Swim-A-Thon 2009

The fun part was the preparation the night before. Since I had over $100 in pledges, I got a nice 32 oz water bottle. But since lots of other people had gotten the very same one, I decorated mine with magic markers and sharpies so it would stand out. I made wide stripes all around it. I really enjoy doing mindless things like that – it took about 20 minutes and I consider it time well spent. I had also stopped at JD Pence on my way home from work on Wednesday and gotten a very eye-catching pink and blue swim cap to make it easier for Dave to keep track of my when he was counting laps. So once I’d made my energy drink (HEED mango), I was all set.

I woke up early Saturday morning, about an hour earlier than I’d meant to. Josh was leaving for Maine to visit my mom on the red-eye Saturday night, and I’d woken up quite suddenly wondering if I’d actually made the plane reservations or only thought about it. Once I was awake I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I figured I might as well get up and see if I really made the reservation (of course I did – but you know how it is at 5:30 am). Everybody else got up around 6:15, and we left for the pool at 6:40. This was early for me in the summer, but Josh and Tim usually swim from 7-9 anyway, so it was no big deal for them. And of course they usually swim much more than 5,000 yards in that time, so that also was no big deal for them. In fact I was the only one who thought it was a big deal. Well, Dave did too, because he had to get up so early on a Saturday morning.

We were some of the first ones to the pool, but it filled up quickly with swimmers and parents. A little before 7 we all chose our lanes, and at first my lane only had two other swimmers in it, which would have been really nice. But once we got started, several more people got in my lane, and some of them were people I had hoped not to swim with. Here’s the problem: I’m not very fast, so I can’t swim in the lane with the fast kids, who have a get in, do your laps, get out mentality. No, I have to swim with the 9-11 year old girls, who want to do breaststroke (that’s where I get kicked in the face) or use kickboards (that’s where I get kicked in the hands). I figure I swam an extra couple hundred yards going around them.

My goal was to complete the 5000 yards (200 lengths, 100 laps, whatever you want to call it) in an hour and 45 minutes. I also planned to stop every 500 yards (20 lengths, 10 laps) to drink some energy drink to supplement my breakfast banana, and also to get out after 2,500 yards (you figure it out) to stretch my calves in the hope of avoiding the debilitating cramping I’d had the last two times. In order to make it, I figured I needed to keep a pretty constant pace of 50 yards every 60 seconds. So having to stop and start and go around the breaststrokers and kickboarders, or worse yet the breaststroking kickboarders, was really irritating. Then again, it always is, so I should get over it.

You might be wondering what I think about while I am going back and forth 100 times. The answer is, I am counting. Although 3 stroke breathing is pretty much what I do, I still count the arm strokes to breath. 1,2,3, breathe. And since I wanted to stop every 20 lengths, I needed to count lengths as well. So on the first length, I counted 1,2,3, breathe. 1,2,3, breathe. 1,2,3, breathe. On the second length I counted 2,2,3, breathe. 2,2,3, breathe. And on the 67th length, it was 67,2,3, breathe. And on the 85th length… well, you get the idea. After 100 lengths I got out, stretched, got back in, and started over at 1. 1,2,3, breathe. 1,2,3, breathe. It’s very relaxing, actually.

The amazing thing is that maybe because of the stretching, maybe because of the conditioning, I really had almost no cramping at all. At around length 165, I thought I might move over into the next lane, because most of the kids who had started in that lane (including Josh and Tim) were already finished, and the other kids still in the lane were (I thought) mostly my speed. So I moved over, and it turned out that they were mostly just a little faster. So I tried to speed up a little, especially by pushing off the wall a little faster, and then I did cramp up. So I swam through it (about 10 lengths) and moved back into the slower lane, and was thrilled when the cramps completely went away by length 180.

And length 180 is a very good place, because it’s the last 20. Oddly, the first 30 are the hardest for me – you’re not even 1/6 of the way there, and it seems like you are going to be swimming forever. But once you’re down to your last 20, which is 500 yards, it is a no brainer. Also I could see that I was going to make my goal time, and the cramping in my left calf had stopped, and things were good. I motored through the next 19, and finished with my last length of butterfly as always. I climbed out having finished in 1:42, which was (I think) about 5 minutes faster than last year, and I felt really, really good.

This was my third swim-a-thon, and after the first one (in 2006) I could barely walk and had incredible blisters from wearing zoomers. After last year’s I was in pretty good shape, but had some trouble walking because of all the cramping. This year I felt the best I’ve ever felt, and I went home and had a corn tortilla with cheese, black beans, chicken and green chili sauce to replenish my protein and celebrate.

Thanks to all of you who supported me by making a pledge. If you haven’t made a pledge and would like to support the team and help me reach my goal of $600 so I can push Coach Tim into the pool, please click on this link, and I’ll get back to you with how to turn in your money. Every little bit helps.