Thursday, June 15, 2023 The Mississippi River Club

I saw a photo in the newspaper yesterday of a woman I’d just met the day before in the locker room at the community pool. She’d gotten her photo taken for having logged in 100 miles of lap swimming. This seemed like an unbelievably impressive feat. At the rate I’ve been swimming (about .35 of a mile 3 times per week), it would take me 95 weeks to accomplish.

When I got to the locker room after my laps today, I spoke with another of the women I’ve met there, Irina. When I told her of my interest in the 100-mile club, she took me under her wing. “Just follow me when you’re all dressed and I’ll show you where you keep a log of your miles.” Already I was thinking it was time to bump up to 18 laps (0.5 mile) right away. Talk about motivated!

Then Irina told me about a club she’d decided to start herself. She tried to interest the Parks and Rec director in the idea that they could sponsor, but he declined and told her just to do it herself, so she did. She thought it would be fun to use the combined miles of people in the club to “swim” the length of the entire Mississippi River! She made up a map with mile markers along the way. She invited me to join and I was dubious at first, thinking that each of us had to swim the entire length of the MR by ourselves. Once I realized that we were combining our miles, I told her “Count me in!!” When you get to 100 miles, the Parks and Rec department gives you a t-shirt, so Irina has taken the initiative of giving out a t-shirt of her own making (she embroiders it with her sewing machine) to those who join her elite club. Or maybe you just get it when the combined group makes it to New Orleans – not sure.

Irina, it turns out, swims 1 mile+ each time she goes and has logged in an incredible 500 MILES so far! (I don’t know how long that’s taken her.) I’m pretty sure she’s older than I am. The other member of the club, Becky, was the one who just logged in 100 miles. Consider me both motivated and awed at the same time. I’ve never in my wildest dreams considered trying to swim a mile each time I go – it takes Irina 1 hour and 15 minutes. For now, I’ll be happy to get to 1/2 mile, but just thinking about how much faster we can make our way down the Mississippi River has me thinking of challenging myself to a higher goal.

As soon as I got home, I went back through my calendar to estimate how many miles I’ve logged in so far and it came to 8.25. It’s a start!

You didn’t think I’d actually show you a photo of me wearing the suit, did you?

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming – no time to delete this in the morning.