Top 5 Fears - March Edition

Hi Team! I wanted to share how I’m feeling about the preparation and some of my fears and challenges with this swim. Here are my top 5 right now. We’ll see how these change, or don’t, over the coming months!

1. Training enough versus training too much. This is a constant battle for me. I usually don’t have a problem pushing myself to the brink and staying there, but at the same time, I want to train smart. When I intentionally give myself some extra recovery to summit that next peak, it’s usually coupled with some guilt that I’m not training hard enough. I know it’s not logical, but the question mark is always there. Then there are times like this week, when I wasn’t feeling well, and had to unexpectedly pull back. My great training partners all said, “You deserved the break! Don’t think twice about it!!” I am so thankful for them and their support, but I still end up questioning if I’m striking the right balance.

2. Logistics. Logistics of the boats, crew, lodging, feeding, marketing, etc. are slowly being sorted out. I’m getting a lot of help here and happy to see the little wins!

3. The dark. I hate the dark. Out of all of the things that could scare me about the swim, swimming at night, probably twice, is the thing the scares me the most. This is another reason why I’m really looking forward to the San Francisco swim so I can get in more practice night swimming!

4. My shoulder. My left shoulder has given me grief most of my life. I’ve had surgery on it twice for rotator cuff and labrum tears. Then I was hit by a car while riding my bike and separated it. Something that has never left my mind is that six hours into my English Channel swim, it essentially gave up. Slugging it out of the water for each stroke was miserable and then it did nothing to help me pull under water. I can’t have it quit 6 hours into a 70-hour adventure so I’ve been focusing a lot on strengthening it and stroke technique. I’ve been happy with how it’s been holding up, but also slightly terrified of it quitting at the same time.

5. My body. As eluded to in a previous post, I’ve had some health complications the past few years and I really need my body to keep it together! I’m planning to share more on this topic next week!