Swim Across the Sound 2024

If you've got a few moments, I'd like to talk to you about the Swim Across the Sound. 

The Swim is an annual charity race sponsored by St. Vincent's Medical Center to benefit cancer patients in Southwest Connecticut. The Swim doesn't pay for cancer treatments. It pays for all of the things that insurance doesn't cover. 

At last year's banquet, Swim organizers told us about a woman that the event had helped the previous year. This poor woman found out that she had cancer just a few weeks after her husband died unexpectedly. Quite apart from the enormous human tragedy of both losing her partner and finding out that she was facing a deadly disease, she also lost both her primary and secondary sources of income through no fault of her own. Not only was she without her husband, not only was she facing cancer, she and her children were -- suddenly -- looking at maybe losing their house, too. 

On top of everything, she and her family could have wound up homeless.

Friends, the Swim Across the Sound cannot cure cancer. What they did here, though, was step in and ensure that this poor woman didn't lose her house. They helped her pay her bills while she herself went through a Hell that I personally can only imagine.

So when you support me and Team RBG in the Swim Across the Sound, you're supporting people who really need your support.

Team RBG on the ferry out to Port Jeff, 2023.

For me personally, one of the best things about doing the Swim each year is that it adds some structure to my overall workout routine. 

I usually swim four times/week and lift two or three times/week, depending on how much I'm swimming on a day-to-day basis. During Football Season, I'll usually go about 2500 yards/workout in the water with long weekend workouts in the 3500 yard range. I then lift thrice/week and try to keep my focus mostly in the gym with an eye towards Ski Season. 

This year, I upp'ed my yardage to about 3000 yards/workout and cut back to two weight workout/week around the New Year. I did that mostly because I felt sluggish in the water, and yeah, it took about a month or so, but I finally did start swimming better. 

That's been nice.

Around June 1st, I'm planning to cut weights altogether and bump my daily workouts to 3500+ yards with long weekend workouts in the 5000 to 6000 yard range.

If you're wondering, I read recently that as one gets older, it takes more sets to see results in the weight room, and that, in fact, four sets is kind of a happy medium for most people to see something like their best results. With that in mind, I've also recently changed the way I lift, pushing everything up to at least four sets but reducing the total number of movements I'm doing overall. This seems to be working really well so far, but I feel absolutely smoked.

In the back of my mind, I'd planned to start Swim Season on April 1st this year. For better or worse, however, events conspired to get things going a little early. For one thing, we finished up with Ski Season at the start of March, and with that I started leaning more into swim training generally. On top of that, I also did a TV interview with News 8 (see above) to help promote the Swim Across the Sound locally. That was cool, especially when some of my wife's friends called to tell her that they'd seen me on TV. However, it also means that this piece feels a little behind the times.

Dave swimming a leg in last year's race.

For the past few years, Team RBG has been an all-veteran group. That's not a political statement or anything. It's more a function of the folks I happen to know. Two years ago we had three Navy vets plus myself. Last year, we were split two Army, two Navy. This year, I think we might wind up with three Army and just one Navy, but we'll see. 

As a matter of reality, it takes a lot of effort to get a few of your buddies together to swim across Long Island Sound for charity.

Regardless, I am in high hopes that my good friend and Army Swimming teammate Dave will be able to make it out again this year. I'm also hoping that Stephen, former Navy doctor and world-class water polo player, will also join us. To him, we've added Elise (USMA '05), the first woman to join our team.

Thank you for your time. Please consider supporting our team with a donation. Any little bit counts.