A Neat Pier Swim: Flat Water, Warm but OK, and My Mind Was Right

I guess that I'm going into a good time period now.  The last couple of days I have felt better and have wanted to get into the water.  Look at the sunset in the pictures at the bottom of the stack here.  That is just before 7:30 PM.  A clear sky and lots of picture takers around the pier.
I reviewed my poem this afternoon and was able to recite it in my mind over and over as I swam tonight.  It gave me a peaceful feeling.  The warm water was relaxing and my time was slower--34 minutes around.
Off the end of the pier I heard an engine, and a speedboat (about 18 foot) was in too close to the pier and we were on a collision course.  I always keep an ear tuned in for the whine of engines and look up if I hear anything like that.  The boat was being driven by a small kid with his Dad behind him.  A good thrill for the kid but 30 feet away is too close for me.  The Dad waved to me and I waved back.  No sweat.  The Dad appeared to be moving near his boy to guide the boat away from me.  Not close enough to raise my heart rate or get me mad.
The water was flat.  I had a good stroke going and felt efficient.  Small waves--two feet but surfable.
The body and mind were in sync.  If 'sync' is a real word? Short or slang for synchrony.

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

Thursday Night Farmers' Market Oceanside, CA

It was 81 degrees outside when I arrived at the beach at 6:30 PM tonight.  Unusually warm for us; the water temperature was 70 degrees.  We are quite fortunate.  Parking was free.  What a deal!
The pier area was crowded with walkers and shoppers from the Farmers' Market up the street. 
The water was mild, with nicely-shaped, two-foot waves with quite a few surfers enjoying the evening.  I swam north to south, no current, no chop, and finished in just under 30 minutes. 
While I was swimming I reviewed a poem in my mind that I thought I had just finished memorizing two days ago:  The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost.
I got stuck on the first line of the third stanza, and throughout the swim I recited the poem in my head, each time coming up with nothing in the same spot.
That line is:  "And both that morning equally lay..."
Everybody remembers the two well-known lines of this poem:
I took the road less traveled by;
And that has made all the difference.
I believe that many of us want to have taken this 'road less traveled,' but have we?  I think that Robert Frost truly did; he was quite an individual, staying close to the land and making the mundane parts of nature remarkable and beautiful in his poetry. 
I'll sign off now and review my Frost.

By the way, my favorite Frost is "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."
"The first time you quit is the last time you try."

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."