000 in additional donations, over and above the $100,000 already raised.  Just like the matching grant from Medtronic, every dollar is doubled, and every donation is a two-fer.

The Les Turner Foundation alerted its constituents yesterday about the new matching opportunity, and A Long Swim received fourteen donations in five hours.  People are really responding.  For me, I eagerly look forward to meeting the Ferns so that I can stammer through another in-person thank you.  I am no longer embarrassed to say $50,000; now, $150,000 is “just around the next pier,” to use an open water swimming analogy. 

More than anything, though, A Long Swim has had a secret weapon from the beginning.  My sister, Ellen, is a force of nature, and she has positively owned A Long Swim.  

As a quick aside, I have spent a lifetime being Ellen’s kid brother.  Even at five-foot-four, she has cast a long shadow of capability and accomplishment for more than 50 years, and it is a shadow that I am comfortable knowing that I will never eclipse.  She has my father’s sense of humor and quick wit, and is a bottomless well of creativity and good ideas. 

Ellen has had a very successful PR and marketing career, but her world is enough different than mine that I have ever really been able to see her in action.  One of the great gifts I have enjoyed is working with her on A Long Swim (in fact, the “A Long Swim” title was Ellen’s) because I am able to see firsthand just how brilliant she is.  She has a never ending stream of ideas, many of which she emails me after midnight, and we get to talk almost every day.  She has mobilized old friends, people who knew our father, sorority sisters and fraternity brothers, long lost relatives, teammates and age group swim clubs to spread the word about A Long Swim.  Ellen even hired a secretarial service to help out with all the printing and mailing.  As far as I am concerned, the funds raised by A Long Swim are a testament to Ellen’s hard work and execution of one spectacular idea after another. 

So, here are the numbers:

• 360                     Donors to date
• $5 - $5,000          Range of individual donations
• 33                       Number of donors’ states
• $50,000               Original goal
• August 3^rd            Day we reached the goal (appropriately, it was Ellen’s birthday)
• $50,000               Medtronic’s match, received August 4^th
• $108,000             Total raised so far, including the Fern Foundation match

This process takes my breath away.  The A Long Swim Team is awesome.  I feel privileged to be on that Team.

See you at the beach, but it will have to be soon – we leave for England in a week.  I will report back.