After the Big Swim

Open-water swimming takes more out of you than you might realize. Add early mornings, travel, and juggling work or other responsibilities, it's no wonder fatigue can creep up and start compounding.

Most swimmers take time off right after their big race, which is usually an "end-of-season" spectacular big hairy goal. For some swimmers, it's because body feels totaled; their muscles are in the best and worst shape from all the training and then battling through the swim. For other swimmers, there's an added "now what?" element that can take longer to recover from than just muscular recovery. Here's my story.

Please note that this is, by far, the hardest personal experience I've ever written about, and my experience may not match yours.

After I completed the 25-mile Search for Memphre swim in 2018 (read a local article here: https://www.openwaterswimming.com/four-women-in-search-of-memphre-find/), I felt shattered and lost. I had started full-blown training for ultra-open water distance events in early 2017. I had successfully completed some marathon-distance swims in the NEK, and decided the natural progression is what all of my friends were doing. I felt swept up in the "stepping stone" race method, where swimmers pile on multiple events each season to keep their training yards high and exciting while putting notches in their belts. In 2017, I had planned multiple marathon swims throughout the summer, and decided to use the "train straight through" strategy to complete them all. I wouldn't taper for each one; I'd build up to them just like they were a long weekend training swim, and add them into my yardage. As a result, I scheduled SCAR, ENDWET, and a number of other swims for my 2017 training season.

Leading up to the first race of the 2017 season, SCAR, I was swimming 40-60k per week. I had gotten lucky through the winter and spring, and didn't get sick at all. My job allowed me to bike to work, lift for an hour before work, run at lunch time (there were showers at the gym connected to my work building), leave an hour early to bike to the pool, swim for 4 hours, bike home, and have a hot meal waiting for me at about 9-10 PM by my supportive partner. I was barely responsible for anything during the week, and barely saw my partner. On weekends, I biked or ran to the pool, swam for 3-4 hours, returned home, then blasted through as many chores as I could, grabbed groceries, then slept for as long as possible to allow me to start the next week over again. I barely rested, but being young, I bounced back pretty reasonably each week, and just kept pushing through my training plan. I saw my partner for about 3 hours each week. I had a singular focus: swim training.

The 2017 open water season started with SCAR, where I DNF'd. I then had a month and a half to get ready for ENDWET, for which I had to ramp up my training even more. I put out calls for anyone and everyone to paddle for 15-20 mile swims in the Boston Harbor (no takers), and felt like the training plan I needed to accomplish to get ready for ENDWET was becoming unsustainable without even more crew support. With my DNF, I pushed harder to try to train and prepare more - a whiplash response that eroded my mental state. Still, I had one singular focus: swim training.

I finished ENDWET in June 2017, and had a few more races that year, including the 25k Border Buster. I took a 2 week break in the fall, and returned to intense pool and dryland training pretty quickly. In the back of my mind, the risk of not finishing the Search for Memphre, my ultimate "life goal" loomed with every workout, causing me nightmares while I slept and anxiety while awake. I planned the 2018 season similar to my 2017 season, with events serving as training swims for the Search. By this point, I was spending all of my free time and disposable income on training and traveling to events, trying to over-prepare and ensure I didn't DNF the Search. My singular focus remained the same: swim training.

I had adopted a 6-day training regimen, with at least 2 full workouts 6 days of the week, typically one swimming, one lifting, plus commuting. I rested on day per week, and tried to fit in all of the commitments from my personal life in 24 hours. I was also having to travel for my job, and was trying to find creative ways to be consistent in my training while juggling flights and long work days. I prioritized one thing: swim training.

In all of this training, I never once thought to myself, "What happens after the Search?" I swam so many laps and had so much time to analyze what I'd be doing after September 2018... but somehow, I either refused to think about it, or the idea just never came to me.

The weeks leading up to the Search were incredibly stressful. I had to find 2 crew members to sit in a very small metal boat for 12+ hours. My amazing friend Chris volunteered, but I had to find a second crew member. My partner was going to be my kayaker, as I knew I'd be too nauseous from boat fumes to be entirely supported by the small motor boat. I contacted every lead Phil, the race organizer, shared with me, and finally found Teresa, an incredibly dedicated NEK volunteer. I planned and panicked through everything with my singular focus: preparing for the swim.

The week of the swim was a hurry up and wait game. The way the Search (and a lot of channel swims) works is the swimmer is given a window the swim is scheduled to take place. The race director evaluates the conditions for each day in the window, and decides on the best possible departure time to have the best chance of the swimmer(s) finishing based on wind, air temps, and water temps. The Search takes place in northern Vermont, on Lake Memphremagog, and I had signed up for the early September window with 3 other swimmers. The first few days of the window were extremely cold, with air temps falling to freezing overnight. The race director postponed the swim, waiting for the last two days in the window when the air temps would be warmer and the waters calmer. All of us were waiting in the rented house, taking time to hike, swim, and explore northern Vermont as we waited for word from Phil on whether to start packing for a start time that evening.

We got word on September 10, 2018 that we'd be meeting around 10 PM on Sept 11 to depart the boat ramp closer to midnight. The kayakers were instructed to bail out the metal boats and get all their signage and lights affixed during the day so we'd get moving quickly that night. We had a little over a day to get ready.

The morning of the swim, my kayaker decided he wanted to go on a long bike ride up a mountain to burn his legs out in preparation for sitting in a kayak for 12+ hours. He wanted to get all his nerves and energy out, and I absolutely lost my mind. I begged him to not do anything that could jeopardize my swim. We fought. All I could think about was another DNF, or even worse, a DNS because I no longer had such a critical crew member. I couldn't fathom doing the swim without him, both because he was my partner and the person I had relied on for the past 3 years of events. He was my survival mechanism for so long, and I couldn't accomplish this swim without him. I felt helpless and out of control, and my focus was no longer on the swim, it was on panicking over my partner and critical crew member.

He left the rental house, and I debated whether I should pull myself from the swim. I couldn't sleep (let's face it, I had been sleeping poorly the 2-3 night window up to this point just because of nerves). I was irate with my kayaker, and I knew I'd start the swim frazzled. Instead of figuring out what to pack for that evening, I was falling apart worrying about my partner/kayaker breaking his leg on his planned 4-6 hour bike ride and us having to send a search party out for him. And, I felt like such an awful person about worrying about what that would do for my swim. For the past 2 years, all I had focused on was getting to this swim. And how that the 11th hour had come, I wasn't focused anymore.

I'm not entirely sure what ended up happening - I remember myself laying in a bed and crying for hours while Chris and Kristen tried to pack my stuff and calm me down. My kayaker finally came home, and I'm not sure if it's because my other crew members were able to reach him and convince him to return, or if my parents got wind of the situation and communicated with him. He came home, I finished packing, and we set out to Lake Memphremagog to have the pre-event safety meeting and head out. All I remember was feeling hopeless that despite all of my preparation, I was starting the swim on low-battery.

Frankly, I don't remember most of the swim. I remember it being dark, and the boat's lights blinding me each time I breathed to the left. I remember being so angry and upset with my kayaker, but having to rely on him for everything to succeed in my swim. I remember crying into my goggles because it felt like the sunrise wasn't coming. I remember Teresa standing up in the rickety boat holding a tiny speaker over her head to try to bring me a little joy in the darkest hour before daybreak. I remember being told I'd have 1 more after of swimming after being given flat coca cola, then it being another 1 hour after that hour. When we finally finished, I remember being relieved I didn't have to swim anymore.

My kayaker and I swimming into the finish of the Search for Memphre in Magog, Quebec.

In my mind, when I told myself I didn't have to swim anymore, I felt like I was saying "You don't have to swim anymore... ever."

After we got back to the rental house (some hilarity ensued with my extremely underslept self and crew at the border checkpoint), we unloaded all our gear and went to sleep. I still hadn't thought about the "after". When I woke up, I felt lost. Until the previous night, I had a singular focus. I had set aside and sacrificed so much of my personal life to making sure I was as prepared as possible for the swim. I had spent every spare moment training instead of nurturing my relationships with my family and friends. The day after the swim, I no longer had a singular focus, and no goal.

I took a very long break from all swimming after completing the Search. I did get back in the pool, but I felt aimless, swimming-in-wait. I thought inspiration and my "why" would come back to me as I got back into the swing of things and felt less resentful and less tired. I was intermittently practicing with local masters teams and trying to get back to the level of fitness I had in 2017-2018 as COVID hit. The world changed, and I still had no "why" to keep swimming.

I still swam with friends throughout COVID, and even on a local masters team that had been allowed to reopen. I pushed myself to swim, but truthfully, I didn't enjoy it. I felt like a a coconut floating in the ocean, lost, waiting on a current I had already been swept away from. I watched my friends training for and completing channels and other incredible swims. I watched the little trackers and cheered for my swim community as they continued on their journeys. I stayed in place.

Between 2020 and 2021, friends passed away, I ended my relationship, began a new relationship, and moved across the country. I learned my profile had been wiped from the Long Swims Database after a negative interaction with a prominent member of the swimming technology community. There were people who told me they didn't believe that I had an extensive swim resume because my e-proof had disappeared from the internet. Not only did I have no spark to train again, but the things I had worked so hard to accomplish were just wiped from the public record.

Pre-drama:

Post-drama:

I felt uprooted in my personal life, albeit with a sense of adventure for the start of a new chapter. Still, I still hadn't found my "why" to get me back into swimming with passion. I tried to find my swim group in Portland, and after being flaky and uncommitted, I decided to take another long break from swimming.

I started to feel excitement around swimming again when I started Wild Waters in 2023 after being laid off from a tech role. I was eager to try swimming *without a training purpose* - the idea of adventure swimming, or using swimming to add to an experience like hiking, was intriguing. I loved the idea of bringing products to the swimming community that could bring people a sense of fun and levity, whether they were training for a specific goal or adventuring to have new experiences and opportunities.

I'm just now starting to feel like I'm ready to try to rekindle my love of swim training, but I'm hoping to continue changing my perspective to allow me to focus on finding delight in my swims, rather than just trying to hit the same progression of goals commonly found in the open water community. I'm trying to move away from the "always push for a longer distance event" mindset, and identify the type of ways I can be involved in the swimming community without losing my love of swimming again.

I used to tell people, "I miss missing swimming." I still do miss missing swimming, a little bit. I wish I could get the spark back to be excited for long training swims in the pool, or to motivate myself to get back to 25k shape. But I'd be lying if I said that I'm as passionate about ultra marathon swim training as I was in 2016 - 2018. And, I'm very anxious about signing up for any events right now, as I know I'll be reminded of my DNF at SCAR and my breakdown before the Search. So, for now, I'm not signing up for any events, but I am committed to running one: Portland Bridge Swim.

Between Wild Waters, Portland Bridge Swim, and volunteering at swims through the year, I am still involved and connected with the open water swimming community. I believe my experience with the loss of a major goal after completing the Search has helped me to become a better mentor and coach to the swimmers I work with. I've even learned not to assume that not all swimming experiences require a follow up/bigger/hairier goal. I have conversations about what success and failure mean to each individual I work with, regardless of skill level or age. My love of coaching and teaching swimming skills has grown, despite everything.

I still feel lost, and I feel a loss stemming from completing the Search and not having a plan for after the swim. I don't regret taking a break from swimming to recuperate mentally and physically after the 2017-2018 swim season, but I also wish I had taken time to see what other training methods and support systems were out there that might have worked better for me so I didn't burn out so dramatically before and after the Search.

I'm curious to hear about others' post-big swim experiences, especially if they've felt a similar loss. I'd love to learn how others have navigated this chapter in their lives, as it's felt very post-swim-apocalyptic to me.