Now I had a choice. I could drink and drown, or go thirsty. Obviously I chose not to drown and thus not to drink - at least not what was now a questionable and scary mixture of ice tea and brown lake water. I let go of the LDSND, my paddler dutifully pulled it back to the boat and I returned to swimming.
Long distance swimming is an endurance event for the mind. Swimming 10k is just a few painful steps beyond mind-numbing, CPAN-watching, grass-growing, long ass lecture-listening, cross-country-car-trip-through-Nebraska, international-flight-with-no-movies, brain-frying dull.
There's really nothing new to see, to hear, to smell, to taste, to feel, to think. Except for cold water.
I remember swimming just past the halfway point of the race and asking my paddler how much farther I had to go. He was a great older guy who had brought along a handheld GPS. Here's a hint to all you would-be open water swim support paddler types. When your swimmer asks you how much further the finish line is, lie through your teeth. Say something like, "Oh let me check," and don't bother to turn on the GPS as you look down at it with furrowed brow. "Well look here, it says that you have only about a quarter of a mile left to go. Just keep on swimming, Flipper."
Believe me, the last thing in the world your fragile swimmer wants to know is the painful and precise distance of 3.06 miles left to go.
The other really nasty secret of open water swimming is that it can be truly, utterly cold. I don't mean the kind of, "Please close the window, honey, I'm a bit chilly " cold. Or even that kind of, "I know I should have a much thicker sleeping bag tonight as the temperature drops" cold. The cold I'm talking about is that "I'll swim 10k when hell freezes over" type of cold. At the end of the swim I was so cold that my eyeballs had goose bumps - and they were snug inside my goggles.
The other vivid memory I have of that day is how much I just really wanted to stop swimming. I recall swimming by a happy, frolicking family, barbecuing lunch in the sun on the beach. It took all of my mental strength not to make a sharp left turn, drag myself out of the water like some hideous, bumpy prune-creature, steal a burger and beer, plop down on the sand and tell my paddler to go meet me at the finish. Especially after I asked him how much further to the finish and he informed me that I still had 3.04 miles to go.
Ahhhhhhh!
So as not to keep you in suspense any longer, I did indeed finish the swim, in a time of about 4h 15min. The exact time really doesn't matter that much as I was at the butt end of the spear of swimmers.
As I recall the winner finished in around 2h 20 min. If you do the math, that translates to about 1:10/100. For all of you hardcore swimmers, image swimming a 1:10 per 100-yard pace for 10k, and you'll really understand the difference between me and a double Channel Swimmer.
I just remember the wonderful relief I felt as I stumbled out of the water. And just like at the finish of an ironman, they actually have handlers who will support you as you climb out of the water …except of course that these handlers are very wet. After more than four hours of being horizontal, the body can get a bit a shaky when returning to the vertical.
I also must thank my friend Allen, who swam with me but much further ahead of me. He saved my left shoulder from the permanent damage sustained by my right shoulder. After the swim I was unable to raise my arms above my head so I took advantage of the free massage. I should have known I was in deep, deep trouble when the devil who called himself a message therapist informed me that he did not believe in message, but instead he used pressure and release.
The excruciating pain on my face must have been a dead giveaway to Allen as this demon from the bowels of hell twisted my right arm into a salty pretzel. Luckily, Allen notices my tears and rescued me from further torture by saying we had to leave. As we slowly drove back around the lake to the start and my car, in between excruciating spasm of pain darting up my spine from my right shoulder, I remember thinking to myself: 'I swam a crazy long way.'
