Tiffany Carter's 22-Mile Swim for Africa

UPDATE: Tiffany swam 20.5 miles--18 of them without a wetsuit--before an upset stomach, crampy calves and sore lungs cut the swim short. She'll be finishing the last 1.5 miles on Tuesday, the 23rd. As of Friday, the 20th, she had raised $2750 for Kenyan children.

Yea, Tiffany! That's the width of the English Channel crossing at the Straight of Dover! (21 miles)

Tiffany (left) at the end of a 14-mile swim with sister, Michelle. 

There must be some endurance obsession in the Beresini genes.

As I write this, my cousin, Tiffany Carter, is swimming across Lake Tahoe to raise money for children in Kenya.

Her longest swim before taking on the width (or length...depending on how you look at it) of Lake Tahoe was 14 miles and took her seven hours. Averaging two miles-per-hour and accounting for fatigue, Tiffany expects the swim to take about 12 hours. That's an entire Ironman-worth of just swimming.

I cry for her shoulders.

And get this: she's not wearing a wetsuit.

"I'll have my wetsuit (a long john suit) on the boat," Tiff told me yesterday, "just to make my mom happy, but I don't want to wear it." (Tiff said she hasn't looked at the water temperature the entire time she's been training. But I did. On the North side, temps on Wednesday ranged between 64 and 76 degrees. On the South side, they're between 65 and 67. Holy wetsuitless coldness.)

Tiffany got the idea for the swim after her older sister, Sophia, visited Kenya and came back with stories about the kids there living in poverty, but didn't have to; the kids could go to school and eat for an entire year for only $50-100 per child.

Tiffany wanted to help. She knew only one other native Lake Tahoe woman had ever completed the swim, and decided she'd go for it. She's been swimming since middle school and wanted to take on the Lake.

It was hard for her to find people to train with, though, as most people who came along would poop out around two miles. Her friend, Howie, got cold and bailed about that far into a 10-mile training swim.  He found a nice family on shore who wrapped him up, gave him warm food, and drove him back to his car.

So Tiffany recruited her younger sister, Michelle, to kayak along with her on her training swims. But it hasn't been all sisterly love out on the lake.

"I thought, 'Oh yea, we're sisters, it's gonna be great! We're gonna giggle and laugh...' but we'll be in the middle of the lake and she'll get so crabby sometimes and threaten to leave me," Tiffany said.

So is it going to be different today? On the big day?

She'll have a large crew including both of her parents, her sister, and other kayakers to help out. The local radio station is keeping people up-to-date on Tiffany's whereabouts. You can listen to the live broadcast here.

Tiffany's most nervous about not making it. And of Tahoe Tessie, Lake Tahoe's version of the Loch Ness monster. She put glow sticks on the bottom of the kayaks for the dark start this morning and was worried they'd attract some kind of mythical Tiffany-eating fish.

She'll be slurping mashed-up sweet potatoes and noshing on Clif Bars to fuel the swim.

As of yesterday, Tiffany had raised $957 out of her goal of $2,000. Donate to her swim here--she'll be taking donations for at least another week. No amount is too small! (OK, try to make it at least a buck.)

Visit Tiffany's Swim for Africa site.
Listen to the Quick Time radio broadcast.

Go Tiffany!

Mountain Biking Mania-When Your Brain Turns to Mush

I can't be the only person who does this.

Yesterday, about seven hours into a big-ass ride straight up and down and around the Santa Fe ski mountain, I had a conversation with myself. About table runners.

Maybe it was my brain's way of ignoring the cliff to one side of the loose single-track descent coachubby and I were pussyfooting down. Or about how that would be the perfect place for a mountain lion to take me out.

The conversation went something like this:
Me: What the f are table runners for?
Me: What do you mean what the f are table runners for? Watch your language.
Me: And why the f are they called table runners? They don't move.
Me: They tie the room together.
Me: Thank you, Erin Lebowski.
Me: It's just decoration. Why do people decorate? Because it gives their home a feeling of security and warmth.
Me: Table runners to do not give people a feeling of security and warmth. They're essentially pointless.
Me: Then why did you put one on the table when you had people over for dinner last night?
Me: I didn't, coachubby did. And it wasn't a table runner, it was a repurposed scarf. Why don't they call them table scarves? That's more appropriate. Scarves don't move.
Me: Why are you bashing household decorations?
Me: I'm not bashing, I'm asking an honest question.
Me: What?
Me: What the f are table runners for?

A few more rocky patches and near off-cliff endos, and I was back on the road.

Welcome to the Gym, Would You Like a Cigarette?

I hauled my bum straight from work to the Santa Fe rec center to get my swim on, and parked next to this car:

One cigarette per rep?

Outside Magazine Is Pretty Freakin' Cool

Yo! My blogging efforts have recently been hijacked by Outside Magazine's blog. This week, I got to speak with my fifth grade teacher, who happens to be one of the world's most inspirational people, Erik Weihenmayer, 19-year old professional surfer, Sage Erickson, and one of the stars of a new surf movie, Chris Christenson.

It's been rad.

And when I'm not at Outside, I'm outside, training for the Tahoe-Sierra 100-mile mountain bike race, and Ironman Arizona--with 2 bum hamstrings and a pissed-off rotator cuff. I met a spiritual healer while searching for a place in Santa Fe, but thought she was a little off her rocker. Maybe I should give her a shot...IM will be hard to finish with no run or swim training...

Getting To New Mexico: Apartment Armageddon

Long time, no write! Sorry!

I've moved to Santa Fe to intern at Outside Magazine and am currently sitting on a kitchen table I found on Craigslist that is covered in crusty paint droplets that is sitting atop a concrete floor that echoes throughout the place I found that has nothing in it besides me, a bed, and Gally (cat) because the movers don't come until Monday and coachubby works in Los Angeles every other week.

But let's back that up.

Act 1: Hermosa Beach, 3 weeks ago

I return from covering RAAM. My flight gets in late at night. Let's say 10pm. I go to bed around midnight ready to make up for 2 weeks worth of a zombie-like existence living in the back of a minivan filled with 3 boys (make that 2 men and one grandpa) chasing cyclists across the back roads of the United States.

(Me and the Media 2 RAAM men: Photog Jake North, Videog Brenden Martin, and driver Chuck Anderson. Photo by Jake North...even though he's in it.)

At some ungodly hour--before 10am--I find myself in the middle of a demolition. People are pounding on the roof. They're jackhammering the floor. Apparently, the crap apartment coachubby lived in all year while I was at school was sold to a new owner who decided to completely renovate--with the renters still inside. This can't be legal.

I am pissed. I have a story to write. I can't think. Gally is petrified. I go for a bike ride.

When I return, the front door is wide open and some electricians are standing outside.

"This yer apartment?" they ask.

"No, but I'm staying here and I'm going to take a shower," I say.

"Well we're doing some electrical work..."

"You know we have a cat!?" I say, realizing the open door.

I slam the door shut and start the hunt for Gally. He's not under the couch--why would he be, they're drilling the ground where the couch is (2nd floor apt.). We have boxes everywhere for the move to Santa Fe. I look in and around all of them.

No Gally.

Craptastic!

"Coachubby!" I cry into the phone. "I went for a PV loop and came home and these men were outside and the door was open and I can't find Gaaaaallllllyyyyyyy wahhhhh!"

"I'll come home," says the best husband in the world.

Coachubby returns to the beach bungalow from hell and searches for the fuzzball. No fuzzball.

I indirectly cuss out the workers by telling my mom on the phone a few feet away from them how stupid they are and couldn't they have just waited one freaking day because we're moving T-O-M-O-R-R-O-W. (Insert a few choice vocab words here and there for accuracy.)

Coachubby goes down more calmly to speak with the electrical men. Meanwhile I go back inside knowing my Gally cat is the most scaredy cat in the world and wouldn't have run out the front door. He's hiding somewhere, I know it.

I look under the covers on the bed. I lift up the mattress. I look in the closet, behind the couch, in cupboards. Finally, I kneel down beneath the bed (which was elevated a good 3 feet off of the ground so all of our junk could live beneath it) and start patting the box springs.

By hand thuds against a warm bump. I find Gally.

Kitty was apparently planning for beach bungalow armageddon by clawing away at the box springs in secrecy, creating an entry point, so he could securely hang in privacy from whatever that thin fabric is that's on the bottom of box springs.

I must now face the workers outside who told me they didn't see a cat run out and they're right and I was wrong but I'm still angry and just want to freaking sleep and take a shower but I can't because the bathroom has a skylight and there are strange men on the roof looking in.

And tomorrow, we're supposed to pack up and move to Santa Fe. In a car. Another 800-mile road trip. I just drove 3,000 miles I don't want to be in a car ever again just kill me now.

To be continued...