I Hope It Never Gets Old

What would I think about during mile two of the Beware of Barracuda Open Water race? Could I even stand my own company for that long of a swim? (I wondered this as I hung onto the dock waiting for the starting horn.)

 The lake at Eagle Rock Resort in Hazleton, PA, the site of the Beware of Barracuda Open Water Swims this past Saturday.

Turns out, I spent most of it thinking about how my stomach hurt, that my goggles were pressing on my eye sockets, that my legs were cramping.

But I also took note of a Band-aid at the bottom of a shallow area and wondered briefly what it would feel like to swoop down and grab it. Probably not so great. The water must look less deep than it is. 

And thought about how the first year I did the one-mile race here I somehow took in so much more of the scenery. Hadn't I thought the lakeside houses were really swank?

I wondered briefly if I had the whole lake to myself. Maybe you're last, I thought, because, well, where IS everyone else?

Cue negative self-talk.

I also thought about how horrible the 200-yard race had felt for the 3-plus minutes it lasted. How it felt like it would never end. And how much more delicious it was to be stretching out for yards and yards and yards. Enough yards to equal two miles.

I chuckled to myself (yes, underwater) about how I'd managed to arrive just five minutes before the race began, leaving no time to warm up or run back to the car for my wetsuit.

Oh, and hey, I thought, you are swimming two miles with no wetsuit when legally you could have, and... damn that's impressive. That's the real deal. When did you become a swimmer?

And, oh yeah, those swank houses were hard to miss when you had your head out of the water because you were in a total panic four years ago. No time for that this year. It's all about ticking off the buoys, hugging the turns, staying in a straight line.

True, it doesn't feel like you're making forward progress, but you have to trust that your body is strong and you are using all your muscles and you are moving buckets every time your arm sweeps through the water. 

Ugh, but that extra little "add-on" jaunt to the green iceberg buoy and back, to make it a full two miles, is going to be a total bummer after two long loops around the lake.

Instead those extra yards fly by and you're swooping over the finish line. You're finishing a TWO MILE open water swim when just four years ago you were walking laps in the pool with your heart rate at full-on freak-out levels.

And, really? It took you just over an hour? Which was good enough for second in your age group (the biggest one in the race, thankyouverymuch)? 

I gotta say, the feeling of accomplishing something that was once nearly paralyzing just never gets old.

I seriously hope it stays that way.