Gulf of Mexico Swim Goal Complete

Yesterday I finished my 900th mile since I set a series of goals (about two and a half years ago) to keep myself inspired. Coincidentally that 900 miles is the same distance as it is across the Gulf of Mexico from St. Petersburg, FL (next to Tampa - see map) to Corpus Christi, TX. Google Maps shows the auto route - lots of turns. You can visualize my route on the map below by looking at the two cities (click on the "-" button in the top left corner of the map to see both FL and TX coasts). I went straight.


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Mini-Goal Achievement Update and a Reality Check

One of the reasons I started tracking my swimming progress (see left hand column of this blog) was the eureka moment that I had when I realized that I could achieve one million meters by just doing my regular routine. It sounded so cool.

Well I hit that milestone today. Pat, pat, pat. That's me patting myself on the back. Hee hee. One million is a cool number.

Reality interrupting here: This "achievement" took a little over a year and a half to complete. Olympic swimmers' workout routines pull off this "achievement" a few times a year, at least.

Oh, really? Hmmm .... Reality sucks. I guess I'll ignore it. Pat, pat, pat.

New Goal Added to Monster List

I've added a new goal to my list of lap swimming goals (scroll down left panel) that should have been there all along - swim the Great Lakes. I went into Google Maps and traced the USA/Canadian border with their measuring tool - from Kingston to Thunder Bay. That distance reports in at 1,134 miles or 1,814,400 meters (if you look at it like I do, that's 36,288 circular laps in a 25 meter pool).

10,000 Pool Lengths and Counting

WARNING - Self indulgent post: Should I be dizzy by now? I hit a personal milestone a couple days ago with 5,000 laps since Jan 2, 2007 or 10,000 lengths of 25 meters. I love it! What first started this goal kick I've been doing (see profile) was when I was doing some of my mental math - I often try to do mental math during my cool down on the kickboard to see how much I've done, how fast, etc., but it comes all too hard since the blood is in my legs and arms and not in my brain - and realized that my daily routine had the potential to hit some big numbers if I just stuck with it. So here is one of those numbers. I like all those 0's!

More Goals Added

You might have noted some rather crazy goals I've set for myself to give me some idea of how far I swim (laps in a pool). I noted that I've got some good short term goals (swim English Channel, swim width Lake Michigan, etc.), but there are places where there are big gaps and hitting the goals takes much longer - thus the mental rewards aren't there. So today I've added a couple. One is a swim from Havana, Cuba to Miami, FL (224 miles), which I should be able to complete by Thanksgiving, God willing. A second I've added is a New York City to Hamilton, Bermuda (775 miles) swim - which looks like two years out at my pace. I suppose a neat lifetime goal might be to circumnavigate the globe, but that is a little too far out there, even for me, but you never know. I imagine some Olympic athletes over the span of their lives may have done this already. If you know, let me know and I'll post it. In the meantime, I'll keep looking for more goals. Any suggestions?

Another Goal Completed!

In past posts, I've commented on the value of setting goals to keep going with your exercise routine. Lap swimming can get very dull so I've set some goals myself. If you ever get past the top post of this blog and scroll down a bit to the profile section in the left hand column, you may note that I've set some fairly crazy goals to keep myself swimming on a daily basis. One of these (my swim across the Atlantic - remember I said "crazy goals"?) goes out more than eight years, at the rate I'm going. At present I'm a little over 2.5 percent complete toward that goal (pant pant). Since it is so far out, a little self-encouragement is in order, so I've set more reasonable goals. Today I finished my second, which was to swim the distance of the width of Lake Michigan from Milwaukee, WI to Muskegon, MI. It took exactly three months to complete that swim - but having completed it, the trip across the pond is now eighty-eight miles fewer.