I am always left with a deep-seated glow and a lot of thoughts after the Chicot Challenge. These adventures do a lot of things for me, but one of them is they expose weaknesses I didn't know I had. Those weaknesses are usually physical but in the case of the Chicot 2016, they revealed flaws in my faith also.
Looking back it now seems so simple, so clear. Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. But in the midst of struggle, one's perception is often skewed, as was mine. I had begun to think I may have been on a fool's errand. But God showed me that He was indeed walking this journey with me and if by chance I didn't get it, He showed up in the clouds at the end of the swim. It was as if He were saying, "Just in case you missed it, Dummy, here I am." I hope next year to have and exercise a bit more faith. I could write a long essay on that, on the faith aspects of the swim-- and maybe I will in the future-- but what follows is a brief history of the Chicot Challenge and the physical weaknesses the swims have revealed in me and how I responded to each one.
First, let me explain how I slid, almost accidentally, into marathon swimming. The year was 2007 and I was injured for running, a partially torn plantar fascia I think. Yearning for some sort of physical activity and goal, while surfing around on the Interweb, I stumbled upon "That Dam Swim," a twelve-mile open water swim at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Immediately I was intrigued and paid the registration fee before I had half an idea what I was doing.
That swim presented a number of hurdles I had to get over, not the least of which was where to train, how to train, and who to be my pilot. At the time, I was swimming twice per week at DSU, hardly enough training for a good start on such a long swim. I joined Twin Rivers Recreation Center for access to their 50 meter pool and secured permission to swim Jimmy Nobile's catfish ponds. That solved the where. The how was still a mystery, however.
I emailed the race director about how to train and he sent my question out to everyone registered for the event. In return, I received all sorts of answers and on my way to work one morning I even got a phone call from someone far far away. I can't remember his name or where he was from, but he told me he was shooting for a minimum of 22,000 yards per week which was approximately how far 12 miles is. That was like driving down the highway at 60 miles per hour and throwing the car into park. Or reverse. I had upped my swimming to a whopping 10,000 yards per week, and I thought I was tearing it up that surely I was on my way to success. The 22,000 number showed me of how naive I was. I had never even done the simple math. I had no idea how inadequate my training was and without that phone call, not doubt I would have wound up being a DNF (Did Not Finish) at the event. Now I had a clue, but only a clue, of how to train. I still had to secure a pilot.
I asked my wife. I asked my dad. They both said "no," so I changed tactics and approached my son, Forrest, with some cash in hand. He said, "yes." The next problem was Forrest's vessel. Since I owned a very small aluminum boat, I hatched a plot. I rigged up a trolling motor on it and purchased two marine batteries and off we went to Muscle Shoals. Until we got out on the lake race morning with the other swimmers, we had not idea that we still had no idea. Every body else had kayaks or motor boats. We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies on water. It was too late to change anything and too early in the morning to be embarrassed.
The day was full of missteps on our part. The biggest one was that the battery/trolling motor method we had chosen proved to be inadequate. About eight miles in, much to my chagrin, Forrest began to lag behind me. After a bit, I was really getting pissed until I looked back and saw the wind had blown him against the shore. Then even I could put two and two together. I swam the last four miles without a feed and part of it without an escort until the swim folks sent a boat out to pilot me in. To make a short story long, I finished the swim and the charge I got out of that was indescribable. I was hooked on open water swimming. Hooked.
(Some where I have the write up I did on That Dam Swim. I will try to find that and post it here).
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