Elaine offered many two weeks ago. They start like this:
""What do you call a deer with..." (15 and 17 hours)
"A bear walks into a bar..." (19 hours)
"A grasshopper walks into a bar..." (19.5 hours)
I don't wear a wetsuit; it gives the ocean a sporting chance.
I was paddling for 1984 and 88 Olympian Jeff Kostoff at the 1994 USS 25K Nats in Wrightsville Beach, NC. At about the three hour mark, Jeff grabbed the side of the kayak, threw up in my lap, then said, "I don't remember eating that"m and swam away. Well, I do. It was some of NC's best BBQ from the night before. I think it was brisket, but it's consistency had changed a bit.
During my 2013 North Channel crossing I complained of cold hands and feet. My coach Marcel van der Togt didn't say anything but started fiddling with the white board. After a few minutes he turned it around for me to see hevhad drawn for me ... two woollen socks. It had me giggling (underwater) for the rest of the swim, great boost for morale.
During open water practice one evening, my friend exclaimed "look at the brownies!" right before we were supposed to sprint toward the kayak. Once I arrived at the kayak "sprinting" as quickly as a distance swimmer can sprint, I found out she meant that there was a brownie troop on shore, having a little meeting. I was so disappointed, I had thought the kayakers had some brownies for us. I expressed this disappointment quite loudly, saying I thought she meant food not children.
I might have the worst. Whenever someone at the pool asks me how I am doing I always answer that I am feeling “old and slow”. In September 2012 I left Samphire Hoe at 4pm and it was completely dark by 8pm. At around 4am I was within a mile of France. They asked me how I was feeling and I answered “old and cold” thinking that they would all understand a joke (a rhyme at that) when they heard one. What I didn’t understand is that the folks on boat had been panicked for hours by my zig zagging (I zig zag in a 25 yard pool in the middle of the day). Turned out that everyone believed I was breaking and my joke didn’t help – everyone took me seriously. My comment even ended up in the official report as proof it was right to end the swim (about half a mile from shore). I still believe to this day that I could have completed the swim. I promise all of you that if I am ever on your support boat and you make a rhyme, I will defend your right to swim on.
Another classic AnthonyMcCarleyism: deep into his Catalina Channel swim last month, I ask him from the kayak during a feed, "do you need anything"...to which Anthony dryly replies, "Yes. Do you have a gun?"
Ahhh, the beauty of marathon swimming...and the humor that sustains us! ;-)
Its 1992 and I am 20 odd miles into the bi annual Loch Lomond race. My crew tell me to look ahead at the finish, about a mile away. I say "I don't think I can swim that far". Next thing I know, I'm waking up four hours later in intensive care. I guess I must have been right.
Swimmer25k, believe it or not, I think I was at that race. If it's the one I'm thinking of, conditions were crazy rough. I got seasick for probably the first time in my life and ended up pulling out partway through.
Swimmer25k, believe it or not, I think I was at that race. If it's the one I'm thinking of, conditions were crazy rough. I got seasick for probably the first time in my life and ended up pulling out partway through.
That was a crazy swim. One of the trainers had to jump off the pier it get to his boat and the big sailboat mast swinging back and forth. Being Ina kayak was the way to go. After Jeff got out, I paddled the rest of the swim with Bambi Bowman who went on for the ladies win.
“A single stroke seems insignificant, but done consistently, and with enough determination, many strokes can move an entire lake from ahead of you to behind you,” he said. “We all have our different mountains to climb, mine just happened to be flat.”
Not swimming and it was post-race, but still applicable...
The 1983 50k racewalk championships were held in Monterrey, CA on an absurdly brutal course on a hot, humid day in full mid-day sun. However, it was also the qualifier for the Pan Am Games and the racewalking World Cup Champs that year, so bailing wasn't an option. After the race, we were all lying on shaded grass being sick, having heat exhaustion and unable to move. It looked like the Atlanta train station scene from "Gone With The Wind."
Mike (barely able to speak): "Why the hell do we do this to yourselves?"
Troy (staring blankly at nothing): "So we can qualify to do it to ourselves again."
(as a side note, Troy is now the head Track and Field coach at West Point.)
-LBJ
“Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” - Oscar Wilde
Similar experience, although again not swimming related: after my one Boston Marathon qualifier, I'd developed hypothermia (OK not similar weather) and was in the med tent, where I told one of the EMTs that I had a BQ. "Some prize!" he said. "You get to suffer again?"
For the record, he was right. I was in the med tent with hypothermia after I crossed the Boston Marathon finish line also. I guess I do just love to suffer! So why not get into distance swimming and enter a whole new world of pain!
About 10-upwind, -into-the-current miles of a 22.9 mile circumnavigation mile swim around my island home of St. John USVI, I told my support kayakers, "I wish I lived on a smaller island."
It made me laugh......
Randy Nutt was my trainer for the 1999 Lac St Jean swim. At about half-way, the temperature dropped to under 60 and a few people bailed out. I was affected by the quick drop and Randy gave me a quick sanity/health check. Here's the dialogue:
Comments
Elaine offered many two weeks ago. They start like this:
""What do you call a deer with..." (15 and 17 hours)
"A bear walks into a bar..." (19 hours)
"A grasshopper walks into a bar..." (19.5 hours)
I don't wear a wetsuit; it gives the ocean a sporting chance.
Milko
https://db.marathonswimmers.org/p/milko-van-gool/
Ahhh, the beauty of marathon swimming...and the humor that sustains us! ;-)
That was a crazy swim. One of the trainers had to jump off the pier it get to his boat and the big sailboat mast swinging back and forth. Being Ina kayak was the way to go. After Jeff got out, I paddled the rest of the swim with Bambi Bowman who went on for the ladies win.
When did you get out?
From: http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2015/08/21/one-legged-man-swims-120-kilometres-across-okanagan-lake.html
Not swimming and it was post-race, but still applicable...
The 1983 50k racewalk championships were held in Monterrey, CA on an absurdly brutal course on a hot, humid day in full mid-day sun. However, it was also the qualifier for the Pan Am Games and the racewalking World Cup Champs that year, so bailing wasn't an option. After the race, we were all lying on shaded grass being sick, having heat exhaustion and unable to move. It looked like the Atlanta train station scene from "Gone With The Wind."
Mike (barely able to speak): "Why the hell do we do this to yourselves?"
Troy (staring blankly at nothing): "So we can qualify to do it to ourselves again."
(as a side note, Troy is now the head Track and Field coach at West Point.)
-LBJ
“Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” - Oscar Wilde
Similar experience, although again not swimming related: after my one Boston Marathon qualifier, I'd developed hypothermia (OK not similar weather) and was in the med tent, where I told one of the EMTs that I had a BQ. "Some prize!" he said. "You get to suffer again?"
For the record, he was right. I was in the med tent with hypothermia after I crossed the Boston Marathon finish line also. I guess I do just love to suffer! So why not get into distance swimming and enter a whole new world of pain!
Oh, how I miss Monterey, CA. So pretty. Wish I'd known about OW swimming when I was stationed there.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
About 10-upwind, -into-the-current miles of a 22.9 mile circumnavigation mile swim around my island home of St. John USVI, I told my support kayakers, "I wish I lived on a smaller island."
It made me laugh......
Randy Nutt was my trainer for the 1999 Lac St Jean swim. At about half-way, the temperature dropped to under 60 and a few people bailed out. I was affected by the quick drop and Randy gave me a quick sanity/health check. Here's the dialogue:
Randy: "What's your phone number"
Me: "911"
""Stop staring at me, I'm trying to pee down here..." The crew laughed and turned around.
It's always a bad hair day when you work at a pool.