Surrender

This past Friday, May 13th, I had the privilege of being on Iowa Public Radio's program, The Exchange, with Ben Kieffer. It was a half-hour interview, but it went by in a blink. It was a cold and rainy early afternoon, but the building that the radio station was in was very cozy and welcoming. As I drove home, I replayed the interview in my mind. The part of the conversation with Mr. Kieffer that stuck with me the most was when we discussed Lynne Cox, perhaps one of the greatest long distance swimmers the world has ever known. We had both read her book Swimming to Antarctica and I had talked about how the book had awakened me as a swimmer. The book had given me so much perspective and insight, along with many mental tools I have used in my training to prepare for my channel crossing in August. Gosh-it will be here in just 2 and a half months!

Early that same morning, I had been out swimming for a little over an hour in the frigid cold water of the Coralville Reservoir, with my brother kayaking by my side. We began at 5:30am while it was still dark. Putting your face into murky, slimy waters when it is still dark out, can be a little unsettling until you get used to it. Growing up with four brothers, I was always a tom boy, but brushing your hands against questionable slimy objects in those murky waters in the dark morning is enough to make anyone's toes crinkle up.

This past Monday after a weekend of rain and temperature drops, I headed out early again to do a two hour swim. The water temp was 58 degrees, with windy and cold air in the lower 40s. Probably not the smartest thing to do, but I figured we could at least try and get out of the water if I ran into trouble. The first half-hour of cold water swimming is always the hardest part because the cooled blood on the surface of your body is being pumped back into your core to be warmed up. The cold blood being pumped into your head can cause your head to pound and ache, just like an ice cream headache. Once that is past and I'm settled into my stroke, I don't notice the cold too much until I to stop to feed, or if I am passing through a pocket of water that is a couple of degrees colder.

You are probably wondering what a person thinks about when they are swimming for hours and hours with their face down in murky dark water, not seeing anything past their elbow. I thought I would be bored out of my mind, but the truth is, the time passes faster than when you can see where you are going in a lap pool. The unknown creates a lot of anticipation and never being able to look up and see a clock leaves you constantly wondering, "Hmmmmmm. I wonder what time it is. NO SHUT UP! It has probably only been 5 minutes since the last time you wondered. Get back to swimming!"

Back to Lynne Cox's book. After a long time swimming in the lake, my mouth tastes like I licked a frog. You know that fishy smell from your childhood when your dad was cleaning the cat fish he just caught? That is what I smell like and taste when I've been in the reservoir. I try very hard to keep my mouth closed, but water going into your nose and mouth is just something you have to accept. When it gets to be unbearable, I think back to chapter 8 in Lynn's book in which she swims a race in the Nile River.

During this chapter, she is invited to compete in a prestigious race in the Nile River. In Egypt, distance swimmers are worshipped just like famous soccer players or movie stars. Once there, she becomes very ill with dysentery because someone had filled her water bottle with water directly from the faucet. The public water systems in Egypt were anything but sanitary. Unable to stomach anything for days, she still competed in the race.

The Nile was a ditch of sludge and sewage. She could not see anything and is instantly covered in a layer of slime and oil residue. She passes by the dead bodies of fish, rats, garbage, and even puts her hand through the rib cage of a dead dog. At one point, the river is so shallow that she cuts her hand on some glass while pulling her arms through mud up to her elbows. After drifting into dehydration and hypothermia, she pulls out of the race and has to be rushed to the hospital.

Reading this chapter gave me so much respect for her. Her love for swimming and using that love to bring many countries together, inspires me as I use my love of swimming to unite people who want to find a cure for cancer. She not only swam the Nile, but began by crossing the Catalina Channel in her early teens, swimming the English Channel as a teenager, crossing the Bering Strait, and swimming in Antarctica-in only a plain swimming suit, goggles, and swim cap. She used her swimming to help ease the tensions between the U.S. and Russia during the cold war(Bering Strait swim), and also used her arctic swims to help aid valuable research in better understanding the effects of hypothermia on the human body.

Her mental strength is something incredible to behold. As I bury my face into that murky water and swim in frigid waters for multiple hours, I always think of her and those people I am doing this swim for: those who have fought or are currently fighting cancer.  As you can imagine, swimming in slimy, frigid water for hours on end is nothing compared to being stuck multiple times by needles, losing your hair, constantly being ill and weakened from chemotherapy, being disfigured or losing a valuable organ from surgery, staggering medical costs; all without a solid promise of a full recovery. These inspiring individuals surrender to the miserable things they must go through for months or even years, in order to hold on to their most precious gift: life. Please consider helping me use this swim to help honor those you love who have battled cancer. By providing seed money to the next generation of passionate researchers and fresh ideas, perhaps one day we can give cancer patients a promise of a full recovery and the promise of a future.
Please go to http://www.crossingforacure.com and make your donation today. Thank you!