Lost & Found?

No. Lost & Not Found-- Sorry Lake George!!!

If anyone out in the middle of Lake George near Rogers Rock finds a small, clear plastic, semi buoyant nose clip, it’s mine. Oops.

And where were my spare clips? Back in my car. Oops.

Yes, I packed snacks to practice consuming, a spare cap in case my new one didn’t work out, and a water bottle. I started for the lake as Judy Walker was getting her kayak situated, and had to go back for my earplugs (don’t want swimmer’s ear to come back!), but did not grab a spare clip.

It was a beautiful morning— lots of blue sky, some clouds still tinged by the sunrise, the water felt great, and we were off on adventure. After about 50 minutes, I figured it was a good time to practice getting something from my snack pack. Judy go the lid of my drink bottle as I got my clip off and tucked it on the hair elastic I wear on my wrist in lieu of pockets. After a quick guzzle, I went to get the clip back and it wasn’t there. Did I say oops??? Big oops.

I started wearing a nose clip a few years ago when all fresh water gave me sinus infections after swimming, and chlorine impacted my breathing. It has made a world of difference. Now, after 50 minutes with the wind at our backs, I needed to swim back to the beach with my face out of the water rather than risk a sinus infection by bedtime. Had this happened during my marathon swim, I would have just kept going and risked it, hoping to make it to the end of the swim without consequences. For today- backstroke, sidestroke, and a bit of breaststroke.

Judy was a sport, continuing to maintain a very helpful position for me to navigate from. Seeing the sky was fun, as was a bit of chat while we meandered back.  Judy asked, “What do you think about on these long swims?” There’s a question! Everything, nothing, songs, stories, snippets & phrases, occasionally an old argument if I need to power up for some reason.

I became aware of the sounds of my breathing, normally muffled by exhaling into the water. I still got a bit of water on my face, but after a while, my throat got very dry. Not typical while swimming. My main thoughts were to maintain good in-line stabilization from my neck through my spine, and to vary my strokes often enough to give different muscle groups a break. My front crawl muscles are very well toned and ready for action, but moving in different ways works different muscles, and I wanted to avoid soreness later on. I’ve been working on varying my stroke for a few minutes now and then to be ready for anything in the swim, but a straight out mile of backstroke wasn’t something I was trained for. So far, so good. I’m more aware of my trapezius muscles (across my upper back) than usual, since front crawl tends to get more power from the latissimus dorsi in the mid and lower back.

Once we got back to the beach, Judy loaded up her kayak to start her day on land, and I got one of the spare clips from my car and got back in the lake to do a few beach laps. I was feeling the muscles that had gotten an unusual workout, and wanted to stretch out and keep warmed up for a bit. I did about 3/4 of a mile, feeling fine, and then headed home for a resting day. I’m expecting to swim a lot both days of the weekend, but likely not do huge miles much past Wednesday.

So far, I’m breathing easily, although a bit sniffly. I’ll be keeping Vick’s handy, in case of any stuffiness.

This is why we practice. And one more example of why it is good that I’m starting the marathon swim at night- plenty of time to check and recheck my swim packs for the kayakers.

The face of Rogers Rock from the Ticonderoga Beach at sunrise.