The courage to try

Moments after my swim under the lights

I did it! I swam in the longest running United States Masters Swimming meet in America (47 years) in St. Petersburg today. After training for 11 months, it was time to do it "for real." This photo is me after I took third place in my age group (55-59) in the 200 yard freestyle. Let me give you the back story.

A year ago I was in the emergency room with dangerously high blood pressure. The medicine was not working. I felt awful and did not know what to do. There is a lot left to do in life and I was not ready to check out yet. The doctor said it was up to me now and he recommended a change of diet and aerobic exercise. There were no more new fangled pharmacological that could save me - it was up to me.

You can see how dark the skies are getting

The great tennis player Jimmy Connors was once asked what was the best exercise. He said it was the one you will do. Swimming is the one thing that I will do. As Arnold Schwarzenegger said about swimming...1) you can wear a speedo 2) Get a tan 3) Everyone is almost naked! That's the one I like.

I was off to the pool.

Problem. I could barely finish one 25 yard lap. The early days were really a struggle. I was soon able to swim a straight 500 yards and do about a mile total in my workouts. I was really making progress and my health was improving. In fact, my blood work now is fantastic and I have been off gout medicine for a year with no flare ups. How cool is that!

Today, I did the perfect swim. I negative split each 50 in the 200 yard freestyle race (each 50 faster then the one before) and sprinted the final lap home. I looked up and my team (SPM) was cheering for me. I looked up on the jumbo scoreboard where I could see my lane with time and splits. I felt like I had just swam in the Olympic finals! In reality, I had.

The St. Pete Masters hanging out in our area by the warm up sectioon

My Olympics was to change my lifestyle and focus on health. I set this goal and I accomplished it. I did it on my own and nobody can take this away from me. That is BADASS!!

There was a storm coming and the meet had to be postponed for Sunday. In fact, I was on the blocks for the 100 breaststroke ready to race and they stopped the meet. I'm glad they did for I was in the wrong damn lane and would have been disqualified! Good. I will swim it tomorrow.