Update 3: Money Stuff

This whole Channel swimming thing is really expensive, as most of you know. It's gonna cost me well over €5000 between booking the boat and getting my crew to Dover and staying there for a week. So I've been looking around for some sponsorship to help with these costs...and I'm happy to say that the ESB have been generous enough to help me out. I really appreciate it :)

Of course, if anyone else out there wants to become a corporate sponsor for my swim I'd be very happy-I've still got a long way to go in covering my costs! If anyone is interested I can be contacted at lisa@arockieswim.com.

On the fundraising side of things...I've been so busy that I haven't really had a chance to really get this going. Over the next few weeks I need to find time to send out emails and start getting sponsorship cards together and things like that. I really want to make some decent money for my charities-I know that it's not a great time to be asking for money from people, but times are tight for these organisations too-they've still got the same bills to pay and if we don't keep supporting them it's the people that are benefitting from their services that will ultimately lose out. So...if you're reading this, please visit my charity webpage here and donate-even €5 or €10 will be much appreciated! Thank you :)

Update 2: Sea Swimming

All was going well in the sea up until that really cold snap we had a few weeks ago-snow, ice, frost-the works! And the sea dropped down to around 7deg C. Which, for the record, is REALLY cold!! The difference between 7deg and 8deg is unbelievable. The first lap I did at 7deg, all I could think about was getting out of there. I briefly adjusted to it at the first corner (enough to idiotically think that it was a good idea to go around!) but by the time I got to the second corner I was FREEZING...all that was going through my mind was to get back to the slip as fast as I could-I actually made it around in 30mins which is quite a fast time for me in cold water! It wasn't pleasant. At all. By any definition. And yet I went back in the following weekend, with the water still at 7deg. Don't ask me why. I think I'm just too stubborn for my own good! I did make the smart move of wearing fins this time though, for two reasons. First of all to keep my feet from getting quite so numb. It's kinda annoying when your feet are still cold two days after a sea swim! And second of all, to get around that little bit faster. This time I made it around in 28mins, and I'm not sure if it was that or the fact that I was a little more used to it or maybe the air was a little warmer, but it was much easier the second time around.

Luckily, the temperature has risen since then. Only to 8deg, but the difference is just unbelievable! When it was at 7deg, all I could think was 'get me out...NOW!'. But at 8deg I could actually enjoy the swim. It's just amazing the difference that one degree makes. It's also great that the temperatures are finally going in the right direction, Spring is on the way :)

The last couple of weekends I've been out of the sea-trying to rest this shoulder as much as I can. I'm going to have a whole week of it soon with my Swimtrek training camp so it's more important that I get rid of the injury and try to get some decent metres in before I head away. I'm hoping that I get enough done in the pool this week that I don't have to go there at the weekend though and can go to the sea instead...I'm sick of seeing blue and white tiles under me constantly, I need a change!

Update 1: Injuries

So I'm finally getting around to actually updating-things have just been so crazy with college and work stuff, I haven't had a chance to get near this! There's been lots going on in the last few weeks so I'm gonna update in stages-otherwise it will be ages again while I write a big long post!

So I've got good news and bad news on the injuries front...

My back is totally healed up. No pain, nothing. All is good with that :)

However....now my shoulder is acting up. It started getting sore about three weeks ago, but I didn't think much of it at the time-different muscles have been sore up until now on and off but they always got better so I assumed this would too. But it got worse and it wasn't going away. So I've spent the last few weeks cutting back on the metres and resting a lot, just trying to get it better. It does seem to be improving a lot thankfully-this is going to be my first long distance week in about a month now so it will tell a lot. It's just so frustrating that I just get one thing sorted and another comes along-and this one is taking so long to go away! I know that I've got ages to go yet before my swim and I keep telling myself that it will get better and I just need to be patient, but it's so hard not to get frustrated. I just need to stay positive and let it take the time it needs to heal so that I can get back to normal training again!

More updates soon...

Life gets in the way...

Yes, I am still alive and training. But college is getting in the way of my online life for the moment-I have a deadline for a research paper this Friday and it's nowhere near finished so every spare moment is going towards that at the moment. Thankfully it's a light training week since Eilís is on holidays. Good timing!

Just thought I should pop in and do a quick update-I'll update properly at the weekend though, I've got plenty to catch up on. After spending so much time on the PhD this week I think that I'll be taking the full weekend off that though...I have to reward myself somehow or I'll never get through the stress of the next few days :) 

At last!

Yesterday I headed down to Sandycove for my second sea swim of 2009. I've been down 3 times since the start of the year when we haven't been able to get in, so frustration has been starting to set in. So when I got to Kinsale yesterday to find the river all choppy, I was seriously annoyed, I knew that probably meant that Sandycove was going to be bad. And it was...waves coming over the wall AGAIN! There was chop coming from all directions, waves at the first and second corners and the slip was just a mess.

I was contemplating what I was going to do-would I go home and get someone to accompany me to a beach later in the day-but then the tide would be out so I'd be frozen by the time I'd get to the water-and then again maybe if the wind changed like it was supposed to things might get better later in Sandycove-but then it would be low tide there too-I was weighing up all my options when Sally turned up. And, like me, Sally was determinded to get a swim in. Regardless of where it was, as long as it was in open water. So we tried to figure out what our best option was. The inland places that would be much calmer than the sea are so, so cold at this time of year, and we'd have had a decent journey to get to any of them. The other option was to head further along the coast in one direction or the other to either Oysterhaven or Garretstown. We figured that since Garretstown was on the other side of the headland, it wouldn't be affected by the same winds as Sandycove, so we decided to give it a try. We headed for Garrylucas beach, which is the safer of the two beaches in Garretstown-the other one is a surfing beach. And we were glad we did! There were some waves, but only close to the shore, and beyond them was much calmer than the water in Sandycove. It was worth the trip!

The wind was bitter cold (the air temperature was 3deg C apparently), so we got changed in our cars and then hobbled down the stones to the water-I missed Sandycove and it's lovely slip at that stage! In we got, it was cold, but probably no worse than Sandycove when I was last in, even with the cold air temperature. I had expected that I'd be freezing when I hadn't been in for a few weeks. Regardless of how warm or cold it was anyway, we didn't have too much choice about getting wet-the waves made sure of that! By the time we were knee-deep we were soaked so it was time to start swimming-we headed out past the waves, and while it wasn't glass calm out there, it was swimmable. We didn't venture too far from the cars, we just swam up and down a bit-the current was tending to carry us out which was a bit unnerving but it was probably just because the tide was on its way out. We found the if we swam slightly diagonally towards the shore we ended up going more or less straight so it was fine.

We swam for a little over 15 minutes before deciding to call it a day. Getting back into shore without getting knocked over proved to be a bit of a challenge, and I was really hobbling getting back up the beach, my feet were so numb that walking on the stones felt like walking on glass. And of course there was a mini sandstorm at the same time-Garrylucas beach has big sand dunes so there's often sand blowing down the beach. So it was nice to reach the car and wrap a nice big towel around me! We got changed and had mint tea that Sally had sensibly brought-lovely for getting us warmed up fast :)

On the way home I dropped by Sandycove to see what the conditions were like at that stage-it still wasn't pleasant but it had calmed down a bit and because the tide was lower, the waves weren't breaking on the slip any more.

So maybe if we'd just gone down to Sandycove an hour later than we did that might have been a better idea, but then again there's more rocks exposed at lower tide so with the waves and everything we'd have only been able to do a small triangle anyway. All in all we got our swim in, and we were happy with that!

Just keep swimming....

It's been a busy couple of weeks on the swimming front...well, in the pool anyway. Last week I had my biggest distance week so far, 60km in 5 days in the pool. And I made it with no major ill-effects (although my shoulders may argue with that point)!! I had an easier week this week just gone though so the shoulders are starting to get back to normal a bit...I'm sure it won't be for long though!

My back has gotten way better-I've been going to the chiropractor twice a week for the past few weeks and thankfully I'm almost pain-free now...it just twinges when I sit down funny or something like that but no pain at all when I'm swimming. And I've only got one chiropractor appointment next week, he's very happy with my progress. So all is good on that front...except of course it means that I'll be back to circuits soon...I've got one more week off those and then back to normality!

The last couple of weekends have been a bit of a disaster on the open-water front, we've gone down and two weeks in a row we haven't been able to get in because it was too dangerous. The waves were coming in over the slip and basically we wouldn't have had a hope of getting out safely. And I'm in no rush to break any of my bones thank-you-very-much! Two weekends ago we did put the trip to good use and headed out further west towards Courtmacsherry to see the 60foot fin whale that had been beached there a couple of days previously and had died. Unfortunately the tide was in so we couldn't go anywhere near her...even looking from the road it was clear what an impressive creature she was though. I've included a photo below taken by someone who was lucky enough to get a lot closer to her than we were. More information can be found on the whole event at the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group website (beware that some of the pictures on there are very gory though!).

The forecast for today was for more south-easterly winds, the worst kind for Sandycove. So I didn't bother heading down today but the plan is to head down in the morning and see how things are then. With only one sea swim for the whole month of January I'm really hoping that February starts out better! So fingers crossed for tomorrow....

Good news at last!

My impatience eventually got the better of me-that and the fact that I had a horrible training session yesterday. Because I've been using the pullbuoy so much, it was starting to hurt higher up my back and everything just felt tight and horrible. So I decided that I had to go and get it checked out to make sure that I hadn't done any major damage and that I wasn't doing any more damage by training. I talked to Eilís and she made an appointment for me for this morning with a chiropractor that she highly recommended, James Cosgrave. 

So I went to him first thing this morning. After doing a short examination, he decided to send me for x-rays-he didn't think that anything was broken but wanted to make absolutely sure. He made an appointment for me to get them done straight away so off I went. They were amazingly fast and I headed back to him about a half an hour later, praying the whole time that they would come up clear of any fractures! And they did :)

Apparently my sacrum (part of my pelvis) is slightly out of line and my coccyx (my tailbone) is pushed slightly forward. And there's a lot of inflammation. But there should be no permenant damage done thankfully! He thinks that I should be right as rain and pain-free within four weeks of treatment and lots of ice packs :)

And the best thing of all is that I don't have to stop swimming while it's getting better....yay! I was really dreading that he'd tell me to take a break for a few weeks and let it get better, I'd go out of my mind! But I'm allowed to swim away-no speed work for a couple of weeks, just long, stretched-out swims (the kind that I like anyway!) and no circuits (yay!) for a while either. Basically he told me that I'm not allowed to do any of the things that I hate doing anyway!

I went up to Silver Springs after and told Eilís the great news and did my swim for the day-I'm back using my legs now, he said that using a pullbuoy would start causing problems in other areas, which it already had been doing. And the session went really well-I think that now that I know that I'm not doing any damage, I'm much more relaxed in the water, and then I'm not in so much pain. And I feel much better knowing-I was starting to think the worst when it wasn't really improving!! Now I can get focused on making it better and still continue with my training...all is good :)