3rd Ocean Swim

This morning was my 3rd ocean swim. The waves were calm, so I was confidant about being able to swim all the way to the kayak and back. Dan brought the boys to the beach to see me swim too, so I had my cheering squad there to support me. Getting the wetsuit on is no longer an issue. (Baby steps.) Getting into the water was fine too. As I was getting in the boys were waving and saying "Bye Mom!"

The water seemed much colder today, but the air was warm and the sun was out, so maybe that had something to do with it. Anyway, I started swimming with mentor Gretchen and then the negative thoughts started. I don't get very far before I am just so tired. And in the ocean, with no wall or ground to rest on, even resting takes work. So I swam a bit and stopped, swam a bit and stopped until I reached the kayak. I was exhausted! I hung onto the kayak for a bit and then we started out for a 2nd kayak that was a ways away. I didn't really want to, but Gretchen kept encouraging me. She'd say just 10 strokes and then you can rest. Then we'd do 12 the next time, etc. I think my main issue with swimming is that I can't really get into a groove. When I'm running and get tired, I pick a distance, a time, or a landmark to get to before I can stop. Then I pick another one and keep going. On the bike, to get up a hill, I count the pedal strokes, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, to concentrate on something other than how much further up the hill I need to go. I don't have that type of distraction yet to get me through the swim. So anyway, as we were moving at a snail's pace to the 2nd kayak, the rest of the team was swimming back towards us to go back to the 1st kayak. At that point, we turned around to go back to the 1st kayak as well. I kept thinking, "How in the world am I going to be able to swim a mile in Hawaii? This is pointless!" But Gretchen made me keep going and we reached the coach on the 1st kayak again. He told us that the swim is the shortest distance we need to go in the race and that my only thought should be how can I finish this quickly. The longer I'm in the water, the more calories I'm burning, so I need to keep moving forward - no matter what. By that point I was so tired of swimming, and my legs were tired too (I did run a 10K yesterday!). But I couldn't convince the coach to let me hang on to the kayak as he paddled back to shore, so I had no choice. I swam back to the beach. When I could finally touch the bottom, my legs were like jello and I couldn't really stand. As I walked out of the water, the boys were cheering for me with their arms in the air in triumph. It was pretty cool. They didn't know that I had almost quit at least 20 times. They were proud of me. In total I probably covered about 1/4 mile. Which is WAY more than I have swam (swum?) before. I still have a lot of work to do. But I still have 2 months right?

Here I am the boys after my swim

The white kayak is the roving coach offering encouragement or threatening to play whack-a-mole with his paddles (depending on the amount of whining). The 1st kayak I swam to is the one you can kind of see in the distance.

Thanks for your support with the Super Bowl Squares fundraiser. We raised $544 for Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.