If you’re gonna swim, do it in Hawaii

I found myself in the pool a few times a week.  Ironman was calling.  My distances were getting longer.  Fighting that single lap led me to swim tens of laps.  However, 173 laps is a long way.

Then a breakthrough – one mile.  I was two and a half months out from Ironman and finally I got to one mile.  Did it help that I left the confines of my pool in the Hudson Valley to swim in the place where I learned to run?  Probably didn’t hurt.

But there, in Ko Oling Hawaii, where I had taken my first tentative steps as a runner just over four years ago, I swam my first mile.  Then my first mile and a half.  Then swimming day after day I made it – 2.4 miles in the pool.

Slow, agonizing sometimes (ok, it’s Hawaii, so “agonizing” is probably the wrong word).  Sometimes with legs full of cramps. Sometimes having to pause and stand up (which will not be viable in the Tennessee River on September 30 I know).  But I made it.

The lap pool below is where I swam my first 2.4 miles.  There is magic in Hawaii.  I am on my way to reaching my lifeboat.