Bio

Jen Alexander is a marathon swimmer who has lived with Type 1 diabetes (“juvenile diabetes”) for the past 21 years. She has swum across the 12.3 km Northumberland Strait (from New Brunswick to PEI) numerous times, and has simultaneously held the second-fastest strait-crossing time (6h47) and the slowest (11h04). In 2006, she attempted to swim the English Channel but the swim was aborted due to poor conditions. In 2007, she became the first person to swim a double-crossing of the Northumberland (NB – PEI – NB), completing the swim in 19h17. Last year, she made two attempts at swimming the 33km stretch between Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and PEI. She won the international Diabetes Exercise and Sports Association’s “Athlete of the Year” award in 2008.

Her blog can be read at: http://marathonswimmer.livejournal.com.

Fast Facts

Number of Years in Swimming: It’s hard to count – 24 maybe? I only swam for a couple years as a youth. I first joined Masters when I was 19 and have been a Masters swimmer off and on since then. I’ve swum more for fun than for competition though and I wish I’d swum more when I was younger.

Favourite Body of Water: Chocolate Lake in Halifax. It’s got the most beautiful colour of blue before the water gets warm.

Favourite Stroke: Front crawl. I can do it in my sleep! (I mean this literally: I once woke myself up by attempting to do a flip turn in bed and have woken up with my muscles twitching in a front crawl pattern).

Preferred Training Toy: I have a pair of hand-made paddles that one of the age-group coaches gave me. I love them because I’m slowly warping the plastic with all the pulling I’ve done. They remind me of all the hard work I’ve invested in the pool.

Favourite Pool Temperature: I find 13C (55F) wonderfully invigorating for swims under a couple hours. Once the water starts getting up to 19-20C (66-68F), it starts feeling too warm. My local pool targets a water temperature of 27.2C (81F) and that’s fairly uncomfortable for me.

Favourite Set: 10,000: 10x100, 5x200, 4x300, 2x400, 4x500, 2x400, 4x300, 5x200, 10x100. Swimming “one hundred 100s” is a bit of a New Year’s Day tradition amongst distance swimmers, and I love measuring my progress with this set.

Favourite Post-Swim Meal: Glucose ☺. Because I have Type 1 diabetes (“juvenile diabetes”), I can influence my body’s glycogen storage. After a workout, the combination of taking in sugar and taking the appropriate amount of insulin to go with it drives glycogen into my muscles and liver. I think this is the one and only advantage to having diabetes.

Hobbies: I’m fairly active as a diabetes advocate and have spoken all over Canada. I play the fiddle as well. I used to be very involved with the Girl Guides of Canada, but that’s on the backburner for now.

Current Reading: Endurance in Sport: Olympic Encyclopaedia of Sports Medicine. This book sells on Amazon.ca for $227.99, but I bought a previous edition discarded from a library online for $1.00 ☺.

Best Swimming Resource: People! There are a number of books out there, but I’ve benefited more from people. My coach is terrific. I’ve also developed a large network: swimmers, local fishermen, sponsors, hypothermia researchers, an exercise physiologist/athlete with Type 1 diabetes, two endocrinologist/athletes with Type 1 diabetes, my chiropractor, oceanographers, the Canadian Coast Guard Search and Rescue, the Diabetes Exercise and Sports Association...the list goes on! People are quick to think that “solo swimming” is an individual sport, but there is a huge team of people who help me meet my crazy dreams.

The Interview

What initially attracted you to open-water swimming?

I lived in Manhattan near the Hudson River for five years. I looked out over the river one day, and said to a co-worker that I thought I could swim across the Hudson from Manhattan to New Jersey (it’s 800-1000 meters). His response (“You’d be killed!”) triggered a memory in me of people swimming around Manhattan. I found the Manhattan Island Foundation online and started doing some of their smaller swims in the Hudson River. The race director invited me into an open-water training group. The rest is history! I woke up one morning and realised that 80% of my swimming partners had either swum across the English Channel or were training to do it. I realised I could do it too.

I sort of like scaring myself, I think. I get the same feeling when I get up on the blocks to start a race. That jittery, nervous, time-stops-running-normally feeling makes me feel truly alive.

As someone who lives with Type 1 diabetes, what are some of the unique challenges you face as a distance swimmer?

I have to carefully balance my activity level with my insulin level and my blood sugar level. It’s actually pretty tricky! I can’t stop taking insulin (I’d die), so I wear an insulin pump 24 hours a day. It delivers the amount of insulin I program every three minutes though a tube that connects to my body. It’s waterproof, so I wear it while I swim. The longer I swim, the less insulin I need, but when I develop hypothermia I start needing more and more insulin. I often adjust my insulin rate hourly. It’s tricky, because it takes insulin 5 hours to fully take effect and “wear off”, so I sort of have to predict 5 hours into the future. If I don’t manage my blood sugars, my performance falls off, I feel poorly, and my perception of pain increases.

I test my blood sugar every 30 minutes or so. The rules of open-water swimming stipulate that you can’t touch the boat, so I have to tread water while testing my blood. My crew will prepare two blood sugar meters inside a plastic container and swing it out to me on the end of a painter’s extension pole. The container has a facecloth that I use to dry off my hand and a lancing device that I use to prick my finger. I’ll put blood on the test strips, close the container and get back to swimming. My crew reads the meters and figures out how many carbs I need to increase, decrease, or maintain my blood sugar level. They’ll also prompt me to adjust my insulin rate when my blood sugars are trending up or down.

I can’t exercise for 4.5 hours after my last meal, or I’d have too much insulin in my body. The logistics get complicated unless I swim first thing in the morning.

How has the insulin pump changed your ability to swim?

I honestly can’t imagine doing what I do without my pump. During my big swims this year I encountered a lot of nausea (strange, because I’d never been nauseous while swimming before!). Diabetes doesn’t care if you’re puking though -- you still have to manage your blood sugars, which means balancing activity, food, and insulin. I was so nauseous that I couldn’t drink to get any sugar in me, so I was able to turn my pump off for an hour to bring my blood sugar up (turning my insulin rate down means less glucose gets into my cells, so it piles up in the blood). Without my pump I really would have been in trouble.

What is your approach to goal setting?

I commit to doing a certain number of meters before I leave the change room and I’m generally really good about sticking to it. When I’m having an off day and am feeling miserable, I respect my feelings and get out of the pool. I’m in this for life, and I’m very careful to guard against burnout.

Open water swimming can be unpredictable, so I make my goals a bit unpredictable too! Marathon swimmers have many horror stories about the wind and tides conspiring against them. For example, during one of my swims last summer, it took me 5 hours to swim 3 kilometers. Crazy! It was so frustrating that I cried into my goggles. The first time I swam from NB to PEI, it took me a little over 11 hours, but we timed the tides better the second time, and it only took 6h47. That’s tremendous variation! There’s a legendary story about an English Channel swimmer who got 75 meters away from France, got pulled away from land by the tide, and finished six hours later. To simulate this randomness, I play a bit of a game. For every cent that I find in my lane, I swim an extra hundred meters. So, if I find a quarter in my lane, it’s an extra 2500m. If the coin is on lane marking line on the pool floor, I double it.

In terms of longer swims, I consider what I’ve already accomplished and I try to find something that extends it.

How many meters do you put in, in a typical week, both in the off-season and leading up to a big swim?

I probably do 10,000-25,000 meters most weeks. It’s really fluctuated over the past couple of years because I went back to school. During the less demanding parts of my degree, I’d swim two 3-hour workouts a week, and either three or four 1.5-hour workouts. When school got more demanding I really had to scale that back, and sometimes swam just once a week.

I really think most Masters swimmers are already capable of, say, swimming the 12.3 km separating New Brunswick and PEI. It’s just a matter of putting your mind to it, getting in some longer swims to build confidence, and acclimating to the colder water.

Where do you do most of your outdoor swim workouts, and when do you usually start?

I do most of my swimming at Chocolate Lake, in Halifax. When I start depends on the water temperature, but I’ve started the last week of April for the last two years.

What's the coldest water you've ever been in?

Last year, when I started in April, the water was 8.8C (48F). I was in for about half an hour, and I didn’t even shiver! (I started shivering once I got out, which is typical).

Swimming in cold water is utterly invigorating!

There are so many variables to consider in planning and executing a major swim such as the English Channel. When and how do you start planning for such an event? What do you have to put in place before the attempt?

Very few boat captains are authorised to take swimmers across the English Channel, and it seems that the demand for swim spots exceeds the supply. I wanted to swim on the mid-August tide and when I booked in 2006 it was a 3-year wait for the best possible tide.

I think experience is the most important aspect of preparing for a big swim like the Channel. A Channel swim is a pretty expensive undertaking! In a way, it was really, really good that I experienced so much nausea during my swims this year. I’d rather learn to deal with nausea locally than to experience it for the first time in England.

What lessons did you learn from your three-provinces Northumberland Strait attempts last summer?

My first attempt (which lasted 13.5 hours) ended when I was so nauseous that I couldn’t even dip my face into the water. During my second attempt, I learned how to deal with nausea, and that’s a complete gift.

On my second attempt at three-provinces (which lasted 18.5 hours), the currents delayed our progress by 5 hours, and I didn’t have light sticks for a second night. As it got dark, my crew realised they were really struggling to see me. To make matters worse, as we lost the light, I started hallucinating.

I was 18 hours into the swim at that point, and I hadn't slept much the night before. Fatigue seemed to worsen the sensory deprivation of dark water, dark sky, dark horizon, dark jellyfish. My brain began coping with being under-stimulated by hallucinating gray objects nearly everywhere looked. I saw circular objects in the sky: there were giant sunflowers along with, oddly, a giant swirling bald spot. The horizon-level hallucinations were all linear: leafless trees, and massive power towers hundreds of times their normal size. Beneath me, I swore I could see the bottom. Swimmers can swim through hallucinations, though; they tend to disappear when the sun comes up and the brain gets more input. Unfortunately, it got dark to the point that my crew could not see me. My coach, rightfully, called the swim off at that point.

Had only I packed extra light sticks, I would have finished that swim! I could see the lights of shore, and I groan thinking about it... If I’d just been thinking clearly, or asked for someone to go over my pack list with me, I’m sure we would have realised the wisdom of packing extra light sticks! I’d brought three extra bathing suits, three pairs of goggles, 24 litres of koolaid/Gatorade, enough diabetes supplies for two months, a back-up insulin pump... and forgot to pack extra light sticks. My second attempt taught me that I need to plan for every possibility.

My coach helped me frame the swims positively. It wasn’t that I “failed”; it was simply that I didn’t finish. Every swim I do, I become more mature as an open-water swimmer. This summer definitely changed me in ways that I can’t even articulate. Overall, I became more calm, and swimming became more business-like and routine.

This summer helped me clarify *why* I swim. I really do just swim for myself. I’m not out to change the world. I swim because exercise helps me manage my diabetes better. My swimming provides an opportunity to raise awareness for diabetes, and while I appreciate that, it’s not my primary goal.

When things get tough on a long swim, what do you think about?

I get really meditative during my swims. Sometimes I count my stroke pattern (1-2-3, 1-2, 1- 2, 1-2-3, 1-2, 1-2, …) and sometimes I mark the rhythm by saying numbers that aren’t even in order. Sometimes, I am entirely unaware of time – half an hour can feel like five minutes. It’s a pretty big no-no, but sometimes I try to calculate how much longer I’ll be swimming. Other than that, my thinking becomes very simplistic. My brain slows down. Toward the end of a swim, my crew has to speak to me in short, simple sentences for me to understand them.

You write a great blog – what's it like, putting your experiences out there?

Oh, hey, thanks! Generally, I’m a pretty private person, but I enjoy documenting my experiences. I know it’s helped other people with diabetes by seeing how I’ve overcome certain challenges.

There are so many awful misconceptions about Type 1 diabetes out there, and I like helping to break those down. During an interview after one of my swims the talk show host said he thought people with diabetes couldn’t exercise at all!

People also confuse Type 1 diabetes (the autoimmune disorder) with Type 2 diabetes which is linked to genetics, obesity, inactivity and diet. According to one study done in the US, nearly 70% of people think Type 1 diabetes has been cured, and 22% of people thought exercise was a cure! As someone with Type 1 diabetes, this is horrifying! My swimming really illustrates that exercise does not cure Type 1 diabetes.

How do you sustain the energy for the amount of training you do – what motivates you to keep going back to the pool, or the lakes, day after day?

Fear. ☺ Having big, scary goals keeps me pretty motivated! I wouldn’t swim as well without my goals.

What goals have you set for yourself over the next 5 years?

I’m going to re-try my three-provinces swim, and I’ve got my re-attempt on the English Channel coming up in 2010, too. I’ve got other ideas and dreams, but nothing is finalised yet.

What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment in your swimming life thus far?

Not giving up. Back in 2001, I really maimed my shoulders swimming in ridiculously rough cold water (it felt like the waves were literally trying to rip my arms off, and my muscles were really tight from hypothermia). I had a sports medicine surgeon tell me I’d never swim again, but I chose not to believe him. A chiropractor said he had the worst shoulder injuries he’d ever seen. It took me four years to recover, and I never gave up hope.

A distant second to this would be learning to deal with jellyfish. Anyone who has ever swum with me in the ocean or crewed for me on a swim knows that I utterly hate jellies (those who know me are probably chuckling and thinking, “Wow, that’s sure understating things!”). Maybe the word “phobia” is more accurate ☺. It’s taken more than a hundred jellyfish stings to take the edge off my fear.

What advice would you give to someone considering open-water long-distance swimming?

Beyond “Heed the call”? ☺

It’s been said that there are two types of open water swimmers - those who are just trying to get from A to B, and those who are trying to get from A to B faster than anyone else. I’m in the first category. I’m not a fast swimmer, and I’ll probably never be a fast swimmer. I think people need to know it’s OK to swim for completion and not speed. Most Channel swimmers that I have met just want to finish, and are less concerned (or unconcerned) about their time.

Meeting up with other open water swimmers is critical, I think. Safety, information, friendship, support, guidance…Fellow swimmers offer true treasures.

If anyone thinks, “Hey, yeah, swimming from NB to PEI does sound like a neat goal!” feel free to contact me on Facebook ☺.

What is your personal philosophy or credo?

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”

-- Theodore Roosevelt

I’m not out for “glorious triumphs” but this quotation definitely made me feel better after not finishing my swims this summer.

Who inspires you?

Vicki Keith. She’s surely one of the greatest open water swimmers of all time. In Lake Ontario, in 2005, at age 44, she swam 80.2 kilometers of butterfly over 63 hours, 40 minutes (2.5 days!).