Saturday, August 30, 2008

6 hours in Sea Water = Raisin Tongue

This morning Jim Fitzpatrick and I met up at The Strands a little after 7am for a 6 hour swim. We hit the water at 7:20 after stuffing bottles of sports drink and Gu gels in our swimming trunks. The water was a little murky so we only had visibility of about 10 feet. The water was almost glassy and its temperature was mostly high 60s with patches of low 70s and low 60s. We swam north for an hour to 1000 Steps Beach before turning around and heading back with the current. We did a short loop in front of the Strands before hitting the beach again where we switched up our bottles, got new gels, and joined with Jen Schumacher for another 2 and 1/2 hours. After completing that swim, Jen had to head out, but Jim and I loaded up with our 3rd "crack bottle" to finish our last hour. We only had time to go past Ritz Point, across Salt Creek Beach Park and back. We came up the beach a little after 1:30 with 6 hours and 12 miles of swimming under our belt.

The salt water that had entered my left google had not only caused some irritation during the swim, but a small infection and swelling as well. My tongue felt wierd and looked like a raisin...but my hands looked fine!

Thanks Jim and Jen and family for a great swim!

3 comments:

Lynn K said...

That looks like a small monkey brain in your mouth!!!
In Peter Attia's double Maui channel Crossing story he said: "One thing I planned to do different for this swim was use mouthwash every hour. I feed every 20 minutes, so every third feed was accompanied by a small bottle of Scope. By the end of the first hour I was glad we were going ahead with this plan, given what seems to be a higher saline concentration in warm water." Sounds interesting...I emailed the whole story to you, great stuff!
Go Geek! Go!
:-)
Lynn

Vigoren Family said...

That's disgusting.

brooklyn said...

your brain is spilling out of your mouth. yuck.