Channel Swimming

Hi everyone,

As all of you are aware (because it's all I talk about), I'm off to swim the channel next week. Hopefully winds and tides will work within the week timeslot our team has and we get to go (otherwise you can find me in the bottom of a bottle for the next six months). Current estimate for the off is the 3am on Sunday the 26th. I am in a team of six, so I'll be swimming in darkness for the first hour, then hopefully daylight by the time I have to get back in.

I'll be swimming a minimum of 9 kilometers on the day, maybe 12.

It's all in aid of the Irish cancer society. Irish Life has footed the bill for all our costs, so everything raised goes to them. To date we have raised €83,000 out a target of €100,000.

If you want to make a donation, you can @ http://www.iasc-swim.com (link to mycharity.ie, registration required). If you don't, that's cool too. The site is kept updated with progress of the teams, and on swim day you'll be able to interactively monitor our progress across the channel. Technology eh?

I can bore you with some stats if you like:

Weight lost: 42lbs
Weight gained: 14lbs
Carb drink of choice: Maximuscle Viper
Hours swum in training: 119
Kilometers swum: 243
Wife: Patient
Night swims: 2
Jellyfish stings: 0
Boredom: Total

I'll be in the Lucan Gazette tomorrow (Thursday), which I'll scan and blog for your pleasure. I'd appreciate if you forward this to others who know me, hence the breach in netiquette by putting you all in the 'To:' line. I am woefully short on email addresses.

If you'd like to know anything about the project, or would just like to meet for lunch, give me a call.

Love to all,
Conor

Phelps and Me

Hey - I have kind of committed to blogging for the new channel swim site iasc-swim.com where I am going to update weekly on Mondays. I am going to X-post here, unless anybody gets there knickers in a twist. Please check out the other site and have a sniff around. It smells professional.

Here is the post:

Tonight I walked into the bedroom with a measuring tape. "Honey, will you measure me?" My long suffering wife has a permanently raised eyebrow and this request gave the other one cause to twitch. Michael Phelps (Olympic athlete and bong-smoker extraordinaire) has a freakishly disproportionate height to reach ratio. He is 6' 4" tall and has a reach of 6' 7". He also has size 14 feet. It is safe to say if he hadn't become a swimmer he would have had a stellar career as a clown. The ability to pick a custard pie of the ground without bending his knees would definitely get him the glad-eye from the bearded lady.

Mrs M, took the tape off me and gave me a good old measuring. I am 6' 0" tall with a reach of 5' 10". I wear size 8 shoes and don't have double jointed ankles. If I joined the circus I would probably be relegated to cleaning out the elephant's cage. My hands are stumpy and shovel-shaped. I don't know what Phelps hands are like, but I imagine they are like perfectly shaped seals paws.

As if you couldn't figure this out for yourself, comparing me to Phelps is a futile exercise. Apart from our ability to eat 8 – 10 thousand calories a day we don't have much in common. He grew up swimming every day, I swam on Wednesdays. He won medals, I learned how not to drown. He qualified for the Olympics at 15, I played a good bit of all-Ireland schools bridge.

As you can see there are quite a few parallels. Truth is, I am not that obsessed by Phelps. As a spectator, I just can't get that involved in individual sports. I don't know why, what Track and field athletes do is undeniably impressive, just a little sterile, a little boring. I realise that this all sounds mealy-mouthed. He has won 16 Olympic medals (age:23), and I am sitting on the couch in my pyjamas (age:33). I prefer team sports, I have clearer view on the whys and wherefores, what makes them tick.

But.

The level of physicality, and psychological nature of my training has caught me a little by surprise and I am beginning to understand and respect individual sports, and thus sportsmen, more. I am spending hours in the pool each week and the amount of boredom is staggering. The amount of mental toughness required to do this 8 hours a day, everyday, is and will remain an alien concept to me. I don't foresee a week that I will be in the pool for 30 hours, unless there is a guy with a gun keeping me there. That these guys can keep their head together is amazing, more amazing than how they train their bodies in my opinion. The level of mental acuity and toughness is beyond my reach. In all fairness, the physical aspect is too. In my defence (because I feel I am giving myself a bit of a hard time) there are days I really don't want to get into the pool and I do anyway. Besides, I am just jumping in the sea of a couple of hours. Perspective, I think, is required.

No wonder Phelps took recreational drugs, I would be a little suspicious if he didn't. I suggest to him that he should fill his pool with bong water. If an Olympic swimming pool is 50m x 20m x 2m, that means he’d need approximately 2,500,000 litres to fill his pool. Luckily that is the same amount that six stoners generate during a game of Risk, so getting the water shouldn’t be an issue.

Overall, I think I will stop comparing myself to Phelps. Yes, Spitz is the man for me. You just have to look at his moustache.

Fitness schedule

What do you think? I'd be happy if I hit 80% on a weekly basis...

Monday
Morning
5k cycle
2.2k Swim

Lunchtime
6k run

Evening
5k cycle

Tuesday
Morning
5k cycle
2.2k swim

Lunchtime
25m abs
25m upper body weights

Evening
5k cycle

Wednesday
Morning
5k cycle
10k run

Evening
5k cycle

Power Thursday
Morning
5k cycle
3k run
1k row
1k swim

Lunchtime
25m abs

Evening
1hr circuit training
1k swim
5k cycle

Friday
Morning
5k cycle

Lunchtime
35m upper body weights

Evening
5k cycle

Saturday or Sunday

20k/30k cycle or 10/15k run

MoByeBye

All,

Thanks to all who donated. We raised TEAM TOTAL EUR €6,610.01, which puts our team 2nd in Ireland. Doubled (for those who studied French) is €13220.02

No small potatoes. Site stays open till the 8th. My personal tally puts me 55th in Ireland which is still pretty sweet.

Conor

Spitz and Me

All of you probably know that I swimming the channel. You may or may not know that I am also (and more impressively) sporting a moustache for the month of November. It's for charity.

You can donate here: http://ie.movember.com/mospace/1764636

In the meantime here is a brief list of the differences between myself and Mark Spitz

Spitz	Conor
Won 9 olympic gold medals	Has been (as yet) overlooked for selection
7 olympic gold medals won in a single games	Has been (cruelly) overlooked for selection
Named World Swimmer of the Year in 1969, 1971 and 1972	Not in contention for 2008. Fuckin’ Phelps.
Swam at Waikiki Beach every day. "You should have seen that little boy dash into the ocean. He'd run like he was trying to commit suicide	I also swim like I am trying to commit suicide
By the early age of 10, held 17 national age-group and one world record	I have some 1st place rosettes from pony camp
Was nicknamed "Mark the Shark" by his teammates.	Teammates don’t tell him his nickname to his face.
Retired at 22	Will be lucky to retire at 65
Had a moustache because they were the times	Times have changed, can you sponsor me please?

Spitz looks like this:



I look like this:

Physical Therapy

As part of the swimming I went to a physical therapist (N.B not physiotherapist, different discipline - no machines, all manipulation). Having never been to one before, I found him an interesting professional guy and he told me some stuff I didn't know about myself and that I am going to mangle into idiot speak here.

I have flat feet. I should start wearing insoles

My arm flexibility is lousy

My shoulders are slightly rounded, but not so bad

My knees have some wear and tear, nothing too traumatic

My leg flexibility is good

Minimum for any stretch is 30 seconds. Nothing less

No neck, back, spine issues to report

Now, to contradict what I said above, when I first started training I gave myself a back injury. Very sore then, not sore now (niggles occasionally when I oversleep). Never did anything about it, it got better and doesn't stop me training. Told this guy, he wasn't worried. He poked around till he found it (Here? No. Here? No. Here? ARRRRRGHHHH). He still wasn't worried, something (not the term he used) isn't rotating properly (not spine?) causing the muscle to spasm. A soft tissue massage and nightly stretches will have me sorted out in no time.

This is excellent stuff. What a great guy, remind me to seek out a physical therapist when I have a problem in the future.

Final bill of health?
Looking good CM. Looking good.

Puny Channel

Look at this picture, the channel is only 1cm wide from 518.64km up. If I can build a machine that can maintain this perspective for the swim it'll be a doddle.

Xhersize

Hey there. I have spending a lot of time exercising recently, mostly as part of a get-fit buzz but with a couple of extra carrots. As a result I am soon to breach the -20lb (9KG) mark. I'll let you know, Im gonna be eating cake that day.

I am concentrating on a few things:

1. Running a marathon in 2009

This isn't going to happen, so I suppose I am not really concentrating on it at all. I can happily run 5-6kms without too much bother, but running really doesn't do that much for me. It's useful as a means to an end (that end being weight-loss), but I haven't really got the will to push it up to 40kms. One day soon I think I'll run 10k just for the laugh, but that's as far as it goes. Sinead is the runner.

2. Swimming the Channel in relay

This has more legs (bada-boom, tish!). My swimming isn't all that strong, getting better sure, but still far short of where it needs to be. I am getting involved in Total Immersion training in October, with a view to transferring the skills to other members of the team. The coaching aspect of this is a little daunting to me. Sinead doesn't think so though, and she's probably right. I am going to do the training and work on the drills and see if I can pass it on to the rest of the team. Have a sea-swim planned for this weekend in donegal. Brr-Cold.

3. Triathalons

Definitely going to do a couple of Triathalons in the new year. Need to increase all my times (Swimming, cycling, running). A little worried about running on the road (danger of shin-splints ouchy). I will looking into getting a new bike too, my poor old mountain bike isn't really up to the task. More on this in the new year. Going to do some serious concentrating on this in conjunction with the swimming.

4. Weights

My Weight training started this afternoon with an abs class. This is going to be a long journey. Looking forward to adding a bit of definition, not looking forward to the pain. Going to be tricky to fit it in around everything else, but we'll see.

Gosh, boring blog entry what?