Time to taper and swim with the sealife

Our family week in California also proved to be a great place for my taper. After peaking at 60kms a week it was great to slow it down getting closer to the race. We stayed with my American mum Mickey Shockley and her daughter Kim hooked me up with her swim squad. Wednesday morning we trained at Culver City and Thursday morning was at Santa Monica University. Squads run consecutively for 1 hour so I would stay in the water and do 2 sessions to get kms up.

Friday was a rest day as we headed down to La Jolla for some open water training in colder water over the weekend. Saturday morning I met up with Marc Lewis, a local from La Jolla who was my training partner (along with Anne Steele) in Dover and swam the English Channel five days after me in 2007.

I swam 4 laps (4 miles) of La Jolla Cove on Saturday and Sunday morning. La Jolla Cove is the best possible training ground for endurance swimmers and full of sea life. On Saturday I swam over a 2.5 ft shark and almost collided with seal. And on Sunday swam over a large stingray. Water temperature was a nice 19c.

It was great to catch up with Marc and also to meet and train with Cindy who swam in the Manhattan race last year and is training for the English Channel next year and Barbara who is in the process of embarking on an endurance swimming career.

Monday was back to LA and into Culver City Pool for a 4km session and Tuesday was a rest day as we travel to NYC.

Wednesday and Thursday I swam 4km and 3km respectively at the Chinatown YMCA 25 yard pool. The YMCA was the cheapest pool I could find. Most pools wanted to charge between US$35 and US$50 a swim. The YMCA charged a respectable US$15 for my second swim only.

Friday was my last rest day and the swim briefing was a half day on Governors Island.

As with all my swims my support team has rolled into action. Errol and his brother-in-law Federico are on my boat as the support crew. Tony will be next to me on a paddle board and Chad (my swimming coach) will be with me at the start to grease me up and keep my nerves in check.

Well I'm off to bed now so will update you all after the swim ......... cheers Murph.