Proof of life

Delightedly goofy?

Seven years ago, I would not have emerged from any body of water looking so goofily delighted (or vice versa).

Whenever I resurfaced back then, the result resembled the pic from a previous post (below), indicating the throes of death or imminent hospitalization.

On land or at sea, not a good look.

It's the way I would have looked that spring, after the canoeing instructors had required all us scoutmasters and assistant scoutmasters to swim out a distance, maybe 50 yards, in a lake before the weekend clinic began, just to show we could. I flopped ashore as nonchalantly as a sea elephant, trying very hard to keep my death-rattle pant under radar, and to avoid, if at all possible, making the lead story on the evening news, about the tragic death of a scout leader who really should have known better. And it's certainly how I looked that summer, after the summer camp waterfront directors had given me another try to complete 16 lengths of a pool-sized swim area, as part of the requirements to become a Boy Scout lifeguard. I made it, barely; it's difficult as a lifeguard to convey a sense of confidence among swimmers when you can hardly save yourself.

After those embarrassments, I began swimming for my exercise, and it became my happy habit. Early on, I set a goal of swimming from Alcatraz Island to San Francisco, and eventually realized that my homegrown hurky-jerky swimming technique (or lack thereof) would never get me from Point A(lcatraz) to Point B. After stumbling upon a technique called Total Immersion, I have followed it faithfully, and I think it's finally going to get me across that ship channel. I swim amid the crowd for Sharkfest 2011 June 25. No wetsuit. Can't wait!

Looking back on another 1.3 mile swim on Folsom Lake …

{In addition to the personal challenge, I'm also swimming as part of Team Hydro, to raise money for research into hydrocephalus, a brain disease affecting more than a million Americans. The money raised from each Team Hydro member sponsors the Kate Finlayson Memorial Grant for Hydrocephalus Research. Kate passed away from complications linked to hydrocephalus; she underwent more than 100 brain operations to treat her condition, and lived in chronic pain. Her brother Peter started Team Hydro to honor his sister's brave spirit and and example. All donations toward the grant and all contributions are fully tax-deductible.

You can donate on my Team Hydro Website (and/or see what a terrible fundraiser I am to date, take pity on me and change matters for the better; you'll also see I'm raising the money in honor of my parents, Bonnie and Bill, who had their own life-threatening conditions and passed away from heart attacks, but would have been at once thrilled and horrified that I was swimming Alcatraz.)

Or mail donations to: 
Hydrocephalus Association
Team Hydro — Sharkfest
870 Market Street, Suite 705
San Francisco, CA 94102
(indicate Sharkfest 2011)}

Sure, to you it's Jack Lalanne's
"before" photo, but it's definitely
Shawn Turner's "after" photo
from seven years before.

Total Immersion is (my description) an  old-person's swim technique, designed for folks who never really swam before. It teaches that hips drive swimmers, not arms and legs, and since I've used it, my shoulders no longer burn with stress. Many really good swimmers come by this technique naturally, and I've had to relearn how to swim in order to achieve it. Total Immersion gets its share of eye-rolls and gentle derision from some other swimmers who have grown up with the sport, which I find funny. They're right: I'll never be the fastest, but I am faster than I was, and I don't ache at the end of the swim. And all I want to do is swim … and maybe not be last in any swim.

I'm either so lightning quick with my movements that my
photographer son could not catch them, or I swim armless
like an overturned tugboat. Probably that.

Even before my first Alcatraz crossing, I've set my sights on more. I hope within the year to swim the six miles or so (with the current!) from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge, and to swim four miles along the length of Lake Natoma this summer.

How my wife feels about my swimming.
No, she really likes it, but really wants me not to
drown. She probably also wishes I would post
a better picture.

Fun swimming postscript: My swimming friend Tom tells me about a Florida cancer surgeon, John "Lucky" Meisenheimer, who opens his spacious lake home to the world each morning, to join him in a 1-kilometer round trip in the crocodile-inhabited lake that edges his property. Swimmers come from all over the world, and each swimmer writes his/her name on a wall and gets a patch, and swimmers who reach certain accumulated distances earn more accolades. He's larger than life, and he also organizes for Special Olympics swimming events. A good guy. If I'm ever in Orlando, I'm heading there instead of Disneyworld.