Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Half a Mile

I swam half a mile across a lake tonight.

I put on my new bathing suit - the purple Speedo with psychadelic hearts across the chest from the Gazelle clearance rack, the one that Jemma LOVES - and tucked my hair into a swim cap and suctioned my goggles to my face. Then I just walked into the water, thinking, Muck, Muck, Weeds, Ewwww and suddenly I was stroking towards an orange boat on the other shore as the sunlight slanted down from the clouds.

At no point did it feel easy, but neither did I feel at any point that I could not go on one more minute. I did a fair amount of breast stroke amid the freestyle. I counted to ten, then to ten again, then made myself do ten more strokes before another sight of the shore. I was surprisingly unmoved by the murkiness of the water or the weeds floating in my line of sight; in fact, I think I liked it better than the pool. I know! But when a teeny bit of lake water snuck into my goggle, it did not immediately burn my eyeball the way the chlorine does after one blink in the pool. I did not spend a single second thinking about fish or turtles that might want to nibble on my toes. It was just breathe, breathe, breathe to the other side of the lake.

I began swimming on July 7th and today, August 24th, I swam a half mile without stopping. I am pretty happy about that.

3 comments:

  1. The hard work has paid off (and I knew you'd do it all along!). Congrats on all the hard work - you should be proud and ready to have fun on your birthday! :)

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  2. I told you so!! Good for you, lady!!

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  3. This is so awesome. It's such a good feeling to be amazed by yourself.

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