Mar 26 • General discussion
1 Mile Ocean Swim
I just swam a mile in the Atlantic Ocean without any training.
The first half, I was swimming with the current. It wore on my shoulders and triceps mainly, but I was able to offset this by switching to backstroke periodically, and so reaching the half mile mark took roughly 30 minutes.
Little did I know the second half would be a nightmare.
I turned around and realized I was now swimming directly against the current. The waves were now slapping my face every few seconds, which made me realize a few things.
First: timing my breaths was about to be 10x more difficult.
Second: I couldn’t switch to backstroke anymore because I wouldn’t be able to predict the waves for my breathing.
Third: I couldn’t take anymore brief rests, because every rest could cost me 10 yards or more.
So I began shoving water behind me, trying my best to have the cleanest stroke possible. I found out afterwards that a lifeguard on the shore was worried about me because of the amount of water going over my head every few seconds.
I was taking salt water through my nose and mouth at random. My throat began to sting terribly. But this wasn’t the worst part at all..
The worst part was that I was barely moving. I would use the buildings on the shore as a marker. I would swim with all my might for 10 minutes, only to look over and see I’d barely overtaken half a building of space.
Remember how I said that the first half took a half hour?
By the time I was halfway through the second half, I had spent an hour. My click read 1.5 hours of swimming, and I still had a quarter mile to go at this grueling pace.
And yet, as the first sentence of this account proclaims, I did complete the full mile, and in roughly 2 hours.
Why did I do this? To seek out discomfort to further callous my mind and to prove to myself once again that my limits are far beyond my initial consideration.
I suppose part of why I did this was to show my ancestors that their bloodline of conquering the sea would remain alive in me. And conquer I did.
Seeking out discomfort to prove our bodies wrong about their limits is by far the healthiest, most empowering thing we can do.
Pick something that you don’t think you can do.
And then…
DO IT.
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1 Mile Ocean Swim
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