John 'The River Guy'

As you discovered in my first post, I got out of the swimming pool by accident years ago. There is nothing worse in my mind than swimming back and forth over and over again in a straight line. As a matter of fact, I’m convinced that those who are ‘doomed for eternity’ are destined to swim in a lane pool over and over again forever. THAT’S THEIR PUNISHMENT! In order to train for this Mobile Bay endeavor I’m doing later in the year it has caused me to get back into the pool, since I don’t own a wetsuit and have never needed to swim in the winter. Lo and behold I had to be a ‘puddle pirate’ these last two months. I made the most of swimming around children and junior league swim teams while trying to making it interesting as possible by snaking in and out of the eight lanes I had available to lend myself more mental variety, that the two miles required. Still it was in a straightline on and off non stop. In reality, I guess that’s what most swims are no matter where you swim. Yet, a turn around a bend or two makes things more adventurous.

This ain’t the case with my yearly Weiss Lake swim. I choose the ’causeway’ due to it’s ingress and egress availability dynamic. There are free, public parking spaces and docks to depart from there. Also, it provides a bank to swim to or to alert someone if things get out of hand. Yet, it’s an ‘in your face’ assault to a swimmer’s emotions as you know what’s coming everytime you visit. A long straight line swim where the opposing bank seems to get further and further away with each stroke. You can see it, it’s straight ahead. You know it’s there……………………you just wish it wasn’t. Because, that meant you made this dumb decision to do it in the first place. It is the swim where I daydream the most and lose my mind in thought to numb the boredom. Then, you finally get there………………….ONLY TO REALIZE YOU’VE GOT TO SWIM BACK TO WHERE YOU STARTED! And that is just the ‘halfway’ route I’ve done the past three summers. The two mile route (to and back) doctored in blue from the middle peninsula and not the total four mile (to and back) route I need to be doing, with the first leg of that I denote below in yellow(if you add the blue route along with it). As yellow being the route I did last summer and that mercifully ends at Jakes On The Lake as reward. At least the late afternoon storms provide a source of entertainment, usually going out, with the ‘back home’ route providing more calm. For the masochist in me…………….I’m alright with it all!