Swimming the Distance

So, um, I may have signed up to swim across Lake Ontario next August.

Seriously.

I should just end my blog post there and watch the comments come pouring in.

"What?!?" (from Erin)
"Are you crazy?" (from Scott)
"That's freakin' awesome!" (from Jeff)
"Where the heck is Lake Ontario and why is that such a big deal?" (from my non-North American friends)
"Aren't there lampreys in the lake? EWWWWW" (from Janice)
"So, like, what if you have to poo while you're swimming?" (from Scully)

Honestly, I signed up to swim across Lake Ontario next August...as part of a relay.

This is Christine's latest brainchild. You know Christine, the lady who ties us up and makes us swim with our clothes on? That one.

She wants to form a team of six swimmers to do the relay plus a support crew. We would each swim for an hour at a time and rotate from one end of the lake to the other. The entire distance ranges from 40-52km depending on the route chosen. It can take from 15 to 24 hours to do it.

So I'd be swimming one hour out of every 6. I could be swimming in the middle of the night, the early morning, under the beating sun or at sunset. I'd probably have to do 3 to 4 legs of the relay which would mean 3 to 4 hours of swimming within a 24-hour period.

That feels pretty doable to me.

Figuring out blood sugar details would be a challenge but also quite doable.

And it would certainly give me enough of a taste (literally) of lake swimming to tell me if my top secret, don't tell anyone about it yet dream about being the first T1 to swim the lake is completely crazy or not.

So I'm swimming across Lake Ontario next summer - sort of.

And 2014? Who knows? I may consider trying the entire distance on my own.

And yes, if you have to poo, you just go in the water. Like the fishies do.