I had left my hotel room 45 minutes earlier in early dawn wearing my favorite CMSC (Cambridge Masters Swim Club) hooded sweatshirt, shorts, and sandals thinking that there might be a cool breeze coming off the Chesapeake Bay. No such luck. The thermometer was already above 70 degrees fahrenheit, and the humidity was cranked before the day began. My favorite hoodie was removed and left in the car in favor of cooler duds.  I had hydrated well for the race. So well that the entire eight hour drive from Boston to Annapolis seemed to involve as many bathroom breaks as their was toll plazas on the highway, bridge, and tunnel systems that connected the Northeast Corridor. I had not had the best nights sleep the night before, either, taking frequent trips to the bathroom. I am not sure if it was the hydration, the nerves, or both. A four mile race would be, if I finished, the longest race I had ever swam. I had grown up swimming competitively and my tall frame and long arms and legs pushed me towards sprinting in high school and college. The wear and tear of being big & tall, some back injuries, and age had slowed down my turnover, and increased my pain tolerance. Suddenly, I could swim a thousand yards at a pace and hold it together. I couldn’t sprint to save my life. Flip turns took too much air out of me. So, the sprinter began edging towards open water distance. Give me freedom from flip turns, and let people think I am crazy. It’s a perfect way to start my thirties.

It was a cold December lunch hour in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when I decided to put my name into the lottery to see if I could get into the Chesapeake Bay Swim. It’s a unique race – 4.4 miles is just long enough to be considered a prelude to a long distance swim, but short enough where it is still achieveable by moderately trained recreational swimmers. Newbies and triathletes generally strayed away from the distance, which made it truly a great swimming race, for a swimming race sake. It’s a qualifier race – to finish a race of this length would put me into contention for longer races like my personal mecca the 8 mile Boston Harbor solo swim. Finish this, get to that. However, it’s an in demand race, and the lottery for entry, it’s tight deadlines for entry fees, travel, and preparation meant that if I put my name in, and got picked, I’d really have to do it. Up until this point, I had done one open water race a month during the summer months for the past two years. All were no longer than 1.2 miles. Walks in the park compared to 4.4 miles. 1.2 miles would involve swimming a loop, and a grand total of 20 – 35 minutes swimming. 4.4 miles, the time goes up exponentially… Probably more in the area of 3 to 3.5 hours of continuous swimming. With any open water races, I would also have to include extra distance as well. Taking in account currents, tides, wind, weather, and buoy drift, a mile swim could add another quarter to half mile in distance spend just trying to keep on course.  Swimming 4.4 miles could mean theoretically swimming up to 6 to 6.5 miles when all was said and done.

I entered the lottery against all calls of sanity. I was going to discover what my body could handle as a distance swimmer, and finish the race if I got into it. I was not sure how, or even quite sure why. I just liked the challenge of it.

And, sure enough, my name got picked. Booyah…  My patient and supportive wife Wilma (name changed for the sake of her own sanity), smiled and nodded. A year before our whirlwind romance that led to marriage had involved us getting engaged BEFORE she had experienced being a spectator for my first open water swim. That swim, coming a week after I popped the question, was the 1.2 mile Charles River swim in Boston that was swam on a rainy Sunday morning, with weather that was showing a strong chance of thunderstorms. She nearly had a heart attack watching me struggle the back half mile in the middle of the Charles River with the buildings of MIT silhouetted behind ominous dark clouds. I went on to do two more races that summer. One where she got severely sunburned. The other she had to spend time with my family, AND it was the morning after our first really, really, really big fight (We made up. It was our last really, really, really big fight.). By the end of the summer, she saw that I was hopelessly committed to not having simple hobbies, and let me go with a smile. I’d get to swim the Chesapeake Bay, and she’d get a nice weekend away with her husband.

I got accepted into the swim, paid the entry fee. Filled in the appropriate boxes. Signed my life away, and then realized that for the first time in a loooooonnnggg time I really needed to actually train for a swimming race. After 25 years of competitive swimming, I can swim better then I can walk. So, I can get away with races in the 1 mile distance without hurting myself too bad. I had been casually training a couple times a week on my own, keeping a feel for the water and avoiding the gradual onset of middle age. Ahem. Okay, slowing it down. Ahem. Okay, making excuses. I joined the Cambridge Masters Swim Club, got a coach, real practices, and my ass kicked hard from January to June. I mean, they really kicked my ass, and handed it to me all floppy and stuff. But, I built up some extra endurance, or at least, I built up enough of a base in the couple of months, where I felt a bit more confident that I could make a good effort at finishing 4.4 miles without SERIOUSLY HURTING MYSELF….

Also, I kind of enjoyed the ass kicking. I slept better then I had in years.

Like every great professional open water swimmer (yes, there are some), my training, diet, and workout schedule came together perfectly in the weeks leading up to the swim. Yeah, fuck, right. I was slammed with a volume of work at my job as an associate IT computer nerd that would have been delegated to a 50 person department at Microsoft, or laughed at as being unnecessary and frivolous, and thereby removed from the production process by Apple. Due to some unexpected family expenses, I had to take extra hours at my second job as a lifeguard in the evenings instead of going to practice. I snuck in short swims at my break, but mostly spent hours watching people swim. My explosively developing comedy career (in my mind) had several shows booked on the other open evenings when I was not playing Baywatch. I had IT certification classes, and CPR recertification classes.  My sister decided that now would be the perfect time to move, and being a good big, little brother (*she’s older, I’m bigger*) I opened up a couple weekends to helping her pack and get her house ready to be put on the market.  I had a wife who I barely saw because of all this other stuff who I actually liked spending time with. The days flew by. I snuck in what swimming I could, I tried to prepare mentally for the race. I ate a lot of protein. I hydrated so well, I could claim hours spend in the bathroom as another job. The week before the race, Wilma got a call from her Mom that her Pop had taken a fall, and had a stroke. His ailing health was already an issue that cause her a lot of stress. That her family was also 3000 miles away in Oregon while she sat in our apartment in Dorchester, Massachusetts, didn’t help. I maxed out my credit card, and we got her a plane ticket out there to be with her family. We couldn’t afford two tickets, otherwise, I might well have gone with her. I liked my in laws a lot, and was worried about them honestly.

“No, you stay and do the swim.” Wilma said. “It’s a big goal for you, and I want you to achieve it. I’ll take care of things in Oregon. You swim the race.”

So, I went to Annapolis. I paid a whole mess of tolls on the highways. I visited just about every rest stop to pee. I attempted to hold onto any remains of a decent diet. Though when I man speaking with a heavy cajun – creole accent working at Papa Gino’s at a New Jersey rest stop describes a slice of cheese pizza, I really could have sworn he was talking gumbo and rice. I did my best.  I also got a great story of how he escaped New Orleans during Katrina. But, that’s for another blog.

I got to Annapolis on a warm afternoon the day before the race. I checked into the hotel. Dropped my stuff, used the bathroom for the millionth time, and jumped back into the car to find my way to the race course,  and where I would park the next morning. I was secretly also trying to scout a place to maybe swim before the race, hoping that little extra swim would stretch my arms out, and make the race happen better in the morning. I had passed through this area and over the Bay bridges before on a road trip South. I remember the massive expanse of the two bridges that seemed to go on for miles, and having to sit in traffic while one bridge was raised for a tanker ship heading out to sea to pass underneath. But, that was 15 years ago. I cruised along Rt 50 West, and came around the bend to see the two bridges stretching for what seemed like hundreds of miles into the haze ahead of me. I almost peed in my pants in more ways then one. I paid the toll and followed traffic onto the Westbound bridge. It took about 15 minutes to cross end to end.

Between the two bridges, crossing the exact directions I had passed, would be the race course. I’d swim almost the entire four miles parallel to the two bridges, keeping between the pilons and trussels that seemed miles below.

I went from nervous to scared. I’ll admit. It psyched me out then and there. I no longer wanted to go for a swim. I no longer even wanted to know where to park. I didn’t want to do the swim at all. I…was…fucking…scared….

I wanted to turn around and go home. Or, at least, go hide in my hotel room. I found the parking lot. I turned around, and I drove back over the bridges. Even from this perspective, I was absolutely lost.

I sat on my bed in my hotel room for about an hour. I called Wilma. Her Pop was doing okay, and she was pulling the night shift in the hospital with him. She was holding it together. I should hold it together, too. I talked about the race. Time to actually do it.

People ask me a lot if I get nervous before getting up on stage to perform my comedy routine. I politely shrug away the question, saying “Sure. You just get used to it with practice.”  Those nerves scare new comedians away all the time. The reality of have to be present and vulnerable in front of an audience expecting that you will make them laugh is daunting. For me, that pre set nervousness is more like an anxiousness. It’s about preparation. Getting my mind ready for what might come in the short time I am onstage.  It’s about wanting to get onstage and get it over with. I am not nervous about getting up there. I am impatient about having to wait to do so.

Talking to Wilma calmed me down a bit. She told her family about the race, and they all wished me good luck, and wanted to hear how it went. I got my head back together. I dedicated my race to her and her family. I was going to have a great story to tell when I finished.  (If I finished…) Like getting up on the comedy stage, facing down a race of this magnitude is really no different. I have my comedy routine, an ongoing work in progress, but I can trust it. I have my ability to swim. It, too, is an ongoing work in progress, but again, I am confident that I can swim better then I can walk.

And, I was one of about 800 swimmers, most of whom were probably feeling the same way.

On the beach at Sandy Point State Park, I watched the sun rise across the water, and the bridges, which seemed to go for miles begin to light up. The other side of the Bay, the Marina, and the finish line were shrouded in warm haze and humidity. For one day a year, the Coast Guard and the Chesapeake Bay grant a permit to stop all Bay boat traffic between 8AM and 12 noon coming through the Bay in order for the swim to go off. A Carnival Cruise ship leaving port for the Bahamas was the last boat to be let under the bridge, and it caught the attention of most of the swimmers and myself. The bridges curved in the middle creating an optical illusion that made them seem smaller and shorter then they were. The Cruise ship went under the bridge and passed 2 miles out in the center shipping lane growing larger and larger as it passed us on the beach.

This Bay swim is actually a very well run race. Lin Mark, a sports event company runs the race, and organizers had brought together hundreds of volunteers, miles of red tape, oogles of logistics, special boaters, the Coast Guard, kayakers, and all the swimmers. We all had to wear electronic timing ankle  bracelets, held by velcro that tracked our time intervals. There was an armada of support boats, and kayakers. The Coast Guard and the Naval Academy had boats supporting. There were two helicopters circling overhead. One with medivac capabilities. This was easily the most complex and most well organized race I had ever been a part of. That there were two waves of 300 or so swimmers pushing off 30 minutes apart… well, let’s just say it was nice to know there was that much support. I had swam races where the support was a couple of teenage lifeguards sunning themselves on surfboards.

The race director, a cool dude named Chuck, who had been managing the race for the last 19 years, gave us a pre race briefing. We’d swim off the beach at the park, make a diagonal bee line for two buoys that would mark the entrance to the bridge lane, and then follow the bridges across for most of the race. Two buoys would mark where we would turn out of the bridge lane, and follow a sand bar to the Marina and the finish line. The timing of the race was important. Heavy rains had flooded the  Bay. At the start of the race, the tides were just finishing their descent to low tide. Under the bridges, we’d feel a push to our left when we started until we got out into the shipping lane… The average swimmer would hit the middle mile when the tides were changing… The challenge would be battling the tide going in while we swam the last several miles. The tide would want to push us to the right of the bridge lane.

The trick was if we got pushed out of the bridge lane into, through, or around any of the giant bridge supports, we’d be automatically pulled from the race and disqualified. Tides and currents can be a big deal. In the case of the race course, the massive cement bridge supports caused some tricky currents if you swam too close to them. You could literally get vaccummed into a mini rip tide, and support boats would have trouble getting to you. However, the actual distance between the two bridges was more then 100 yards – almost two football fields. There was a lot of room to swim. The smart swimmer would start on the right side of the bridge lane for the first few miles, working with the current, which would slowly push you left… In the middle miles in the shipping lane you’d then be able to swim during the lee tide without being pushed around much. You’d then be in perfect position for when the tide pushed back – on the left side of the lane for the remaining distance. This was the theoretical strategy… One that I kept in mind. I didn’t want to be swept out of the race because of a tide or current. If I was going to be DQ’d it better be for something better then that.

I was park of the first wave of swimmers, about 350 lining the beach for the start, all wearing the ultra sexy neon green caps with our numbers on them. The start was a count down from 10 seconds and an air horn. Open Water Race starts are chaotic… It’s a hundred swimmers bouncing off the beach into the water and volleying for space. This was my first experience with several hundred swimmers bounding off the beach and be bottled into a small lane.

The first thing I noticed about the water was that it was incredibly warm. According to the race director, it was 71 degrees – unseasonably warmed by the rain run off – but a great temperature as it meant there was no fear of hypothermia. My body would be able to regulate it’s temperature well. Finding a clear space to swim was the real immediate problem. There were hundred of hands and feat all around me. The Chesapeake is a sandy bottom bay, which, due to the large amount of activity, means that there is a large amount of sediment in the water. Dirt, people. Lots of dirt. I could not see my hand ahead of me. But, I was swept up in the draft of all the swimmers around me and the first 1/4 mile to the bridge lane entrance flew by in between getting punched and kicked. It was good to know I was not the only one taking a beating. Such is the nature of the beast. Swimmers have strategies about the starts of these races – start from the outside, or the back, or the front and swim fast. None of them worked for this race. In the case of this one, because the swim to the  bridges was diagonal, and the sheer volume of swimmers aiming for the entrance of the bridge lane was so large, the only thing I could do was keep turning my arms over and move whenever my arms or feet hit someone. C’est la swim.

Entering the bridge lane was probably the most incredible visual experience I had ever had swimming. Granted, most swimming is done in swimming pools where you get used to looking at the line at the bottom of the pool that you start giving it names like Gulliver, Arsenal, or Bob and soon you start talking to it. Things get weird when it starts talking back. Open water races are devoid of much visual impressions. You spend most of the race looking down into murky black water. You learn to “sight” – picking your head up to make sure you are still aiming in the right direction – and that’s about the extent of visual cues. In past races, I was lucky enough to be able to see far enough in front of me under water where I could see the bubbles of someone kicking their feet. In the Bay, no such luck. What I had instead were the bridges. One to my left, and one to my right. And, they were huge. Looming hundreds of feet above me. Somewhere between mile one and two I the crowd thinned out enough where I could settle into a rhythm and just breath each stroke and sight based on a rough estimate of where I was to the bridge on the right. I could guide myself without really sighting foward. I took occasional glances forward to see where I was headed, and the bridge created a dizzying optical illusion as it curve ahead, miles away. I also made sure I stayed as left as I could. It turned out I was in a pack of about 20 swimmers somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Distance swimming is about putting off the pain and burning in your arms and legs for as long as possible. Like marathon runners, you learn how to swim right up to your aeorbic threshold – that line between comfortable swimming and heavy lactic acid burn – and just stick it for hell or high water. For me, at this point, slow and steady win the race. My freestyle, aka Crawlstroke, has a minor flaw in the technique. Because of an injury to my lower back, my arms and legs work separately from each other. Most swimmers learn to have them work simultaneously. I am several years away from finding that technique again, so a majority of the power from my stroke comes from my arms. My kick acts more like a rudder then propulsion. So, in training for the race, I just mentally found what the aerobic line was for my arms to support. If it meant I was dead last, but I finished, then I had done my job. This was no easy feat, and I am still wondering when I figured out what my particular pace was for this. But, it seemed to work for the time being.

So, I found my rhythm and I just focused on keeping my arms going. The view for the first two miles, the volleying for position, and the adrenaline kept my attention and spirit up. I had “Roots Radicals” by Rancid stuck in my head. A great song to sing to yourself for long periods of time. I tried to change the lyrics to fit Boston landmarks… As I approached the mile 2 marker, I celebrated passing the distance that was my longest open water swim to date. As my body began to realize it as swimming, and not, say, sitting in a car, it began moving blood away from places like my brain to feed more vital things like the arms that were steadily cranking. I let my mind drift into day dreams as my arms cranked beside me. I swam right past the “Rest & Fuel Boat” at mile 2 where swimmers were lined up for Gatorade, Water, Cookies, and Bananas. I felt good. Somewhere in there I had started repeating the mantra “Feeling Good, Getting Better.” In practices, I found that it took my body a while to warm up on longer swims. I was feeling better at the end of practice than I was at the beginning. This I though worked to my advantage. And the mantra, carried me to about mile 2.25… Which was when I began to really feel the distance.

Every time I looked up, the bridge seemed to stretch onwards into the haze. I didn’t feel like I was making much forward progress. I still had plenty of green caps around me, so I was far from along. The bridge did move along with me to my right and left. I hit the middle shipping lane and felt the current pushing me right ease off… At the same time, my arms began to ache, and my hands were going numb from being water logged. It was about that time when I was passed by a number of fast moving swimmers in neon pink caps. These were the more experienced, faster swimmers of the second wave, that had made up nearly 30 minutes of time and they past me like I was standing still. Seeing this sent me into a bit of an emotional tail spin of doubt… I was getting tired, and my brain slowly losing the battle with my arms for blood. I was getting moody…I kept my arms going, stopped looking forward, and began moving to the left in expectation of the changing tide. My mind drift off again… In open water swimming, there is a degree of sensory deprivation that begins to set in on longer swims. This can be a good and bad thing. Good because my conscious brain is eating the endorphins that are being created from the pain in my muscles, and therefore is checking out for a bit and just letting my body focus on moving. But, bad, because then I was sort of losing my ability to make conscious decisions about things. If I was not careful, I could drift into one of the giant cement bridge supports, or worse veer way off course, hurting myself, and disqualifying me from the race.

I had to fight my way back to being conscious of my swimming. The great open water swimmer Lynne Cox, in her book Swimming to Antartica said that when she got into this state she forced herself to consciously count ever stroke to a certain goal usually 1000 strokes. The act of having to force yourself to keep track of whether you were on stroke 249 or 657 was enough to keep your mind actively occupied at the work at hand. I chose to count to 500.  I gave myself a pat on the back when I got cleanly to 250, and then again at 500. That worked so well, I did it again. My technique improved. I steered myself to the correct side of the lane. My mood improved drastically…. Between the mile 2 marker, and the mile 3 marker, I counted to 500 strokes 3 times. I then counted to 700 strokes 3 times. That meant, if I counted correctly I took 3700 strokes. In a normal 25 yard lap pool it usually takes me about 12 strokes to do one length of the pool.  In competition in pools, a mile is 1650 yards, or around 66 lengths of the pool. 66 x 12 = 792 strokes in a perfectly flat controlled lap pool with turns and nice lines on the bottom named Stewart Copeland after the assholic Police drummer.

That also meant that I was taking a lot of strokes to cross the last mile and a half. I tried to sight if I was swimming in a straight line, and it turned out I was not… The tide had turned on me between my miles 1.5 and 3… And I was fighting to go straight, but, adjusting without really realizing it to stay straight. By sighting the bridge to my side, I did not realize how much I was really moving around to stay on course. I was swimming at a slight diagnonal at time trying to stay as far to the left side of the bridge lane as I could, while being pushed involuntarily out to the right….

At mile 3, there was another Rest & Fuel boat with guys giving out water, gatorade, bananas, and cookies. I thought it would be a good idea to stop and refuel. Some sugar might give my muscles something extra to burn. But, I also began to feel my arms were slowly starting to succumb to lactic acid. They were shutting down on me, and I was afraid that if I stopped at all, I’d lose the rhythm that they seemed to be able to maintain almost like robots. It was beyond my control at this point. Instead of stopping, I decided to skip the boat and keep going. I could just barely see the other shore appearing through the haze, and I hoped that would be enough motivation for my arms to keep turning. Oddly, all the counting and sighting had improved my mood, but made me very aware of the distance I had covered and still had to go. I could see the end of the bridges, and they looked…so… far…away….

I past the 3.25 mile marker and things started to go bad. I was hit with an overwhelming thirst – a craving for Gatorade. I knew my body was getting to the end of it’s immediate reserves of blood sugar and water. My impulse was to wish I had stopped at the boat at mile 3. But, I also realized that my body had more then enough fat and longer harder burning supplies to work with if it needed to, I just needed to let that transition happen. My body would start to work on it’s long term fat supplies, breaking that down for fuel. It would not make for an easy final mile and a half, but, I could get through this.

I bonked at mile 3.5…. Somewhere between that initial thirst feeling, and around mile 3.5 my body showed me that it was not the well trained 19 year old swimming 10,000 yards a day. I had forgotten that I was a barely training 31 year old. First my legs started cramping, though they were barely being used. Oxygen that had been used to balance them out was being redirected away to my arms. My arms meanwhile were giving in to such a severe lactic burn, that I literally just stopped stroking. Stopped dead in the water…. Marathon runners and triathletes talk about “bonking”  – when their body just gives out on them – and they just stop running, and go sit on the curb. I had about 50 feet of water underneath me, and a stubborn need to finish the race. I knew I was within a mile or so of the finish. Closer then ever. But, my arms just stopped. My legs were cramping. And I was in a boat load of trouble.

Floating with my head up, lost in the middle of the water, I was seconds from raising my arm and signaling a support boat that I was done. I was deperately in trouble. I was fighting mentally to restart my body and push on stubbornly. I also found myself drifting sideways to the right with the oncoming tide towards to right side bridge…. This was bad. The closer to the right I went, the more it meant I would be fighting to keep from drifting off the race course… More diagonal swimming then forward swimming. Just from the feel of the current, I realized it would be almost sideways swimming.

The great author Douglas Adams, who I revere to this day. May he rest in peace. A quote from his book The Hitchikers Guide from the Galaxy came into my head.

“DON’T PANIC.”

Really? Because I am panicing. I am so seconds from calling it quits. Throwing in my towel…

I can’t throw in my towel.

Douglas Adams again:

“A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”

I cannot throw in my towel. I cannot be without.

And, goddamn it, I am not going to get this close to the finish and not finish.

My body can swim one stroke in this state fairly well. The breaststroke. Not having to raise my arms out of the water gave them a chance to rest. My legs could a actually do some work, and get the oxygen they suddenly desperately crave. So, don’t panic. Breaststroke, baby.

This began an excruciating mile of taking several strokes forward doing breaststroke, followed by several strokes sideways of freestyle. I am not a very fast breaststroker, and it seemed with every stroke forward, I was getting caught in the current and pushed towards the bridge supports. I made slow progress for an unknown amount of time. I began being able to see the buoys that marked the escape route from the bridge lane to the sandbar that I could swim the final quarter mile to the finish. But, the current was intense, and I spent the last ten bridge supports screaming into the crawlstroke to avoid colliding with them before breastroking forward and sideways in the current to the next one. I came up to the buoys crying in pain. My arms shot. I made on more great effort around the last bridge support and buoy and drift under the bridge on the current, floating sideways until I could see the sand bar ahead of me, and the finish a quarter mile off.

For the first time in several miles I could see the bottom of the water. Ahead of me were several swimmers, many of whom fought the same fight with the current I did. They stopped and stood up on the sandbar and walked. It was a desperate attempt to keep moving when nothing else worked. One of the kayak support boats floated by me.

“You’re so close. You can walk if you need to.”

It was against everything I thought of for a race. But, even the breaststroke seemed impossible. I put my feet down into the sand. Standing horizontal, I could feel my blood flowing back into my feet, and I found I had enough energy to get them moving and push along the bottom. This was not swimming anymore. This was surviving. I sort of duck walked for several hundred feet, and switched to the breast stroke. I alternated between walking and swimming the last quarter of a mile. My body had nothing left. I was wiped out. I was going to finish.

As I closed into the finish line I saw the time clock listing the hours click over to three hours. I had been swimming almost continuously for three hours.

I walked to the finish line. Walked up and passed the electronic timer clocking in at 3:00.27….

Back on dry land, I felt lost. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t feel. There were hundreds of swimmers in similar states. Volunteers were collecting the timing bands, helping people out of their wetsuits, and directing us to food stands. I floated to a station where some Navy Academy cadets were handing out bottles of Gatorade. I took and drank two in quick succession. Took and drank two more. I sat on a chair and nearly cried in relief.

I collected my bag… Before even getting out of my wetsuit, I called Wilma.

“I finished!” I said.

“Yay! Good job! I am proud of you!”

Yay me.

The final walk home from the T station is a seven minute forced march straight down Sydney Street. On a good night, the street flies by, and I am putting my key in the lock, kicking my shoes off, and getting ready to make sure my cats don’t run out the door when I open it. On a bad night, the walk seems to take ages. I am 7 minutes from home, and it’s like hours. I am physically tired from a tough swim practice. It was out first night swimming long course, and my body is just not used to the extra distance. My leg and arm muscles are aching quietly, pleading for protein, ibuprohem and sleep. I am limping a little. Both my heals have blisters on them from new sneakers that are breaking in slowly. Every step comes with a piercing jab of pain. I try to walk lightly on the ball of my feet, making for an awkward gate with my long legs, and normally heavy step. I can usually just set my headphones on to whatever audiobook I am listening to – tonight it’s Christopher Hitchen’s last two chapters of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, a Biography – and lose reality for a short period, but the book is mentally demanding. More mental than I can really handle after a work day and tiring practice. So, I am sans headphones, walking with an awkward gate, tired, mentally drained, in pain, and I can’t seem to make any progress towards home. Sydney Street wears on into the darkness. A warm, pleasant breeze blows cooling the sweat on the brow, but adding little comfort.

An African American woman appears ahead of me from the darkness into the light of the street lamp. She is walking towards the T in her Mass General nursing scrubs, heading to work the overnight shift. She sees me, and her face contorts to what I consider the worst look any human can make towards me, the “God, you’re so tall.” bullshit look. Given that my height comes with the need for intense patience with people making a big deal about my size several times a day, everyday, I normally can handle the attention. Every so often, I am just not in the mood, though. In those darker moods, I pass by as they try to talk to me, brushing them off with “Don’t start with that shit right now…” I then spent the next hour feeling guilty about being so selfish. The combination of things tonight did not have me in the right mood for the attention. It had me in the very wrong mood. Very, very, very wrong mood. I put my head down and steeled myself for the encounter. I will my feet to move a bit faster.  Soon she was next to me.

“You remind me of my grandfather…” she said.

That was a new one. It caught me off guard. Stunned, I stopped in my tracks.

“Really? I got my height from my grandfather…” I stuttered in reply. I realized that sounded dumb, or maybe it didn’t. Catching up with myself, my dark mood swam over me again. I almost walked on.

She continued “He was very tall. Almost as tall as you. My grandmother was shorter, like me. My father, his son, was also tall but not as much. My mother was short, like me. I saw you walking, and you reminded me of my grandfather.”

I stopped again. I was lost in the logic, and my mind, muddled, needed an explanation.

“Wow. Well, I hope I can be as good of a tall man, as your grandfather was.” I said. That was the dumbest thing I had said all day. I swore under my breath. Now, I was stuck in the conversation, and I felt awkward. The woman did not seem to notice.

“My grandfather. My grandmother. My father. My mother. They were all killed in the Rwanadan Genocide in 1994. I escaped, as a child. But, they did not. You remind me of my grandfather.”

That hit me like a ton of bricks. That was very real. In 1994, somewhere in the area 800,000 people were assasinated in a mass killing in Rwanda. The event slipped in and out of my consciousness. I awkwardly unable to process that information at the moment, and that the most recent reminder I had of that atrocity was the movie Hotel Rwanada with Don Cheadle.

“Wow…uh… I’m sorry for your loss. I hope the reminder has happy thoughts.” I stuttered.

“It is hard, but, yes, there are happy thoughts. You gave me a happy thought, that has some sad too. Thank you for stopping.”

She walked on before I could reply. I watched her walk the rest of the way down the street to the T station. I turned around and limped home, feeling slightly lost. Here I am wrapped up in list of my own problems and exhaustion, and then I was presented with THAT. What does one do with that sort of information? Have a missed those stories more often then I think because of the repetition of being confronted with the size question so often, that I forget I have an opportunity to find out a story from those that ask. In my awkward inability to socialize, I forget that I have an easy ice breaker that opens conversation with people. Opens there world to me, if I just open my world a little to them.

I also wish I had not been in such a mess at the time, because I missed a chance to discover a bigger personal story of an event that was very intense to experience from a distance. I cannot imagine what would have happened to that story if I had experienced it in person. I am kicking myself for not getting her name or a number or something to follow up with her. Maybe she would want to tell her story. Maybe not. I am hoping I might run into her again in the neighborhood.

Article:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/04/16/mansfield_perplexed_over_threat_to_sports/

Text:

MANSFIELD — Residents of this middle-class suburb knew public schools were proposing cuts in teachers and services to close a budget gap, but few were prepared for the news that rippled through town yesterday, that the School Committee had voted to eliminate high school sports.

“Mansfield is a really big sports town,’’ said Kevin Mutascio, a senior at Mansfield High School. “No sports. No drama. No band. No orchestra. It seems kind of surreal.’’

Facing a $1.8 million budget gap despite dropping 44 staff positions including some teachers, School Committee members said they had little choice but to eliminate sports, a move that would be a first in Massachusetts’ budget crunch. But even as members of the panel insisted their decision was no idle threat, many in town were skeptical, and suspected that officials are trying to exploit residents’ fondness for high school sports to galvanize public support for a possible tax override later this spring, and pressure teachers into accepting contract concessions.

“I can’t see it happening,’’ said Christine Hernon, as she watched two of her children compete yesterday in a track meet at Mansfield High School, which boasts top-flight sports facilities. “People will start sending their kids to private schools. It doesn’t make sense.’’

Across the state, calls to eliminate high school sports to avoid teacher layoffs and other spending cuts have intensified in recent years. But even in the bruising budget battles of the past few years, the threats have never become reality. And many now see such declarations as public relations ploys meant to rally public support.

“In some cases it’s used to push a tax override, and in others it’s used to increase the budget,’’ said Paul J. Wetzel, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, the state’s governing body for high school sports. “You take the most popular thing and say, ‘It’s gone, unless we do something.’ People usually respond.’’

Still, the Mansfield vote reflects a growing trend to privatize the cost of interscholastic sports, Wetzel and others say. As schools struggle with soaring health insurance and special education costs, they are increasingly shifting the expense of sports to those who participate, both on the field and in the stands.

A majority of Massachusetts public schools now charge students to join athletic teams and rely more heavily on booster clubs and other private donations.

“Boosters used to sell coffee and hot dogs at the football games, and that was about it,’’ Wetzel said. “Now it’s much more organized and much more significant.’’

After Hull voters rejected a $1.6 million tax increase last spring, school officials cut the entire athletic budget, but private sponsors and parents picked up the slack.

Athletic directors said that just 3 percent of a typical school budget goes toward sports, while well over half of students play on at least one team.

Participation in sports, they added, seems linked to academic success.

Yet several athletic directors said they understand why athletic budgets are under siege at a time of intense financial pressure.

“The reality is, they are extracurricular activities,’’ said Barry Haley, athletic director at Concord-Carlisle High School. “The bottom line has to hit somewhere.’’

Haley said Concord-Carlisle, like many schools, relies far more now on fees, gate receipts, and fund-raising than in the past.

With many residents already fuming at the rising cost of public schools, that’s not likely to change anytime soon, he said.

“The dynamic has changed,’’ he said. “In an ideal world, should a public education include athletics and other activities? Yes. But in the real world, I pay taxes like you do.’’

In Mansfield, that sentiment was front and center, and few were shedding tears for the schools’ financial woes.

“It’s a scare tactic,’’ grumbled longtime resident Bob Goscinak, who was picking up tax forms at the town library. “The money is there. We pay enough taxes to have kids playing sports.’’

But Jean Miller, who chairs the School Committee, said drastic measures are unavoidable.

“I never thought I’d see this day,’’ she said. “We are all deeply pained by this.’’

Miller said the committee had discussed charging students to play, but concluded it would not generate enough revenue to save the program, which costs about $650,000 a year.

“This is not fake,’’ she said. “If you look at the numbers, we just can’t make up that huge of a gap.’’

Miller said she hopes Town Meeting, which meets early next month, will have a chance to finance the sports program. But George Dentino, a town selectman, said a tax-override measure is off the table for now.

He called on municipal unions, which are currently in contract negotiations with the town, to agree to concessions, and said teachers should voluntarily agree to wage and raise freezes after years of generous pay increases.

Students, meanwhile, are furious that they might lose the chance to play sports, and many predicted it will spark mass exodus to other schools.

“Kids are already talking about transferring,’’ said Dylan Finerty, a sophomore who plays football and lacrosse. “I don’t think it’s a wise decision.’’

One way or another, the fact that towns are increasingly shifting the financial burden of sports to others and broaching the topic of eliminating them altogether appears to be a sign that money pressures are forcing hard decisions.

“If we had people pay as much attention to academics, we’d be in much better shape,’’ said Thomas Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents. “But what it comes down to is what we mean by public education.’’

Globe correspondent Christine Legere contributed to this report.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/4/2/harvard-job-martinez-union/

Text from the Harvard Crimson

Union Rebounds After Cuts

Video and article from Channel 7 WHDH News:
http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO139987/

Mary Kate Cohen, 15, who swims for Chelmsford High School, Chelmsford, MA Photo: USA Swimming http://www.usaswimming.org/USASWeb/_Rainbow/Album/4361m4056708e-7b6f-4f37-8a32-f5bac2f7569c.jpg

Rowdy Gaines with the Little Rhody Aquatic Club, Smithfield, RI

February 1996, Art Linkletter Natatorium, Springfield College, Springfield, Massachusetts:

All swimmers participating in the finals had to check in at the registration table and wait in the stands for twenty minutes before they would let us onto the pool deck for warmups. I am one of the first people in line. I check in as a number of other high school kids around me stare. It makes me self conscious.  Is it because I am so tall? That’s usually it. My face has appeared in the local newspaper about ten times since September. At different dual meets through the year, other kids I don’t know introduce themselves. They know my name. They heard I can swim fast. A couple make a big stink about beating me at my best events – the sprints – 50 freestyle and 100 freestyle. Early in the season, we had swam one dual meet where I made a mistake, I had let up in the last ten yards of the 100 freestyle. I had thought there was no one near me. Like a bad driver, I had forgotten to check my blind spot. Swimming along just out of sigth was one kid, Eric, and he had it out to beat me. I let off the sprint, he kept sprinting, out touching me at the wall. A local sports reporter was covering the meet. It was my first individual loss in a race in three years, except for a tie the year before. The papers had a write up the next day. Suddenly, Eric was the swimmer that would beat me in the 100 freestyle at the District Championships.

My high school coach, Karen, flips through the afternoons psyche sheet for the finals session, highlighting names of my teammates and myself. We are a small team at finals – 4 boys, 6 girls. But, we have a lot of events covered. She flipped to the 100 freestyle. On the back of the previous page were past winners from each of the previous ten years. My name was next to 1995 and 1994. This was my senior year of high school. My freshman year, I placed third behind two solid seniors that graduated and left the District field wide open.  I swam into it. Then, I felt like I had to live up to it. That was easy at first, but this year it stopped being fun. Maybe it was the pressures of getting into college. Swimming in college was going to be important to me. That’s why I chose Amherst College, and why I was happy when they accepted me early decision less than a month ago. The team there seemed to be swimming great, and having fun at it. I wanted that atmosphere.

“How you feeling?” Karen asks, jolting me out of my reverie.

“Good. Better when I can get in and loosen up.” I replied sheepishly.

“You’re seated second in the finals of the 100 freestyle behind that kid, Eric.” she remarked.

“I got a relay and the 50 freestyle to get through, first.” I said.

I surprised myself with sounding so rationale. I am that good sort of nervous about the whole session. There’s a pressure, there. A pressure where I seem to have swam well under in the past. It feels good. The sprints were the showcase events at Districts. Fast, flashy races that came down to fractions of a second, they attracted a lot of attention. I had already had a reporter ask me for a statement on “being the underdog” in the 100 freestyle going into finals. I liked it, actually. Eric had a personal profile in the paper. He was getting a taste of the attention. He was first going in. I had every reason to be even more competitive. Still, I am not sure how to get faster. To win is going to require my fastest time, and that is going to require a heck of a swim.

But, I felt good. I felt ready to explode with energy, but calm. My brain, for once, is thinking in a very focused manner. My teammates chatter around me, but give me some space. I can’t help but be quiet in times like this. Folding myself inward for protection and security, but I also feel very aware of my being and surroundings. I wave at my parents. I see my college coach talking with other regional college coaches in one corner. They are all checking out the local swimming talent. I have friends going to swim for schools in all the NCAA divisions.

I love my high school relay. It’s the same four guys. We only have four boys on the team. For the medley, I lead off in backstroke, Scooter takes a spastic breaststroke leg, Jeffrey, our zen master, pulls a powerful butterfly out of his belt, and Justin, a burly football player in the fall season, anchors with freestyle, his massive kick propelling him through the water. Four characters just having fun. Justin hates having to wear a speedo. It’s a pre-race ritual for him to adjust himself, often in a brutally obvious way before stepping on the block. This lack of subtlety has become a calling card, and a psyche out tactic for our relays. Generally, when Justin makes it a point to make sure everything is in place, we do exceptionally well. We made it to the consolation finals, and end up winning. It gives the team a few extra points, and with being one of the smallest teams in the league, every point helps.

Art Linkletter Natatorium, Springfield College from http://www.spfldcol.edu/homepage/athletics.nsf/Facilities_Natatorium.jpg

Springfield College hosts the District championships each year. It’s the largest pool in the area in terms of seating capacity. Built in the shape of a hockey rink on the outside, the six lane 50 meter pool was one of the first of it’s kind. It had aged semi-gracefully over the years I swam there. During the summers my club team swam there in the mornings, training long course. I worked as a lifeguard there for three summers. I felt like I was familiar with every missing tile and faded lane line. I loved the place though. At Districts, the stadium stands on one side of the pool filled to the brim with fans. Teams sat along the other side. A balcony over the shallow end held the overflow. It created a stadium atmosphere, and school pride turned up the volume of the cheers. No sound baffling made Districts the loudest meet I had ever swam in. The place roared before and after every race.

John Estanislau of East Longmeadow winning in the 50 yard freestyle. Photo David Roback. http://photos.masslive.com/republican/2010/02/miaa_boys_west_secional_swim.html

The 50 freestyle is a fun race, but with little room for error. The twenty-something second sprint is a giant explosion of moving arms and legs. Standing behind the blocks in lane three, the noise from the stands started to get louder.

“C’mon Jerome!” I heard people call. Other names, too.

Someone called “Beat that Jerome!” loud from the stands, and a flurry of boos rang out. Eric, was three lanes over in lane one. But, there were four other swimmers racing for fractions of a second. I had been practicing meditative breathing to help calm myself, and also build up some extra oxygen in my blood. Two lengths of the pool left little time for breathing. Turning my head slowed me down. I can breath all I want after. Officials were handing out awards for an earlier race, so we were left behind the blocks waiting. I could see my race in my head. The starters’ horn created an explosion from my legs. My dive would cut the water. I would hold steamline, kicking as hard as I could, and break out of the water head forward and out. Everything for them was about turnover. Eight strokes and a flip turn. Then it was hot skillet. The wall was on fire, and I had to push away from it as fast and as hard as I could or my feet would burn. Hit steamline, and kick, explode out again. Everything becomes about getting to the other wall. Reach with each stroke. Push every ounce of water. Kick and kick some more. Ten strokes to the wall, and reach for the wall with every inch of my 6’9″ frame. Slam into the wall. And it would be over.

I breathed deeply. Counting my in breath. One-two-three. Release. One-Two-Three-Four-Five-Six. And in… The awards were over. The crowd got louder. I felt better and better. My vision tunneled. I felt calm, but explosive. Every muscle is ready to go. The starter called us onto the block, and the world around us got very quiet as the crowd hushed.

“Take your mark…”

BEEP!

If you have ever seen an Auto Thrill Show, where stunt drivers perform high speed precision driving on short tracks, you’ll notice that they all drive with one hand out the window. It’s sort of like saying they drive like this to go to the corner store for a gallon of milk. It’s a flurry of choreographed speed. They rehearsed those maneuvers until it requires no thought on their part, and it does truly like driving to the corner store for milk with a side of using a power slide into the parking space. Some stunt drivers, sort of like jet pilots, are so comfortable driving at the extreme edge of control, that they feel more calm behind the wheel in that circumstance then they do standing still.

Just short of twenty-two seconds. My fastest lap every. Three tenths of a second, otherwise known as an “eternity” in sprint swimming, ahead of the nearest competitor when I touched the finish wall. I won. The scoreboard flashed the times and placements. The crowd cheered, and I relaxed for a moment. But, just for a moment. With the 50 freestyle out of the way, that put everything in line for the 100 freestyle. The showdown is on…

I had just enough time to warm down, and go sit through an event or two before having to warmup for the 100 freestyle. I put on my sweats and sat on the bench next to Justin and my coach. My teammates filled in around me, sitting, encouraging, and joking with me in a protective circle of support. I am not quite present. The race is looming in my mind, and, again for once, my mind is on a singular track. I day dreamed a bit. Waved at my family. Officials handed out awards for the 50 freestyle, and I stood on the podium with my medal. Shaking the hands of the guys around me, and waving with my medal at the newspaper cameraman.

A reporter approached me. “Care to make a statement about the 50 freestyle?”

“It was good. Can we talk after the 100?”

The reporter did not seem to object.

As the championship final of the 100 freestyle approached, I found myself in line to step up onto the bulkhead and the starting blocks behind Eric. He had placed a distant 6th place in the 50 freestyle, and I suspected he might be saving himself for the 100. While we stood in line, he turned around and stared at me through mirror goggles. He didn’t say anything. I stared back, and finally broke the silence.

“Hey, good luck, man.” I held out my hand to shake. Whatever happened, he could not claim that I acted like an asshole.

He kept staring at me, and didn’t shake my hand. He just broke into a grin.

“I am so going to beat you.” he said devilishly.

In the 100 freestyle, the strategy for swimming is to maintain a sustained sprint for four lengths of the pool. It’s a deceptive length for a race. It’s just short enough where the same patterns for swimming apply for sprinting like the 50 freestyle, but long enough where lactic acid can come screaming into your arms and legs and ruin the entire race. Like before the championship heat for the 50 freestyle, we lined up behind our blocks, and then had to wait. I went back to deliberate breathing exercises. Three in, six out, and repeat. The crowd noise was getting louder than before a building roar of excitement and anticipation. I felt sorry for the girl getting her award for the 200 IM. The crowd, the officials, and most everyone in the pool room seemed distracted. A smattering of cheers were given for the awards ceremony.

I ran the race in my head – the first 50 was the same. No margin for error, except somewhere in the chaos you had to leave a little in reserve for two more turns and 50 more yards. The race would be over in just less than a minute. I had to watch when and where I breathed. Breath too much in the first 50 and all the momentum is killed. Breath too little and I am in danger of hitting my aerobic threshold too quickly. My arms would stop turning as fast and start to cramp. I had practiced strategic breathing in the race – once in the first 25, about 20 yards out twice in the second at about the ten and twenty yard mark. Hopefully the third length I could do with two or three spaced out depending on how things were going. I barely have time to think in these races.

And, somewhere inside me, I just wanted it to be all over. I wanted it to be over. Win or lose. Once the race is done, it felt like my life could move on then. I could be satisfied with just finishing the race. Giving it a great effort. Then it would be done. I put that thought out of my mind for the moment. There was a race to be swam.

The crowd was getting loud. Really loud… People weren’t just cheering. They were screaming, hollering. The volume was deafening. The starter called us to the block, and the wave of noise stopped dead. You could hear nothing but the hum of the engine that drove the pool filter.

“Take your mark….”

BEEP!

I dove. A chorus of people screaming “GO!” I hit the water and felt like I was shot out of a cannon. Everything is working at full power. My turnover is effortlessness. I feel propelled by my kick. I accelerate into the first wall, flip and I am off the wall. Perfect. The second lap sales by, and I hit the second wall at such a speed I am almost surprised by how much momentum I carry off the wall. My mind just starts screaming “Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!” and my body seemed to respond. I felt myself getting faster. I could see my coach and teammates jumping up and down waving their arms. I hit the last wall, and exploded off that wall. Everything is aimed at that last wall. Every ounce of my being wants to get to that wall. Go! Go! Go! Go! REACH!

I stretch my final stroke and hit the wall. The crowd roars as I pull my head up and look. I won. My final time was a 48.26 – a second and a half faster then any swim I had done before. No swimmer had done a sub 50 second swim in Western Mass Districts in ten years. I was 4 tenths of a second from the District record. And…I….was…done. I won. I shook hands with the swimmers in the lane next to me. Eric actually shook it, looking disappointed at his fifth place finish on the scoreboard. My teammates were jumping up and down screaming in excitement.

I pull myself out of the pool, and over into the warm down pool, where I float. Relieved of all the pressure. The race was over. I quietly floated through a warm down. Each wall I was greeted with handshakes, high fives, and cheers.

Jerome "J.J." Leslie, 03/28/2010, New England Short Course Masters Championships Photo: Dorothy Leslie

On March 28, 2010, I swam the 500 freestyle at the New England Short Course Masters Championships at Blodgett Pool at Harvard University. My time was 7:15.44.  After three months of training with Cambridge Masters Swimming, I was pretty happy with the race.