Home Stretch to the 4.4-mile Bay Swim

We are three weeks away from the 4.4-mile Great Chesapeake Bay Swim. After recent cortisone shots in my right shoulder and left wrist, lots of pool swimming and some open-water swims in Crownsville, Maryland, I seem to be ready—at least physically.

At this point the hardest part is psychological. When you swim a pool practice, there are lots of distractions. You’re with other swimmers, so there’s the motivation of trying to keep up with those in your lane and the adjacent ones. There’s some socializing before and after, and that makes it fun. Despite some occasional questionable pool-water quality, you can see really well what’s around you as you go back and forth. The water is also calm. The coaches make the workouts interesting (usually), with sets that differ in distance, intervals, number of swims in each set, the stroke, and so on. And after an hour and a quarter, you’re done.

None of this prepares you for the boredom that sets in for the Bay swim. It’s like being in a sensory deprivation tank for a couple hours. The water is so murky you can’t see your hands as they pass in front of your face. The only way to see anything is to quickly lift your head occasionally to spot a landmark while you swim. Here is what you see while you're swimming:

Nor can you hear anything. Some swimmers have waterproof MP3 players—called “Swim P3s”—that attach to the back of goggles, allowing them to listen to music while they swim. You can also gauge your progress by how far along the playlist you are at points along the way.

Then there’s the fear factor of what you can’t see or hear that is sharing the water with you: Creatures hostile or hungry, or large pieces of debris—especially after a big storm.

If you think about it, there is no good reason to blindly swim across a large body of water populated by such things. I don’t know why anybody would want to do such a crazy thing. But as I tell myself, as long as I’m a little faster than the slowest swimmer, I should be fine.

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