The parallels are stunning and many and maybe that is one reason I am drawn to outrageous events like adventure running and marathon swimming. One of the parallels has to do with how these things have their beginning. Like life, they often have their genesis with someone else. My life started with Roger Hodge marrying his high school sweetheart and moving her and their life to Greenwood, Mississippi. Daddy carried me in his arms and walked me home from the Greenwood Leflore Hospital a little over fifty-nine years ago. In some ways I feel as if I have been in his arms ever since until he suddenly left us in November 2013. When he died, I was shocked to discover how insecure I felt to face life without him.
The Chicot Challenge, which has now had four editions, began with a series of innocuous text messages between me and arch rival Randy Beets.
"I just made this amazing thirteen-mile kayak trip on Lake Chicot," Randy wrote to me in early 2012.
"That sounds like it would make a good open water swim," I responded.
"I'll crew you if you want to do it," he shot back instantly.
And thus the Chicot Challenge, my baby, was born in the mind and experience of someone other than myself.
On Saturday, June 6, 2015, at approximately 6:30 am, Chicot Challenge IV began when I started swimming in Ditch Bayou, stroked out to the main lake, and turned right, back towards Greenville, Mississippi. Like life, I was filled with youthful exuberance and energy. Also like life, I possessed a bit of a boy's naivete. Despite weeks of worries and struggles and doubts, those had all vanished like fog fleeing before a rising hot sun when I pushed off the boat ramp and started my journey. The cool water, was inviting, embracing, encouraging. I had the feeling I could swim forever.
Three kayakers accompanied my early efforts. Randy Beets, who can be blamed or blessed for all of this trouble, Robin Bond my mercurial mermaid who cares for me like a little baby while I'm in the water, and Trevor McClain a member of Centerville Baptist Church who was making his first appearance at the Challenge. I wondered if he knew what he was getting into. How could he?
When we made it back even with Ditch Bayou, we once more crossed over the half mile wide channel to the town side of the lake and began our long, slow trek towards familiar sights, the Visitor's Center and downtown Lake Village with it's boat ramp, swimming area, amphitheater, quaint buildings, and neat churches and homes. While swimming, just like in life, I sometimes found myself thinking I was missing out on much. The kayakers get to see it all, I thought. Lucky them. I'm stuck looking into the water and seeing no fish, nothing but a green darkness.
When we drew near the Visitor's Center, I was reminded of a verse in the Book of Hebrews: "Seeing that we are compassed by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside the sin that doth so easily beset us and let us run [swim] with patience the race that is set before us." The deck far above the water was packed with people. I wondered if anyone up there knew me or knew what we were doing down below. Whatever the answer, I definitely felt watched for a while and having eyes on me always makes me perform a little better.
We made Lake Village somewhere around 12:30, I think. I suppose I should have someone on the pontoon taking notes because just like in the rest of life, if you don't write it down, you forget a lot. The numbers get lost in my brain despite the fact that I try my best to remember them for the sake of writing up a report later. Robin dutifully fed me every thirty minutes and reported the time and distance at each feeding. "Three and a half hours, and 6.1 miles," was a typical report. That one I made up because I don't remember how far we were at three and a half hours. I wish I had that skeleton of numbers to hang this commentary on.
I had made this portion of the swim, from Lake Village to the causeway, before. Several times in fact. I knew from experience not to look too far ahead, not to gaze at the causeway but to only sight off the kayaks and the shore to my left. Looking at the causeway several miles ahead is like being Sisyphus. I made that mistake once and it almost broke me mentally. Like life, which we have to live one day at a time, a marathon swim works best by being motivated by the future but lived in the present. Small goals. Short goals. Don't look too far ahead. Just try to make it to the next dock, the next house, the next tree. Swim down a mile. Then swim down another one.
Along the way, Robin and I had chatted about the distance. We don't pre-measure these course but decide on a route and guestimate how far it will be. When we announce a distance, we go to the Challenge with the determination to swim at least that far. I was certain we would be close to nineteen miles with the dog leg towards Greenville. When we got to Lake Village, we knew within a tenth of a mile or so how far it was to the landing at the State Park. We were going to be a little short, close but about a half mile short.
We had mentioned going up into Connerly Bayou, a long narrow serpentine body of water that connects to Lake Chicot just south of the causeway, a levee/bridge that dissects the upper third of Chicot from its southern section. We swam up it for a mile and a half last year. It is beautiful up in there, but I was nervous the whole time and really didn't want to go back into the primeval waterway, as I had perceived it. Like life, I had faced that fear once but I was not eager for a rematch. Sometimes you have to leave well enough alone and not put yourself in unnecessary danger.
I forgot to mention that Ben, a new swimmer and buddy of Justin was on the boat and swam some early on before we made it to Lake Village. I didn't however, know that he was in the water for much of the time because he swam behind me, fearful, I learned later, that in his inexperience he would crash into me in the water. Long before we got to Lake Village, however, I spotted a yellow swim cap to my right. Someone else had gotten in. Who? I did a double take and saw it was Randy. The big guy swam with me for two and a half hours. Two and a half hours! We were side by side all that time and it was some of the most enjoyable swimming of my entire life. Like life, marathon swimming goes better when you have someone at your side. It doesn't seem as difficult that way. If he can do it, I can do it is a natural byproduct of that experience.
When we finally drew near the causeway and the opening to Connerly Bayou, Robin said, "Look Zane," and pointed shore ward. Being a bit nearsighted, I could only see a couple of people standing on the bank and holding some sort of sign or banner.
"Who is that?" I asked.
"I don't know."
Robin and I, along with the pontoon, veered straight for shore to get a better look. Drawing near I could see it was Bethany Theilman, of the DFM, and her son, Evan, holding a sign that read, "Go Zane" with a drawing of the lake and the DFM logo on it. I cried in my goggles. Just like life, sometimes people don't know how much they touch you.
We drew even more near the causeway which always makes me a little apprehensive. Swimming under bridges is one of my irrational fears. I don't have a clue why, but it just scares the doo doo out of me. I had, however, been under this one several times so the fear of this particular one was beginning to wear off. Still it seems like a dangerous place because of the volume of boat traffic that passes under the bridge. There is no room for a swimmer and a boat at the same time. Just before going under, I looked up ahead and then I looked behind me. To my rear was Robin in a kayak and the big pontoon boat. Just like life, having someone bigger than you backing you up often gives you the courage to go on.
When we made it under the bridge and into the upper part of the lake, I tried to shoot right and head for that shore. My thinking was if we went all the way right, we could then cross back to the left for an additional half mile, which was about how far I figured we would need to fill up nineteen miles. Robin would have none of it, however, and took the left track and hollered at me to come her way. I relented not wanting to be outside of her protection, so I followed her towards the left shoreline.
From the causeway on, the swim began to mirror the long difficult times that life often throws our way. Gone was the early exuberance and energy. In its place was the growing discomfort of a long, long effort and the knowledge that there was still a long, long way to go. We were a little over fourteen miles now, but with five miles left and a slowing pace, my mind was saying, "Stop, it's too much."
Somewhere around here Robin got out of the kayak and into the water with me. Justin took her place in the small boat. It was neat swimming with her, and like Randy earlier, her presence gave me a temporary boost, relieved the monotony, and added to the belief that I could do it. In life people often do that for us and we for them. Sometimes just being there in time of need is enough to touch a life that needs a touch.
Despite Robin's swim, this section of the swim became a grind after she got out and I was alone in the water again. My left shoulder had begun to hurt around mile ten, and the miles were coming ever more slowly. My Garmin watch, which I had under my swim cap, was set to buzz and vibrate at every mile. It seemed now that every mile was forever in coming.
Still, we drew inexorably closer and closer to our destination, the State Park boat landing. But the weariness now was more than physical, it was mental as well. Like for so many people in their advanced age, I was ready to be done, ready for the end. I wanted the final destination. At the end, I was expecting to see Bethany Theilman, her son, maybe Irena McClean, and several people from Centerville Baptist Church, Sheila and Bridgett Mitchel, Gerald and Debbie Johnson, along with Kelsey McClean. I couldn't give in. To stop early would be to cancel the celebration of the journey's goal. I couldn't let them down, myself down. I had to make it.
Slowly the watched buzzed for mile fifteen. At this point, I was going from goal to goal. My second longest lifetime swim was sixteen miles. So I swam for sixteen. When I got the sixteenth buzz, I set my sights on 17.7 because that was my longest swim ever. Finally the watch buzzed for mile seventeen. I knew it would have to buzz for eighteen before I knew I had broken my record. I must have been going awfully slow because I thought about stopping to see if the Garmin had stopped, but finally I felt and heard the eighteenth buzz. Not long after that eighteenth buzz I looked up and far in the distance I could see pink T-shirts, Chicot Challenge T-shirts, on a dock up ahead. They looked like angels and the landing looked like heaven. Just a little while longer and I will be there and it will all be over.
Randy had replaced Justin in the kayak. I stopped, pulled the Garmin from under my swim cap and took a look. It read 18.34. I gave the Garmin to Randy.
"I think we are going to be a little short," I said. "We have to get nineteen miles.
"I'll get you nineteen," Randy responded softly but resolutely.
So we drew even with the landing and then kept gong. That hurt. I wanted to shoot for the finish, but I knew how bad I would feel the next day if we didn't go the full nineteen. Finally, Randy did a u turn and we headed straight back for the ramp. The angels came into clear view. Trevor, like Gabriel, stood on the ramp, in the water, ready to help me cross over and enter into rest.
"There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God," the Bible says in Hebrews 4:9.
I had just entered mine.
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| My angels. Front row: Bridget Mitchell, Sheila Mitchell. Andrea Turner, Kelsey McClain, Gerald Johnson. Back row:Justin Nunnery,Trevor McClain, Randy Beets, Zane Hodge, Penny Hodge, Debbie Johnson. Not pictured: Robin Bond. Picture stolen from Bethany Theilman or Debbie Johnson? |
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