Archive for July, 2009

As I am closing in on the date for my Tahoe crossing, I began to think about the who, what, where, why and how I got here. On a swim last week, I took the entire time  to reflect on this journey. This is many, many years in the making. When I was 7 years old, my Dad took me for a bike ride on my lemon yellow Schwinn Stingray from Tahoe Keys to Camp Richardson. There was an old fashion soda fountain at the camp. Of course  he could get me to ride anywhere for ice cream, still true today. After we had our root beer float we walked down to the lake to take a look. I remember standing on the edge of the lake and making a promise to myself that I would someday return and swim across. I have lived in Tahoe now for almost 20 years. During my time here, there have been years that I think about that promise to myself constantly and years in which I never thought about it once. In that time I have married, raised two boys, lived in 9 different houses, had 2 dogs, 4 cars, battled cancer, owned a business, many jobs, many ups and many downs. The one constant in that equation is my promise to myself to attempt this feat.
Three years ago, as my boys became teenagers, I started to think about life with an empty nest. What was I going to do with myself when no one needed me to feed them, drive them, help them, guide them. What did I do with my time before I had kids? Then I remembered my dreams. Dreams of swimming Lake Tahoe, the English Channel, Catalina Channel… Dreams that I had put on hold to focus on raising two boys that quickly became young men. All of sudden I became very excited about the prospects of following these dreams.
I started out slow at first. I had an opportunity to swim while raising the boys but not on a consistent schedule. I did some open water swimming in Donner and Tahoe during the past 20 years but not to the extent that I do now. I saw an ad in our local paper about a masters group that practiced in Truckee. I went to check it out and the coach started me out on the first day in the slow lane. As soon as we started the set she moved me to the next lane over and then finally into the fast lane and made me lead. I had forgot how much fun it was to workout in the pool. I was hooked and my dreams started to become even clearer to me. The first year of training, I went to the pool 3 days per week and my goal was to complete the Trans Tahoe relay with a team of 5 people. The second year my goal was to swim the width of Lake Tahoe. I went to the pool 4 days per week and as soon as I could swim the lakes I swam everyday. My third year of training has been the most eventful. I joined the South End Rowing Club in San Francisco because my friend Trudy told me that there were other people at the club who had the same type of goals that I did. I figured that I would be able to meet people that could answer some of the questions that I had about how to accomplish this goal. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the South End felt like coming home. In the past year I have learned to swim in the bay, did an Alcatraz crossing on New Year’s day, learned that I have the ability to swim very cold water, swam under and around the Golden Gate and Bay Bridge, accomplished a swim from the Golden Gate Bridge to the San Mateo Bridge and have learned so much about myself.
On my swim last week I came to a surprising conclusion that it doesn’t matter what happens on August 5th as I am attempting to swim the length of Tahoe. It is all about the journey!