September Splash Report

We were in the women's restroom of the Bayview Inn, Wildwood Crest. I'd finished the September Splash mile swim. A girl of possibly about seven or eight was there with me, coughing and telling me about a cold she'd had for a couple of days. "You and I both," I said. *** Just two days before my swim a nagging cough that never seemed to cause me any real problems picked up intensity, woke me up at night, invited its best friends in to stay, and they invited their best friends, and the racket made me lose sleep and concentration. But I'd looked forward to this one last fling in open water before the season ended, and so prayed, hoped, poured cough syrup and ginger tea down my throat, and kept Hall's drops by my side. It seemed that nothing was working until finally the morning of the race--when the coughing calmed just enough to give me hope. Even so, I took no chances. En route to the race, the wrappers of one cough drop after another filled the trash bag, as I cast about for ways to replicate the effect of these drops without the inconvenience of sticky wrappers and the constant taste of imitation lemon and honey. No matter. Once I arrived, the buzz of activity distracted me from worrying about my condition. I met with friends, chatted, did some yoga stretches, and when it was time to start, I felt calm, ready to go. My goal had been to break forty minutes, but I had to reset that--just beat last year's time. Very low bar: last year, under-trained, I swam in fits and starts, finished dead last, in over 50 minutes, lost a pair of goggles and almost lost two swim caps (I'd worn two for warmth). The goggles are now somewhere in the depths of Sunset Lake unless some lucky swimmer retrieved them, but a kayaker helped me recover the caps. All this because I realized at the start that I could not see well through the aqua tinted goggles that looked so attractive in the store but made everything look dark on an overcast day--and so pushed them up onto my forehead. Having learned from that experience that clear goggles were the way to go, I returned this year with the clear goggles, and added to those a 5.25 mile swim still in my muscle memory, many more yards of training swims... and the cough. This last made it an achievement for me to reach the starting line, but I also knew that a better swimmer was about to enter the water this year than last. When we started, that better swimmer revealed herself. Holding to a steady bilateral breathing rhythm, staying at least with the back of the pack swimmers. I didn't have to raise my head every few strokes to check with kayakers about my direction. I was swimming fast enough to see other swimmers nearby. Progress. I felt more at ease, more confident and even seemed to have escaped the cough that was plaguing me on land. Out here I was free, light, in my element. The markers came more quickly too. In the Cross-Bay swim they were a mile apart, so having them more frequently was a luxury. Last year, they might as well have been a mile apart for the progress I made. This year, I was more focused, stronger. Yes, I did occasionally check with kayakers on the direction, and yes, toward the end, I went a little off-course, trying to catch a swimmer who had just passed me and also had gone off course. Fortunately, we were both "herded" back toward the beach by the ever-watchful kayakers, and although the gent had temporarily led me astray, he also motivated me to swim harder. If our mis-direction cost us time, his passing me and making a race of it may well have given that time back to me. In any case, this last surge of competitiveness kept things interesting, and for that I thank my rival whom I didn't get a chance to meet afterward. The time on the clock when I drew close enough to read it was 43something. Not as fast as I'd hoped, but my best time on this course. I don't know the official time, but after negotiating the rocky footing in the standing depth water and reaching the stairs to take me back to dry land, I think that I still slipped in under 44 minutes. Considering that I hadn't been sure I'd be able to start, and that I hadn't pushed full-tilt in this race due to the cough, I was pleased. I knew I had a faster swim in me, felt more comfortable with open water swimming--enjoyed this swim, in fact--and want to make a habit of this. The little girl I met in the restroom afterward had the wisest parting words. When I told her I hadn't been sure whether I'd be able to complete the swim because of the coughing, she turned to face me and said very seriously, "You never know what you can do until you try." Out of the mouths of babes.... *** Other highlights: slapping hands with a woman who finished soon after I did--"I did it!"--her joy at completing her first open water mile resurrecting in me my own first-timer's excitement....meeting with a veteran swimmer, a woman in her 70s, who can make considerably younger swimmers eat her wake and who did the Chesapeake Bay 4.4 mile swim this year, reminding me that age is a number, not a limit... and finally the woman who asked a fellow swimmer about the numbers marked on our arms, reminding me that these numbers set us apart, made us, for her, a special breed. The numbers will wear off, wash off, but I hope we carry within us that specialness. The woman, told about the swim, then said admiringly, "I couldn't do that!" But who knows... maybe she will reconsider or maybe there is something else she is considering doing and maybe she will think, "why not?" and reach deep and try something she's secretly wanted to try.