With each passing week, it becomes more and more obvious that I have a long way to go. The last two weeks have been my longest volume weeks with a long open water swims capping off each week. A week ago was my first 2 hour swim. The goal was to swim a full 2 hours while practicing taking in nutrition from a support kayak. We managed to get to hit the water around 11:00 that morning. The water level was high, covering part of the boat dock and closing all but one of the boat launches. Since the only boat launch open also happened to be the same place I was starting my swim, we were forced to navigate through the boat traffic at the start but once we were clear of the majority of the boats, the water, while a little warmer than I would have liked, was almost perfect. I had set my Garmin to notify me each 30 minute interval so I could stop for fuel. The first interval felt pretty good but when I looked at my surroundings, it was obvious I was going to get to the end of the lake before making it to the 1 hour marker. Sure enough, I got the end and I was only 40 minutes into the swim. We decided that I would swim back toward my starting point for about 20 minutes then turn around and repeat the whole trip again. My first nutrition stop was just Infinit sports drink so it was fairly easy to manage while treading water. I had planned on eating trail mix with a mix of dried fruit and nuts along with water at the 60 minute marker. I found that eating loose trail mix while treading water was hard to manage.

Mental note: maybe a fruit and nut bar would work better???

The good news was that both the Infinit and the trail mix managed to sit well on my stomach. I felt good through most of the swim and didn't begin to feel tired physically until the final 30 minutes. The hardest part was mental. With nothing to sight from other than the shore and the trees in the distance and nothing but my watch to tell me how long I'd been swimming, I found that I had no concept of time or distance. I noticed that it was right around the 20 minute mark when I was compelled to stop for a moment to check my watch.

Mental note: maybe setting my watch to notify me in shorter intervals would be helpful??? Maybe every 10 minutes rather than 30 would help???

By the end of the 2 hours, I was pretty much whipped but felt good about the swim as a whole......just short of 4 miles. I didn't realize just how short of 4 miles I was until I got home and downloaded the data from my Garmin; 120 yards. Heck, if I had realized I was that close, I would have swum another 2 minutes before calling it a day.

This past weekend was another long open water swim with the same goals as the prior week. This would be the last long swim of a 4 week build period before my recovery week. Knowing that the volume would be only about half of this past week made the swim more bearable even though I was tired. The plan was the same as before. Well, the best laid plans don't always come to pass. We got the lake at about the same time. Only this time, the water level wasn't over the ramp to the dock like the week before and there didn't seem to be as much boat traffic. I headed out to the right of the boat launch and headed for the end of the lake. I had set my watch to notify me every 10 minutes with the hopes that it would help me to have a better awareness of how long I had been swimming. I found this to be very helpful. I got about the 22 minute mark when my hand hit a tree stump under the water. I jumped and paused for a moment. A few strokes later, my hand went right into the sand......gross. The water is shallower than I thought but it wasn't until about the 25 minute mark when my hip hit a rock in the water that I decided that the water was too shallow to continue on. After pausing for a minute, taking a swig of Infinit and talking with my kayaker, I decided to head back to the launch and then repeat the loop. This was going to leave me just short of the 2 hours but I would be over 5k. Close enough at this point. Again, at the 1 hour marker, I tried to take in more fuel by way of mixed nuts and dried fruit. It was still to difficult to manage while treading water. I'm going to have to find a bar that I can cut in to pieces. By the time I finished the 2nd loop, I had completed 5500 meters in 1:44. When I downloaded my Garmin, I had held the same pace as the week before. I suppose there is something to be said for consistency.

 Now, it's a recovery week and I'm enjoying having a little extra time to help my son get ready for his freshman year at his new high school. My coach hasn't posted the exact workouts for next week but I know the volume is going to be somewhere around 20k. Yes, that's 20,000 meters. It sounds far. It is far but I know it's exactly what I need to do. Race day is in 8 1/2 weeks.