Our Y closes its indoor pools during thunderstorms. Evidently lightning can travel through glass and strike even an indoor pool. I don’t argue. I get out of the water when they tell me.

I have been trying to reestablish a discipline around daily swimming. Yesterday I had completed 1100 meters, about 2/3 of my planned workout when the whistle blew and the lifeguard said the pool was closing. So I got out, satisfied that I got to swim between the spells of stormy weather we were having, and are still experiencing

Today, my plan was to go earlier in the afternoon before the stormy conditions build. I planned to go my current usual distance of 1750 meters, then some more to account for the distance I missed yesterday. And I did. 2500 meters. 2500 meters has been a standard distance for a swim for me. And today I met that goal. So there is no reason why I can’t revert back to 2500 meters as my standard workout distance, with a few 3300 meter workouts interspersed. 2500 meters is over a mile and a half, 3300 meters is over two miles. It’s all good.

Tonight we went out for a $6 medium pizza special at one of our favorite restaurants. The daily deluge occurred during dinner so we stayed a little longer, hoping the downpour would alleviate somewhat. While waiting we enjoyed a nice chocolate filled dessert crêpe. We finished the crêpe; it was still raining. So we got wet walking to the car. I figure I get wet on a daily basis anyway, so what’s the big deal? It was kind of fun.

Normal routine is part of the structure I need in my life to handle the daily deluge of craziness I experience from back pain, politics, chronic loneliness. The swim is important because it counterbalances my tendency to eat my way to better mental and emotional well-being That eating strategy doesn’t work, by the way.

That is 40 miles. I set a goal to swim that distance over the month of July. I reached the goal with two days to spare. I swam twenty-five days out of twenty-nine days.

I’m tired. I did not accept the usual excuses for myself.  Great feeling. I will swim Monday. That means 26 days swimming out of the thirty one days in July.

I last posted when my distance swum was 50 kilometers (50,000 meters). Four days later, my distance is 61, 750 meters. Tomorrow, I plan to swim 2750 meters. This will bring my total to 64500 meters, over 40 miles. This was the goal I set. 

About Wednesday of this week, I saw where I needed to up my daily distance if I wanted to finish the goal with any contingency allowed for weather, or plain exhaustion. So I did some calculating and decided that I needed to swim 2 x 3250 m, and 2 x 2750 m to finish with two days to spare. Sunday is a family birthday party, my sister’s 65th. It would be nice to not have that pressure to swim Sunday. 

I have swim the longer distances before. I would make a big deal out of the longer distances, as if an extra 750 meters was of enormous magnitude.  But doing 3250 on Wednesday, then again Friday, the real deciding factor is whether I want to spend the extra time in the pool, not that my constitution won’t tolerate the extra distance.

I finished the 2 x 3250 m workouts (2+miles). I felt enormous pride. And self-confidence.  The old saying goes, “To build self-esteem, do estimable things.” Like swim consistently and pursue an unprecedented goal.