Chicot Challenge 2020, Update One

With the whole world shutdown and hundreds of athletic events cancelled, you might have wondered about the Chicot Challenge. Let me give you the latest. I don't have to watch a website like I have done with some other events. I don't have to wonder. I make this decision myself with consultation from my wife and the crew.

I have not spoken with the crew this year about the challenge. Since we have not met church in a couple of weeks, I have not chatted with them about the swim. But my plans are to go ahead. If, when the time comes, the crew is still practicing social distancing, we can still have the swim. In that case, we can proceed with a skeletal crew of two kayakers so the rest of the crew will not be together on the pontoon. Since I cut the distance to 12.75 miles last year, we can do a swim of that length without a pontoon boat.

Make no mistake about it. A boat is nice and for the longer swims of nineteen or more miles it is a virtual necessity. It provides the kayakers the ability to take a break, to rest, to feed, to swap out. It provides me, the swimmer, a greater measure of security since the big boat makes us more visible and hence me safer. And I am not ashamed to admit that having a few people on a boat watching makes me swim better, faster. I love showing out for my wife.

So I implore you to keep up with my post about Chicot, pray for good weather, and donate when the opportunity arises. I ask people once per year to give to the Diabetes Foundation of Mississippi. People are worried about this COVID-19. We ought to be more worried about diabetes. Almost one third of the population of the USA is now either diabetic or pre-diabetic. Diabetes is no joke. It killed my mother, several other of my family members, and it wiped out a whole church I pastored for twenty-two years.

The Diabetes Foundation of Mississippi is our charity that helps people right here in this state. Did you know that we lead the county in the per capita incidence of diabetes Type Diabetes? Do you know why? Do you know what the risk factors for diabetes are? Do you know how to adjust your lifestyle to lower your chances of becoming a diabetic? Do you know what the health consequences of diabetes are?

If you cannot answer yes to these questions, you need to keep up with the Chicot Challenge and with this blog. I will be writing about these things in the upcoming months. Believe me, you are at a much greater risk from diabetes than you are from COVID-19.

The swim is set for Saturday, June 6. I will attempt to swim from the Lake Chicot State Park boat ramp to the boat ramp at Ditch Bayou. And Bethany, this time I will crawl out on the ramp. Two years ago there was a ramp where I crawled out in 2019. Once I set my feet on the bottom at the old ramp, the swim was over.