28. Swimming a Mile — Sixty to Sixty

Big deal. For many of you, swimming a mile ranks at about the same level of challenge as walking around the block.

For me, though, it is a big deal. First, I hate being cold. I usually only swim when the thermometer hits 90, and then only for a few minutes. And the act of swimming? I’d much rather have my feet on terra firma.

So I put this one off until the last, waning moments of summer. A few days before vacation ended and the whirlwind of school and work started back up, my friend Lysa and I - along with our two teens, BFF’s since kindergarten - headed for Walden Pond.

Walden is Lysa’s happy place. She spends every spare minute there from May until September, lying on her back in the middle of the pond looking at the sky and feeling any stress float away. She swims a mile and a half all the time. So when she offered to coach and swim with me, I … well I can’t say I jumped at the chance, but I went along.

I cheated a little by wearing flippers. Not sure that was a help or hindrance. They definitely made me swim faster, but felt heavy on my feet and contributed to some cramping.

I also attached a belt around my waist that had a floaty hanging off of a tail. It wouldn’t work as a life preserver, but would help if I wanted to take a rest. There was one point where I put it under my neck and floated for a few minutes, using it as a pillow. That felt good.

Want a laugh?

Listen to my daughter and her friend sending me off:

Do you think I did the crawl all the way across Walden and back? Think again. Back stroke, side stroke, breast stroke (difficult with the flippers) all helped me make it, gliding sometimes more than swimming.

But make it I did.

We stopped to rest (in the water) for a few minutes when we reached the far shore, before turning back, but mostly just did a continuous swim. Once I got back to our starting point and took off the flippers, my feet felt like lead and my legs like jelly. I could barely stand up.

I’m glad I did this one, but probably will never swim a mile again. Other forms of exercise? For sure. On land.

And then there was this, but my legs felt too wobbly from the swim to really enjoy it: