Dr. Forbush Thinks

I don’t like to brag about my achievements. However, I’d like to tell people who are struggling that they can do it. They can turn their lives around and feel better and feel healthier. For those of you who don’t want to read another of my exercise/health posts I am sure you’ve already clicked on to something else. I just hope that some of you who are trying to become healthier will continue to read on.

Saturday I swam the legendary 1.25 miles from Alcatraz to San Francisco. It doesn’t sound like it’s very far, and really it isn’t very far. The cold water made a bigger impression on me than the distance that I actually swam. The swim was one of those things that I just convinced myself that I wanted to do after I started to become healthy after so many years of being a lethargic couch potato.

I’ve told my story of the last two or three years a few times now, so I’ll just mention the highlights for those who are new to my blog. Out of serendipity more than anything else I began to swim daily a little more than two years ago. I had no major goal in mind except that I’d like to exercise and feel better. I would have been happy to loose ten or maybe even twenty pounds. But, over the first 18 months I actually lost 50 pounds. And, even better than that I have continued to maintain my weight since Christmas. In fact, I am slowly building muscle while I continued to loose a couple of inches around my waist. My pants size is now 28, and it is a real pain trying to find size 28 pants. I have resorted to buying size 30 pants and wearing a belt so that they don’t fall off.

The problem is that body fat is a “good” thing when you try to swim in really cold water. Based on a body fat calculation I have less than 3% body fat.

So, when I jumped into San Francisco Bay on Saturday I thought that I might be in trouble. Surprisingly the cold water did not bother me at all while I was swimming. However, upon exiting the water I began to shiver uncontrollably for some time until I realized that the only way I was going to warm up was by moving around. After I began to jog in place for a few minutes the shivering subsided and I was only a bit cold instead.

The swim itself was quite an experience. They take the entire group of swimmers and a few guests out on a boat and stop just off shore of Alcatraz. The object is to jump off the boat and swim to the San Francisco Aquatic Park, which is east of Crissy Field, and west of Fisherman’s Warf. This sounds easy in principle, but if you wear glasses like myself the landmarks are not as distinct as I would have liked. The race coordinators were very nice and they instructed us how we should plan our swim, because of the tidal currents. The main issue is that a break wall surrounds the Aquatic Park with a very small opening between the bay and the protected area. The opening is certainly larger than 50 yards, but when you are swimming from a mile away the target seems to be very small. Everyone was also warned that if one were to swim directly toward the opening the current would push you to the west and chances of making it into the Aquatic Park would become very slim.

I decided that I would swim this event without a wetsuit. This was mainly because I didn’t own a wetsuit, and secondly it seemed like it defeated the point of swimming from Alcatraz. I mean, if I was a prisoner at Alcatraz I certainly doubt that I would have the possibility of finding a wetsuit so that I could escape. I was romanticizing the idea of escaping from a so-called impossible to escape from prison. The wetsuit idea just didn’t mesh well with the romantic notion. After all, swimming 1.25 miles is a walk in the park in a pool with 82 degree water.

So, there I stood on the deck of this tourist boat that was commandeered for the event. Three hundred and fifty swimmers and another 150 guests surrounded me waiting for the signal to jump into the water and begin the swim. The event was timed like a race, but your position in line greatly effected where one might place. I believe that I had to wait more than five minutes from the time the horn sounded until I actually jumped into the water. But, this was my first time, so I didn’t expect to be able to win it. If that were to be my goal, then I would certainly camp out next to a door next time.
We lined up like storm troopers waiting to jump from a plane. Three people at a time we jumped into the cool bay water and quickly swam away from the boat. The major question was, where should we swim. I knew the general direction of San Francisco, but I couldn’t make out the Jeremiah O’Brien, the Naval ship we were instructed to swim toward. Floating in the bay gives you an entirely different perspective, Golden Gate Bridge to the right, Bay Bridge to the left, and the city straight ahead. I just started swimming in that direction hoping that I would be swimming in the right direction, and if not a kayaker would signal to me which way to turn. There were several kayaks along the course intending to keep the swimmers on the straight and narrow.

I swam at least half the distance before I saw my first target, and in seeing it I picked up my pace. But, not long after this renewed gusto I was hit by a couple of choppy waves. I assume they must have been from a wake of a boat travelling nearby. These small waves were nothing compared to the six-foot waves I had swum in, in preparation for the race. I continued to push on, and I noticed that there were currents of different temperatures as I swam across the bay. The water was first cold, then warmer, then much colder and so on. Finally I saw the three masts of the schooner that was docked in the Aquatic Park, behind the break wall. When I saw it I turned and started swimming toward it, but soon I found myself swimming in a direction that would have taken me past the opening and I needed to correct course. In fact I found myself continually correcting course as I neared the opening. Without that line on the bottom to follow I found myself zigzagging a bit more than I would have liked. Each zigzag meant I would need to swim a bit further.

When I finally entered the Aquatic Park the water was noticeably warmer and I could finally see the finish line ahead. And, as I entered the Aquatic Park so did a few more swimmers that I hadn’t seen during the race. In fact I actually saw very few swimmers during the race, mainly because my eyes were only a few inches above the water whenever I looked around, which limited my view to only a few yards at most as I looked for other swimmers heads. But, the best part of all was when I heard the sound of my wife and kids yelling when I got out of the water. I didn’t know where they were, but I could make out their voices quite distinctly.

Well, I finished the race and I shivered as I wrote above, but I was simply amazed that people continued to finish the race for quite some time. I don’t know how long it took me to swim this event, because they haven’t posted the results yet. I don’t even know when the last person finished, because I lost my sense of time for a while as I recovered from my hypothermia. But, I don’t feel sore or even stiff from this event, as compared to some running races that I have completed.

As I take this moment to think about what I did and what I might do next I feel better than I ever have. I am certainly in better shape than I have been in for the last twenty or more years. And, my running is actually coming along just fine as well. In fact a week before the Alcatraz swim I ran 14 miles, which is slightly more than half a marathon. It took me two hours to run 14 miles, which isn’t very fast, but the point is that I have never run for two hours straight without stopping ever. I ran ten miles in one and a half-hour back in March. But I was excited that I could run 14 miles, which is now my personal record for the longest I have ever run in my entire life. When I was on my high school cross-country team we never ran that far. I may have run a 10K once, but most races were much shorter, three or four miles. So, when it comes to 14 miles I know that I have never run that far in my lifetime. But, at this rate I just may be able to do a marathon.

It is certainly hard for me to imagine three years ago that I would be swimming from Alcatraz, running 14 miles, or contemplating the possibility of running a marathon or competing in a triathlon.

Life certainly is a mystery.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


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Exercise,
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