Alcatraz II

I signed up. It's official.

I promised last year that if I did Alcatraz this year, it would be skin--that is, no wetsuit. But sitting here, bundled in my post-yoga sweat shirt, I just could not bring myself to check the "skin" box.

If it is warm enough--that is 62 degrees or higher--I will try. But I cannot swim in 55 degree water without a wetsuit. I do not have a frigid enough body of water to practice in. That is my excuse! And, after last year, and reading Lynn Cox's amazing book, Swimming to Antarctica, I now know that getting your body used to cold water is a serious undertaking that takes commitment, and, to the truly dedicated, perhaps a month without hot tubs or warm showers. No!

I am swimming again because this year my brother will swim, and my aunt (again) and my cousin (I hope) and my soon-to-be 70 year old father. I worry about him a little. He tends to overestimate how far he can swim, and believe the water he trains in is colder than it is, and go into various kinds of shocks during extreme athletic events. But to not do this event, I think, would kill him. Last year it crushed him that three members of his family did this crazy endeavor without him. So this year he will swim. And my gift to him on his 70th birthday, is that I will swim, too. I believe he will live. And he will do it. But, I tell myself, because I worry just a little, if he does get in over his head, he will be threatening his life doing something that he dreams of doing, and that makes him feel alive. I want to be like that. So I am lending my support.

So I am in!

Sharks, cold, Alcatraz, waves, lightning, San Francisco, here I come again!!!!