Countdown: TWO FREAKIN' DAYS!

Two more days! I'm just a walking talking bundle of nervous energy. Tonight the team will come together for our Send Off Dinner, a few hours of camaraderie and laughter and eating before we head home to prepare for our swim.  There is something a little sad about this night.  We are a team, but this is a very individual sport.  We've trained together, pushed each other and cheered one another on, but on Saturday, we will swim alone.

I find I swim best when I can forget about everyone else in the water, focus on my own stroke, my own breath, my own body, but it can be a very lonely endeavor. On Saturday, one person will hold the key to my success and to tell you the truth, right now she's a hot mess.  However, I'm never really alone. I think of you all often as I swim, those of you who have gotten me this far with your comments, shares and words of encouragement. I ask for your thoughts and prayers over the next 36 hours or so, for myself, for my team and for those we swim for. 

If you have not yet donated, there is still time. As of this moment I have $714 dollars left to raise to meet my personal goal. 

Thank you for reading, for your donations, for your support. I am so grateful to all my family and friends for getting me this far.

Countdown: Three Days!

Three Days, Three Penguins.

Lord, I hope I have some Penguin Swag on Saturday! Just look at those guys, cool, confident, ready for anything.  Yesterday, two teammates and I were discussing the fact that while there are some speedy, athletic, graceful swimmers on our team, the three of us are definitely the B Team.  The slower ones, the ones most likely to elicit eye-rolls from our extremely patient coaches, the most likely to forget our goggles, prone to injury, real or imagined, oh yeah, that would be us.  We've decided to call ourselves Group W, which will make sense to Arlo Guthrie* fans.  We're owning our lovable loserness, our outsider cache, our "always picked last" personal narratives, because it's a testament to how far we've come.

On Saturday, it won't really matter how cool we are. What will matter is how far we've come and how well we handle those last three miles of the journey. All of us have come so far. I look around my team at people who have gained skills and speed, sure, but I also see people who have become more confident, stronger and slightly more insane. Together we have raised as a team, 33,771!!!  Personally, I am still $875 away from my goal.  Can you help?

*Link may be NSFW  

Fearing from the Sidelines

Last week, I got benched. 

I went to swim laps and as I started to get into the pool, I noticed that I was bleeding, a lot, from my leg. A vein, which migrated close to the surface after I was hit by a car a few years ago, had sprung a leak. As I sat in my own blood, pressing my hands against my leg, my biggest fear was that I would die in my bathing suit. I was mortified. The last thing I needed was probationary police officers and EMTs-in-training taking my blood pressure while I was practically naked and why hadn’t I bothered to repaint my toenails?  I think I managed to apologize to everyone, at least twice, for the horrible inconvenience I had caused.

An ambulance ride, a few stitches and a lot of tears later I was sent home with new rules.

No swimming for four days.

No open water for at least three weeks.

In the hospital, four days seemed like an eternity. How could I stop doing the thing that was becoming the routine, the thing that I had come to love and prioritize? Later, as I was trying to sleep, I kept replaying the scene over and over.  There are visuals that only time can erase.  They haunt and keep sleep at bay.  During the long night I came up with new questions. How will I ever face those lifeguards again? Why could I only think of two people to call? Why did I ever think I could do this? What if it happens again and I don’t notice until it’s too late?

I’m not sleeping the way I did last week.  Last week I came home wet and worn and slept easily. Today was the fifth day and I wanted to go swimming, but I couldn't do it. Suddenly, this adventure got scary and I am afraid. I try to think of the people I started swimming for in order to gather the strength, the children and adults who fight cancer, not as a hobby or on a whim, but because they have no choice.  Those who survive their ordeals continue on, knowing that danger is always lurking, but that every day is a gift.  

Tomorrow I will try to get back in the water for them.

I won’t give up because they can’t give up.

Photo by Brian Auer  http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianauer/