Tuesday, 11 Jun 2002

EDGEWATER, British Columbia

Yesterday morning, I visited two schools before swimming the five hours from Radium Hot Springs, B.C., to Edgewater, B.C. At both schools, I heard giggles when I admitted to falling in love with the Columbia River, and chuckles after I pulled on my booties, fins, hood, goggles, and gloves during my presentations.

The big questions the kids asked were: How do you sleep? What do you wear? How do you eat? Basic questions, and important ones to anyone swimming a 1,243-mile river. I thought I’d expand on my answers for you.

Last night, like most nights, I was the last one to go to bed. I can’t stay warm in 44-degree water on six hours of sleep. Yet I stayed up late, because I am forever writing journals, raising dollars, making sandwiches, or mixing carbohydrate drink for the next day’s swim. I should ask my crew for assistance, except that by the time I realize I need help, they are already sleeping. I end up resenting them, but it is my own fault: I do not advocate for myself as well as I advocate for the river.

When fatigue grabs me, I dread the seep of cold into my suit. I fear that my sore throat will become a cold, that my dry cough will blossom into bronchitis, and that my sunburned skin will peel off in sheets. I worry that I won’t find the courage to stand up for the rest I need — to my family, to my crew, and to myself. It is as if I want to be the perfect dad and the perfect houseguest and the perfect leader more than I want to be healthy — more, even, than I want to make it down this river.

Yesterday the water was 47 degrees Fahrenheit. I wore an O’Neil Throttle dry suit with a Patagonia mid-weight fleece under-layer, and five-millimeter Neoprene hood, boots, and gloves. If the water had been over 55 degrees, I’d have taken a chance with my Aquaman Pulsar 2000 wet suit, but I would have been shivering whenever I stopped for a drink. What I wear in the water must balance the concerns of speed and temperature. If I get too cold, I can’t swim at all. If I am just plain cold, I swim more slowly than usual. A little bit cold and I swim like a turbocharged Otter.

My dry suit is not hydrodynamic at all. I might as well be wrapped in towels for all the glide I get. But the dry suit lets me stay in cold water longer, because a layer of air is about 20 times warmer than a layer of water. Give me the Aquaman wet suit and a 55-degree lake, though, and I set speed records. And as long as I don’t have to stop swimming, I’m warm.

Dangerously thin TV journalists look hungry when I tell them I will burn 2 million calories over the next six months. Yesterday, I started with a breakfast of six eggs, cheese, and bread. On the way to the water I sucked down the first of the 3,200 liquid calories I’d eat that day, in the form of Ultra Fuel that I mixed from powder. During my in-water breaks every 15 minutes, I supplemented these liquids with pretzels, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Clif bars, and cheddar cheese Goldfish (a species I have accidentally introduced to the Upper Columbia River).

My challenge is to eat before I am hungry and drink before I am thirsty. If I dry out or run low on blood sugar, I start to get cold and my stroke slows. So though my digestive system screams in protest sometimes, I keep to my schedule. Yesterday, the cold was getting to me. I had fantasies about hot sweet tea and chicken soup. It is a juggling act: hot or cold, I must eat, while working hard, when I am not really hungry, or I won’t be able to keep swimming day after day.

At the end of the day, I have to refuel. Within minutes of leaving the water I need to eat a small meal of 25 percent protein and 75 percent carbohydrate to jump-start muscle recovery and begin the process of packing my liver and muscles with the glycogen they’ll need to burn the next day. Somewhere in the end-of-the-day scramble of trying to get warm, stash the boat, and find a ride, I have to eat. I may not feel hungry, but the clock is ticking. Waiting an hour or two to eat will delay full recovery by as much 24-48 hours, and kill the next day’s swim.

Both schools I spoke at yesterday held coin drives to help me on my journey down river. They raised $168 Canadian dollars in all. I thanked them and told them that I would be spending most of that on the food I need to keep on swimming. It is going to take a lot of coin drives to get me over the two million calorie mark, not to mention feed my hungry crew.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about some of the folks I have met on my way down the river.

Thanks for reading.