I’m going to admit something and it’s been really hard to write this blog but I just wanted to say, I’ve had a rough week and I can’t stop beating myself up about it.
Today is Labor Day and I have the whole day off and planned a big swim with my training group. Except I’m at home right now and they’re all out swimming in the best conditions we’ve had all week. I feel like I failed myself. Even now, as I sit here, I’m exhausted. My head is pounding and my neck and shoulders are throbbing. I just took another dose of Motrin, my every three hour candy at this point. I’m drinking my cold brew coffee that I made to drink on my way to the lake this morning, but I never made it to the lake. I made it to my couch.
I only swam 25k this week in training and I feel like this week was wasted. From where you sit, my life is a giant canvas of accomplishment, grit, mettle and an unwavering positive attitude centered around helping others to achieve their potential. It’s all true, except for the parts that I don’t show you; my own version of the unfinished paintings.
The past week started out on the right foot. Abby and I went to pool practice on Monday morning at UIC and hit a solid 6,000M. We went toes in at 5:30am and stayed a half hour after the work out and hopped out at 7:30am. I felt really good and was excited for the week ahead. Monday was also the first day of school for our Upper School students so it was back to my regular work schedule. Which means, I got to go home in between practice and work. So I got cook breakfast and walk Lucy before heading in to work. The ability to go home and relax for a few hours before heading to work is a major luxury that I don’t take for granted.
Tuesday was an off day for me as I try to swim every other day during the week. I’m only 32, but my body has taken quite a beating from car accidents and old injuries so I diligently plan rest into my weeks. Wednesdays are great because Abby and I usually like to swim in the lake on Wednesdays and I was excited to get back in at Point. We ditched out from our lake swim on the Saturday before because of conditions and made it to UIC in time for the structured pool practice, so I was really ready for a nice long swim. We did two 2 mile loops for a total of 4 miles in just under 2 hours on Wednesday.
I was running late that morning and had run out of my breakfast smoothie powder, so I didn’t really eat before we set off. After the first mile I was dizzy and disoriented. I had no choice but to swim another mile back to the rocks where I could get my feeds. I understand how dangerous that is for me, but I had no choice but to embrace my disorientation, put my head down and get back to shore. I haven’t been officially diagnosed and I don’t claim to be a doctor, but I’m pretty sure I suffer from some type of hypoglycemia. If I don’t eat properly or regularly, my body crashes and my moods swing really bad (Just ask my Mom, she’s had to bear the brunt of those mood swings since I was a baby – actually, don’t ask her because it’s seriously embarrassing how mean I’ve been to her when I haven’t eaten properly). I made it back to the rocks and sucked down 20 oz of Infinit and ate an entire bag of Honey Stingers. I immediately felt better. I was also happy that the water temps had dropped significantly as I dislike swimming in anything over 70F – it was a glorious 68F.
Thursday was another rest day and Abby and I planned to swim on Friday with another marathon swimmer who I’ll refer to as John for his privacy. John joined us on Wednesday and is exactly on our pace, so we’ll be inviting him to swim with us more often. Plus, he’s a total bad ass. I was already feeling a bit tired and only wanted to swim an hour on Friday, so I planned to meet Abby and John at 6:15am to swim the second loop with them. My alarm went off at 4:55am on Friday and I just couldn’t wake up. My body just said no. I thought I hit the “snooze” button, when in fact I hit the “stop” button. When I finally woke up and saw the time on the clock was 7:35am, my heart sank into my chest and I felt immediate anxiety. I wasn’t just late, I missed the entire morning swim.
With anxiety mounting, I texted Abby and apologized. She understood and said that my body probably just needed the sleep. She wasn’t mad at all and we quickly moved on and made our Saturday plans. But that wasn’t enough for the nagging troll in the back of my mind. She revved her engines and roasted me all day about missing a training. I even felt guilty about eating lunch because I didn’t feel like I earned it – I missed training because I slept in. I should be punished, right?
Saturday morning we met at 6:00am along with a larger group from our Masters team and our third Mermaid, Anna. Conditions at Point were tougher than normal. We had 2-4ft swells and cross waves from the contrast of the wind and the waves hitting the piers. It is a bit like a rubber ducky in a bathtub feeling. Anna wasn’t so sure about the waves and asked me to give her some motivation and encouragement. I’ll be honest with you, I love a good wavy, bumpy swim – but the bumps get old after a while. After about 300 meters of, rougher than we thought, waves, Anna said that she was struggling to find her stroke. I told her, “You won’t find it in this. Don’t fight the water, because she’ll win every time, keep your head down and just keep swimming. It’s like a game, every time I get smacked in the face, I try to smile and laugh at myself.” This seemed to help her as she appeared to find her way through. Sometimes I surprise myself with how confident I help others feel when in my own head I’m trying to associate the waves with a fun game and completely failing.
After the first loop, I wasn’t feeling great. I got smacked by one of the bigger waves and got flipped, which totally pissed me off. There was no smile after that one, it wasn’t fun. The Lake was not playing the nice game I was trying to imagine. The force jerked my neck pretty hard to the right and I got my right arm stuck under my body and pulled in a funny direction with a big crack and an electric shock that went all the way up and down my neck and into my shoulder. Needless to say, it hurt. I took a couple strokes of breaststroke, shook my head out, pulled down my cap, grit my teeth, refocused my mind, put my head down and kept going. I had lost Anna and Abby in the waves and I couldn’t see them. Turns out they were about 50M to my left. When we all met up at the rocks, we discussed doing another loop. We decided on one more shorter loop as the conditions weren’t great and were getting a little worse.
Originally, we planned a two hour swim and by only doing the short loop, we would be a half hour short of the plan. I was already cursing myself out for allowing myself to make the “weaker” choice before we even started the short loop. When we got to our turn around point, I was imagining myself swimming to the next pier and making it a full swim, but the thought of swimming an additional mile with a sore neck is what stopped me. C-Spine injuries are not something to be tampered with, but that didn’t keep me from being annoyed by it. We turned around and headed back to the rocks. I picked up my pace and started kicking more because if I wasn’t going to swim the full two hours, then I better get as much out of this last half mile as I could.
Once I got home on Saturday morning, I felt extraordinarily tired. I took a two and a half hour nap, watched some tv, walked my dog and I was still in bed and asleep at 7:30pm. I was in disbelief that I was so tired. I texted a few friends asking if that was weird? Because, we all need some validation sometimes, right? They all replied that I swim stupid amounts of hours per week and that it made sense. I, on the other hand, couldn’t figure it out because I didn’t even swim a full two hours. I was like a dog with a bone.
Our Sunday plan was three hours at Point and then have waffles at Abbys new apartment in Hyde Park. Once we got there (Point), the conditions were annoying so we decided to go to another beach downtown where the swim area is protected by a bigger breakwater. Abby, Anna and I hopped into my car and I drove us downtown to Ohio St Beach. We were right, it was much flatter and Abby and Anna had never been there before so it was exciting for them. We swam from Ohio St, past the break water and out past Oak St Beach and back. Once we passed the breakwater, we hit some really big waves and fought through them for about a half hour. But that was more than enough for my neck.
I started having nagging neck and shoulder pain, plus my teeth started to hurt. I forgot to mention that I’ve been having some extreme dental pain for the past week from some fillings I got a few months ago. The cold water of the lake was not making it any better. My teeth were throbbing and giving me a headache, my neck was aching and my shoulder started to cry out for some relief – but I had only swam less than 5k. I was pissed. “Ugh, not again! They’re going to think I’m the biggest complainer ever,” I thought to myself. I put about 20 yds between me and the girls and started cursing myself out. How was this going to look if I was hurting again? So I can swim for 11 hrs 37mins in 6500ft above sea level but I can’t finish one fucking training swim this weekend? My strokes got angry and I let a few hot tears drop into my goggles. Another training day wasted because I was in some type of pain. I hated my body for failing me again. Was this because I’m too fat? Am I carrying too much weight? (Yep, I went there too) I just wanted to finish the swim with Abby and Anna. So I blew out all my anger in a big ball of bubbles, popped up my head to find them and finished into the shallows at Ohio St.
It took everything I had to throw in the towel. I made myself take off my cap before exiting the water. Once I take off my cap, that’s it, there is no putting it back on. Abby and Anna had another hr and 45 mins to go so I packed up and went home to shower before coming back to pick them up and head to Hyde Park for waffles. As I walked to the car, my nagging troll came out from under her bridge to torment me. I told her to fuck off this time because the pain I was feeling was taking over and my rationale to get out was proven to be the best choice. I was also just done with the negative self talk and the torment. It was incredibly hard for me to cut my swim short on my own and I was proud of myself for being cautious.
That’s what it’s all about, realizing that even though you’re not happy, you made the right choice. I’m not perfect and I’m definitely not this impenetrable fortress of mettle and grit. I had a really tough week and I worked through the roller coaster of ups and downs. By working through my own struggles through out the week, I find little tools or tricks to help me get through the dark moments. Sometimes it’s a few strokes of breaststroke and a cap readjustment and sometimes it’s imagining I’m playing a game with the waves, trying to beat them to breathe before they hit me. Sometimes, it’s just listening to my little troll and telling her to fuck off.
It takes a really strong mental game to do what we do. You have to be able to let yourself get angry, release it, and keep going. You have to DEAL WITH IT, if you’re going to OVERCOME IT. I feel like the outside world has this perception that I have no weakness, that I’m The Strong One. The reality is that I’m no different than anyone else. Anyone can be The Strong One and we all are strong in our own ways. I just allow myself to hear the negativity, process it (sometimes not well), find the lesson and then keep going.
I think what bothers me the most is that everyone assumes that I can handle anything on my own because, for the most part, I do. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t need a little help or support sometimes. It’s so great to have a whole community of marathon swimmers around me. Abby, Anna and I were talking in the car about how hard we are on ourselves and how much we know we don’t judge each other, but that it’s still such a crazy mental game. That’s when I decided to write this blog about being The Strong One. I know I’m not the only one that feels this way and if putting it out there helps someone else to realize that they’re not alone and that it’s completely normal, then this blog has served it purpose.
Let your little troll out of it’s cave, listen to their concerns, deal with them and then show that little ass hole who is boss and put em back where they belong. Then put your head down and just keep swimming. As Bryan Temmermand always says, “It’s a whole new swim in the sunlight.”
Unicorns and Jellyfish 