END-WET 2017 [John Batchelder Open Water Swimmer]
Training
People often ask me where I train for open water swimming in Colorado. Well, prior to this year, I would say I really didn’t train for open water swimming. I count five times prior to that swim where I went out to the open water to do a training swim. In fact, at that point I had done more open water events, around 10-15, than I did training swims. I went into Tampa completely cold, having done my last open water at the Horsetooth 10K swim back in August.
In April, between my Tampa swim and Lido Key swim, I took two short dips in a local lake at Chatfield State Park. The first was for only about 5 minutes in 52 degree water, and the second was maybe 30 minutes in probably around 55 degrees. I don’t really count those as doing very much for my open water training, but it was definitely a step forward.
All this would change in May.
Immediately after getting home from SCAR, I made it a point to hit the lakes as much as I could. This year, I joined up with Colorado Represents Open Water Swimming CROWS. Having peer pressure from the CROWS certainly helped get me out there. It is so much easier to go out for a training swim when you know there’s a bunch of others doing the same. I tried to make it to the lake all three days we were allowed to by our permit: Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Sometimes I would make all three, but usually it was just twice. I would usually put in two and a half hours on Saturday, and probably around 90 minutes on the weekdays.
May was also when I would start seeing messages from Sarah Thomas asking for people to join her for her training swims at Wellington Lake on Sundays. Considering that I had signed up for all I did in 2017 in large part after learning about what Sarah had accomplished, I was definitely going to go up to the mountains to swim with her. I considered it a huge honor. I wasn’t putting in the long 6+ hour swims Sarah was putting in, and I was definitely wimping out a bit in the sub-60 water temps when I first headed out, but even the 1, 2, or sometimes 3 hours I was putting in was huge in preparing me for what would follow.
Much of what I found myself doing in 2017 was in huge part due to being a part of CROWS. We have such a fantastic group of open water swimmers in Colorado. We may not have the oceans, rivers, or large lakes that can be found in other parts of the country, but we do have our fair share of small lakes to train in. Plus we have the high altitude that definitely helps to build up the endurance for when we go down to swim near sea level. Having the places to swim is one thing, but more important is to have friends there to help make the swims much more enjoyable. CROWS RULE!!
In mid-June, I find out that a slot had opened up for me in the 20 Bridges swim around Manhattan. This was great news, but it happened to be just a few days before when I scheduled Catalina. I was given a bit of time to respond, and it turned out my next swim was going to happen during that time. I was going to see how that swim went to determine if I would go along with trying to swim Manhattan and Catalina in such a short time apart. I kind of already knew at this point I was going to go ahead and accept no matter what, but waiting at least left a little bit of chance to change my mind.
END-WET
After SCAR, next up was the Extreme North Dakota Water Endurance Test, or END-WET, a 36-mile swim down the Red River along the North Dakota and Minnesota border. This was redemption time. I made it 32 miles of butterfly in 2016 before withdrawing, partly because I wasn’t comfortable swimming as it was getting dark, partly because I was out of my main feeds and my backups weren’t holding up as well as I would have liked, but mostly because of a reason I don’t feel like repeating here: those following me on Facebook may remember my post that touched on the subject. Regardless, I had a DNF on my record, and I just had to get that cleared up.
With my prior accomplishments and all my training leading up to the swim, completing this swim was never in doubt. From the start as I got into my butterfly rhythm, the swim was everything like I remembered in 2016. The waters were extremely murky (yet clean) and visibility was so poor that it was almost pitch black every time my head reached the deepest point of my stroke. The constant back-and-forth between light and dark is something I find strangely appealing, though it does wreck havoc on my eyes in that I never get them in the daylight long enough to really focus on anything. However, on this swim, good visibility isn’t necessary, as the river is so narrow that the course is obvious, and there’s very few others out on the river. It is so quiet out on this river that I find it quite peaceful.
A few miles into the swim, I realized that I didn’t particularly remember any of the scenery from last year, which I found a bit unexpected, but I guess the murky conditions didn’t make the scenery all the memorable. I was looking out for the beavers. In 2016, I remembered catching glimpse of a few beavers swimming out in front of me and smacking their tails on the water as they dove down. They seemed to be quite playful, and I was really looking forward to seeing them again. Alas, I didn’t catch sight of a single beaver on this swim. My paddler later told me he saw a couple dead beavers in the water, apparent shooting victims. I’m glad I didn’t see that!
The bridge that marks roughly 15 miles into the swim seemed to be further away than I remembered in 2016, but when I got to it I realized just how much better prepared I was this year. Last year, my forearms started burning a couple miles before the bridge, and I found myself hitting a bit of a wall right at the bridge. This time, I was still feeling really strong as I crossed under the bridge, and I had no pain whatsoever. This just confirmed in my mind that there was no way I wasn’t finishing this swim.
I think it was shortly after the bridge that one of the relay teams passed by with their motorboat. They switched swimmers right around this time as well, and it turned out that the new swimmer was about the same pace as me. I think this normally this would have been a nice happenstance, as to have somebody to keep pace with makes the swim a bit more enjoyable. However, this meant I was following closely behind the motorboat, and I was getting a hefty dose of the exhaust fumes that it was really quite a miserable stretch for maybe an hour, when the next person in the relay got in the team finally pulled away.
Unlike in 2016, I didn’t pay much attention to where I was on the swim. I didn’t bother to look for the mile markers to see how far I had left. I would catch sight of one every now and then, but that didn’t really matter. It wasn’t until I got to about 7 miles to go that I started to recognize where I was. A few miles later, I saw the exact point where I withdrew just one year ago, just a short distance past the 4 mile marker. To pass this spot and still fill relatively strong was such a great feeling. It was around this point that my paddler mentioned I was gaining on a person ahead and it looked as if I would catch him. I paid it no mind, as I was just content on just swimming the way I felt. With each stroke, I knew I was just getting that much closer to the finish.
I got a tiny scare I think just a little over a mile to go. My paddler had pulled up ahead of me by quite a bit, probably to go take a closer look at something. I was just swimming forward after him, when suddenly – CRASH. When I dove my head into the water on one of my strokes, my right goggle struck into a tree branch or something that was sticking up a couple inches below the surface of the water. Oh – that was scary! I came down with such force on that branch that the impact really shook me up, and I had to stop for a minute to shake it off. I didn’t find out until a few days later that the impact actually cracked my goggles. That could have been so much worse!!
After that scare, everything else went smoothly and I finished that last mile with no troubles. I reached the finishing dock and pulled myself out of the water, thrilled that it was finally over. It is always such a great feeling to finish one of these swims. My time was just under 14 hours, so not quite as long as my Tampa swim, but pretty close. After having as many troubles as I did down the stretch in Tampa, to finish this one and still feel pretty good was such an awesome feeling. I knew I could have continued to swim for quite a bit further. All the training I had put in was really starting to show.
Following the swim, I did have quite a bit of muscle soreness in my arms, but that’s to be expected. However, I was definitely in much better shape than Tampa. I went out an hour or two later for dinner with all the other swimmers and paddlers, and while I was there I found that the pain in my arms was going away fast, and by the time I left I was barely feeling any pain whatsoever. Once again, I was amazed by how quickly my body recovered. I was expecting this to be like Tampa and need about a half day to recover, but I found that just 3-4 hours was all it took. This just cemented what I already knew I was doing – I was definitely going to sign up to do 20 Bridges and Catalina just a few days apart.
In the end, it was mission accomplished. I had two ultra-marathon swims in 2016, one DNS and one DNF, and in 2017 I went back and completed them both. At this point, there was no more looking back, just looking forward to all the swims I had lined up in the future.
END-WET is a swim I really enjoy, and I do think I will come back to do it again. There’s just something about swimming in those murky waters that just appeals to me. It is not for everyone. There isn’t very much in terms of landmarks or scenery to look at. If you’re lucky as I was in 2016, you may catch sight of some playful beavers, but I would say that’s pretty much it. Still, it’s great to see a 36-mile swim on a list of accomplishments, so that in itself may be a good enough reason to give this swim a try.
With the completion of END-WET, I had now gotten through the first three months of my 2017 season. Between Tampa, Lido Key, SCAR, and now END-WET, I had already accomplished quite a lot, but I was just getting started. Next up, I would have the 11-mile Portland Bridges swim and 10K Castle swim, but those will have to wait until my next post.