40 Bridges 2024

Trying not to cringe

The amount of attention I got after Staten Island was overwhelming.  Don’t get me wrong, I am always happy when my achievements are recognized, and I’m so glad I could help raise more awareness of the sport and inspire others.  

With all the attention, I began to feel like a fraud, that I just got lucky, the whole thing was a fluke, and that plenty of other swimmers could have done the swim better than me.  I went into 2024 feeling the need to prove it to myself that I deserved the recognition, and that it doesn’t really “count” until I’ve done a swim much longer that really pushes me.

That paragraph above is so toxic, and when it’s floating around in my head it seems so real.  Writing it out definitely floors me because I would never think about someone else in that way after hearing about a swim they did.  But I did, and still sometimes do, carry that around with me.

The swim I thought would “prove it” was 40 bridges.  It would take me 20+ hours which is what I had trained up for in 2023 just in case Staten Island currents didn’t cooperate.  Plus, it’s right at home for me, and I know the course like the back of my hand after all my time logged as a 20b (and 40b) observer. 

Well, along the way, the Hong Kong swim went sideways for me, and while my faith was shaken, I knew the outcome was beyond my control.  I was ready to focus solely on 40 Bridges starting in April directly after my wrist surgery.  I wasn’t going to make the official decision to sign on until I had zero pain and was sure I’d be ok, so I became a PT machine so that the “if” would be “when.”. I knew I could train up for it and not doing it didn’t feel like an option because I’d have the “what if” floating around in my head the whole year, and it would put me “behind” a year because I had my eye on swims that excited me even more in the coming years.  I’m not patient.  I’m also no stranger to stacking on yardage and getting into bulletproof physical shape.  The buildback went really well and i was back to my old self in no time. I PR’d a 10k 1 month after surgery and knew it was go time.

Oh yeah, also during this entire arc, I started a new job.  A high pressure new job, which pushed me in a lot of ways and had me coming in, getting up to speed quickly, and making valuable contributions right away.  I really like this job, but it’s not easy.  I really like my routine, I go to the pool, crush it.  Go to the office, crush it.  I feel energized and satisfied at the end of the day and realizing I was doing “it.” Whatever “it” was.  I built in a lot of down time in between all of this, and for a while it was sustainable. Sitting on the couch after a long swim doing nothing for hours on end would heal my soul.  But in the land of high achievement I began to feel alone and like no one understood me in all these dimensions.  And that’s when I just got tired. 

 It wasn’t an “I can’t get out of bed and perform” kind of situation, I just got numb.  I did everything I was doing before, but I lost the spark. The peak weeks training for any swim are rough, there’s no way around it.  When I got there this training cycle, I was numb.  There was an incident at Brighton beach that really freaked me out, I got stung from head to toe by a huge Lion’s Mane jellyfish which isn’t native to these parts, and it felt like I got attacked in my own home. I was trudging through the yardage, hitting all my numbers, volume, speed targets, etc, but I knew something was different.  For one, I wasn’t nervous at all in the last 2 weeks up to the event, which has never, ever happened to me.  I kept chalking it up to the fact I was prepared, but deep down I knew that was “off.”  I tapered and my body felt good,but my brain was tired and it didn’t feel like a real break.

My brain was fighting me on those last days before the swim but I kept ignoring it, telling myself that once I’m there all the adrenaline will kick in and everything will be fine. I stood looking at pier A and wished I could just fast forward 20 hours. Paula told me to smile in the “before” picture. “You’re cringing, let’s try again,” she said.  I saw my reflection in the window of the metal boat and thought about how I don’t look like other marathon swimmers.

I worked to just be in the moment, enjoy the day, the weather, the scenery.  I used all the distracting mental games in my arsenal and they worked for a while, but I couldn’t stop counting down the hours and wishing it was over.  I didn’t want to be there.  I told myself so many times that I did, and I wrestled with it all the way down the Hudson.  I didn’t want to stop but I HAD to.  The pressure on myself from the entire year was suffocating me and after all these months of pushing through and acting like it was nothing I knew I was going to explode.  

Stopping after lap 1 doesn’t define me as a swimmer or say anything about my ability. And going around twice wouldn’t have “proved” anything, or suddenly validated everything I’ve done in the past.  It all clicked for me around 59th street and I felt so overwhelmed that had a lump in my throat all the way to Pier A. At the end of lap 1 I cried.  I absolutely lost it.  It was an out of body experience, I was relieved and completely mentally drained, but my entire crew was so confused because I’d hid it so well.  I have no doubt I was physically ready for this swim, but because my heart wasn’t in it, it was impossible to get my mind to follow suit.  Just because I wasn’t mentally up to it on that day doesn’t mean I’m not incredibly mentally tough.  To get through everything I did to just make it to the starting line is an achievement in itself.

After my big letdown and a few weeks off from swimming, I wanted to go back to the pool, not to train but to just be with the water.  It’s hard to be away.  But I stayed away longer than I wanted to.  And it was pretty much entirely because I didn’t want to face all the other swimmers who had been cheering me on and supporting me.  While we all care what others think to some extent, that wasn’t why I was having such a hangup.  I didn’t want to relive the failure in my head or have to talk about it over and over, because I knew people were inevitably going to ask about it.  Or say “sorry” about it.  I don’t want anyone to be sorry for me, I just want to swim. At the time I’m writing this in mid November, I only just started going back to my favorite pool in the city as of last week because I just didn’t want to face everyone at once.

.It’s taken me months of working on myself to actually verbalize all of these feelings, but when it comes down to it, I know I made the right choice, even though it still stings sometimes. I’ve been in burnout recovery the past 6 months.  But the truth I know is that I just love swimming and I love challenging myself.  I love pool training and being in the flow of long sets and going on strange sendoffs and odd distances to make my head do all kinds of math.I love sharing the pool with all the swim friends and acquaintances I’ve made over the years so that I’m never really alone.  I love swimming out at Brighton Beach where all the landmarks along the coastline feel like home and how no 2 swims are ever the same because of all the quirky tides and currents and jettys.  I love playing “games” like guess how many open water minutes I’ve been swimming since I last looked at my watch, or counting my strokes into oblivion.And I love popping up my head every so often to just float, or wave at passers by, or think about how special it is to live in this paradise. And I have some swims that I’d love to do.  I’ll be chasing those for the time being, while not losing sight of my why.  I have a lot of fun planned for 2025, in and out of the water.

Failure shaped my 2024, but how I’m framing it will define 2025.  Here’s to positive reframing for all in 2025.