Swim for Africa

Weekly Swimming Statistics (Sun – Sat)

Training status

Workout Tracker   Check out this link for more statistics and progress in the pre-swim preparation.  Here you’ll find information on Cumulative Mileage (since 9/10), Distance Per Month, and the trends in Yards Per Week.  Updated frequently.

Resources

Fun Writing about Swimming:

Here are some of our favorite books about swimming.  Add your thoughts on these or others in the comments.

Grayson, Lynne Cox A very touching and inspirational story about a baby whale who’s lost his way, and Lynne’s efforts to unite him with his mother.  Written about an incident that happened off Seal Beach in Orange County, where my kids and I used to surf.

Swimming to Antarctica, Lynne Cox Jon: Mark loaned me this book after we did 25K Nationals in Indiana. The beginning of the book contains some really nice writing and character portrayals. The chronicling of some of the later swims gets a bit repetitive, but overall I enjoyed it all the way through. Her experiences are good for open water swimmers like us to know about. You will take away a few morsels that will help with your swims and training.

Open Water Swimming, Penny Lee Dean Jon: Not the most well produced book in the world (my copy has a couple of pages out of order) and a fair bit of uninteresting stuff (e.g.,the rather lengthy chapters 2 & 3 on safety and equipment). However, there is a healthy dose of useful information, from tips for elongating your stroke, to sample training regimes for different sorts of distances and objectives to the different aspects of training your mind – all of which make this book worth reading.

Dover Solo, Marcia Cleveland Preparing for the English Channel. Jon: Impressive how dilligently Marcia prepared for the swim, especially for the cold water, and how carefully she went about preparing with long open water swims. Went out of her way to make sure there were no surprises.

“Buoyancy,” Willard Spiegelman This is a beautifully written essay on swimming and writing about swimming.  The link should take you to the entire article, which you can read on-line.

Haunt of the Black Masseur, Charles Sprawson This history of swimming (with an emphasis on literature) may turn some folks off, but it’s as good a historical survey of references to swimming I have been able to find.

Nine Ways to Cross a River, Akiko Busch Swimming across a river every year became a theme in Akiko’s life and a means of finding her way through the confusion of her mid-life.  Softer and more contemplative in tone than another book with something of a similar theme, Hodding Carter’s “Off the Deep End”.

Here are some of swimming books from Jon (I am in the middle of the Colwin book, and so far don’t recommend it.  The other two are good.  I will provide brief reviews when I have some time.):

The Complete Book of Swimming, James Councilman

Swimming Fastest, Ernest Maglischo

Breakthrough Swimming, Cecil Colwin

The Great Swim, Gavin Mortimer. I just picked this book up from our local North Salem library. It looks quite good. Here is the sub-text, appearing on the book cover: “During the summer of 1926, four American swimmers battled the weather, the odds, and each other to become the first woman to conquer the dangerous waters of the English Channel. In a race that captivated millions around the world, they forever changed the place of women in sport.”

The latest adventures of Lynne Cox: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_cox

Movies

On a Clear Day – Movie, soon to be released in the States, about a Scotsman who loses his job at age 55, and then embarks on a journey to attempt to swim across the English Channel.  I (JL) have only seen the trailer, but it seems promising and has gotten good reviews by swimmers.   Jon: I saw it last night with my family and liked it as well. The Scottish drawls, however, were so thick that I missed some of the back and forth/nuances.

Workouts and Training Tips

(more to come)