My Last Post Motivated Me To Swim Tonight. Mission Accomplished.

I couldn't find my camera; I think I left it in Temecula at the rental house that my son and I are cleaning up to get a new tenant in there.  He's doing the work; I am doing the thinking. 
Well, after writing, posting, and pondering my post about why I was NOT swimming, I dredged up enough motivation to head to the beach tonight.  Sunset was at 7:30 PM. I arrived at about 6:45 PM.
The water was mellow, mild waves (about 2 feet), and warm at 70 degrees.  I got in and swam around the pier from north to south.  No currents.  My swim was 34.5 minutes.  The distance was probably a little over 3/4 of a mile.  I felt pretty good and had the water to myself past the surf zone.
It was good to get that return to the water out of the way.
Nice to push back against the self-pity and come out swell.

"The first time you quit is the last time you try."

No Swimming; But How About Some Poetry?

I haven't been able to get myself in the water for a long time now; I'm feeling like I've lost my edge, and that's a bad thing.  I'm experiencing two countervailing feelings: the negative influence of chronic pain versus my willpower to get into the ocean.  Living with pain has stripped my willpower, and is causing me to struggle with my motivation.  Certainly I have swum in pain time and time again when my mindset was right.
Unfortunately, I have a self-pity gene against which I have struggled throughout my life.  Adrenaline-rich experiences repress that gene, freeing me up to live as one who blends in with the world.  My adrenal glands need a good squeeze.

I have some quotes and sayings memorized that I rely on to keep me going.  They don't always work, but I have stuck with one especially though a few decades.  I'll give you a bit of history before I write it down.
There was a young sailor of 19 who swabbed the deck of the medical department on board the USS Midway  routinely.  One day in 1979, underway in the South China Sea, I was swabbing the small medical ward.  I was raising the racks (beds) up to swab thoroughly underneath.  I found a small scrap of well-worn paper with a poem written on it.  I toted this paper (approximately 3" x 3") around throughout my life (in my wallet) and memorized it over and over again.  I know the words well, for this great find was about 33 years ago.  It has served me as a source of motivation and I will share it. 

If You Think You're Beaten

If you think you're beaten, you are.
If you think you dare not, you don't.
If you want to win, but think you can't;
It's almost a cinch you won't.

If you think you'll lose, you're lost.
For out in the world we find;
Success begins with a fellow's will;
It's all in the state of mind.

Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man;
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can.

I never researched it until now; I thought that the sailor who had been napping on that rack during lunch had probably written it.  He was a studious type, this Mr. P. Pena, who was always seen with a novel and a dictionary.  I never did ask him; I liked the poem and kept it. 

It was written by a Mr. Walter Wintle in the early 1900's, and later modified and claimed by a few other writers as their own work.  When I looked it up today, I see that there is a third verse that was not written on my scrap.  I MUST look around the house, for surely I still have that paper somewhere.

It is not working for me just now, but I won't give up on it.  After all, as I say at the bottom of all my posts:

"The first time you quit is the last time you try."

Stingray Seen, Churchill Fins, Strong Current, Crowded Beach, Gravity, Archimedes Principle

I need to live out past the breakers, I think, to keep the pain low.  This gravity thing is messing me up.  I mean, Sir Isaac Newton in the late 1600's elucidated this phenomenon whereby the Earth continuously pulls us down toward its center at a constant rate--it never lets up.  I think that it wasn't until the early 1900's that scientists gave a number to the Earth's gravitational pull, calculated to be 9.81 meters/second squared. Since I'm not falling toward the Earth from space, but resting on Earth, the gravitational pull that I feel is 9.81 meters/second.
So, when our bodies are hurting; when we have to lean over and drag ourselves through the day; when we experience squished vertebral discs and painful hips, knees, and feet--we are feeling the cumulative effects of the Earth's center pulling on us at 9.81 m/s.  This takes a toll after some decades under this force field. Throw in some broken body parts and it gets worse.
When I'm in the ocean, I am still under the 9.81 m/s gravitational pull, but this is partially offset by the buoyancy effect of the salt water.  BUT, there is HOPE.
There was a Greek scientist named Archimedes, who in approximately 200 BC, propounded the theory that we know as Archimedes' Principle, that states that a body immersed in water is pushed up by a buoyant force.  Thank Goodness!  Archimedes' Principle is the scientific reason that I need to be in the ocean!  It states that a body is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the volume of water that it displaces.  (The salt in the ocean buoys you up more than fresh water.)
So, my bad gravity is offset to a fair degree by Archimedes' buoyancy, relieving my body parts from the pain that gravity inflicts on my damaged pieces. 
Yesterday (Saturday) I went to the beach at about 4 PM.  Very crowded.  Water temp 64 degrees according to the lifeguard's chalk board.  Choppy water. Choppy waves--about 1-3 feet, poor shape.  Good water for beachgoers to frolic in the water.
I parked about six blocks away (free) and did my slow walk first with my camera to take pictures.  I looked like I was on the Bataan Death March.  (No disrespect to those heroes intended).
I got my photos, walked back up to the car, and walked back down to swim.  I had decided to wear my Churchill's because I thought that the exercise on my low back might put it back into place--it didn't.
"Will he ever get to the swim," they ask.  Okay.  Out I go with a thin swim cap for visibility and fins.  I'm on the north side of the pier, tower #4, at Surfrider Way.  The water is not 64--more like 74 in some spots.  Some spots maybe 64 for brief periods.  I went around the pier and to just outside the surf zone at tower #3 on the south side of the pier.  I'm at 30 minutes;  I had been taking it easy.
I turned around to do a round-trip.  The ocean was completely different.  High tide was about 7:40 PM, so the tide was coming in and it was hard to swim out against it.  So I swim against it with the intention of angling out to the end of the pier, like the hypotenuse of a right triangle--the pier and the shoreline being the straight lines of this triangle.  I'm swimming out and I get out past the end of the pier by about 30 yards, but, I am not near the pier--I am actually straight out from tower #3.
I had encountered a very strong current running south, along with the incoming tide. 
But I felt good.  No low back pain!  Plenty of energy and air in my lungs, good goggles, relaxed, far away from people, and confident that I would kick around the pier with my trusty fins.
So I swam and swam, and swam and swam;  I would look ahead to the pier and it never really got much closer.  A boat cruised by.  I picked up my effort to advance on the pier and I made progress slowly.  It was a good half hour or more that I swam hard and eventually got past the pier.  What a current!  The water was pretty clean and I saw a small stingray swim by me several feet below me.  That was the only sea life that I saw on that swim.
I was running out of gas on my way in on the north side but had a very good workout.  My neck hurt in the water--but it always does when I breathe to the right.  Then, what happens?
I get to the sand to try to stand up and get out of there and my low back starts to kill me!  Thank you Archimedes and damn you Isaac Newton!  My total swim was 1 hour and 41 minutes!  That current was something else! 
I did a slow-motion walk back to the car and eased into the driver's seat.  When I got home I took a fistfull of pills to stop the pain.  In spite of the pain, it was a GREAT day in the water.

"The first time you quit is the last time you try."

Pier Swim After Long Layoff

It's been so long since I have felt well enough to hit the Pier that I have to look up my last swim.  July 12th.  So, eleven missed days due to this back of mine.  Surprisingly, the water is too hot!  It's 69 degrees out there.  That is too warm for swimming distance.  It did get a tiny bit colder off the end of the pier as I rounded it, but it didn't last long enough.  There were tons of yellow bubbles in the ocean today--probably some king of algae growth due to the warm water.  It was kinda' gross swimming through that junk.  There was a one foot chop out there and I was swimming against a slight current.  I did a 37 minute swim in a wide arc but my kicking and my back were still messed up.  Afterward, I was doing my slow walk with the slight limp on the right leg side--something that has become too common with me nowadays.  This blog name may have to be changed from Swimmer to Back Pain at some point--I hope not.


 ''The first time you quit is the last time you try."

New Ocean Swimmers in Oceanside, CA at the Pier

Yesterday (Wednesday) I finally got back in the water to see if I could swim around the pier in a mellow fashion--my back has been constant pain--but I MISS getting in the water.  I went at about 4 PM and the area was on the quiet side.  The water was chillier today, which was really nice.  Still, it was only 63 degrees--not very cold--but a refreshing relief from the 65 degree bath water.
It was exciting to see two ocean swimmers out there as I arrived and parked on the street above the beach.  Good looking strokes--they were swimming parallel to the sand, heading north, at a good pace--faster than my pace, for sure.  I took a few pictures but they don't show up in my photos.
They may be a part of The Oceanside Swim Club's new spinoff club, the Calipiranha Ocean Swim Club. 
My swim was 34 1/2 minutes, relaxed, and my back had no pain in the water.  Last night it was hurting, and it woke me up at 5 AM this morning driving me crazy.  Don't get old!


"The first time you quit is the last time you try."