That Liar-Bill Jolly

OK, so I think it is safe to say that Dave and I have been seriously lacking with this blog.
Yesterday we complete the 2nd open water swim. The first one was...I don't want to sound mean...but terrible. Let me clarify, I didn't realize it was terrible until after the 2nd swim.
The first swim we were nervous and had a lot of worries. For that reason we were sooooo stinkin slow. And every time I got close to the shore line I was sure that some snake, alligator, or sea monster was going to come out of the rock or log I was over and eat me. There were some of us sooo slow. Bill decided that the slow ones should get a 2 hour head start. Which I thought was a great idea, even though I didn't want to wake up that early.
so Martin, my mom, and I started our "4 mile " swim (4 mile in parenthesis will be explained) at 6 am. We hauled tail and did the "4 mile" swim in 4 hours and 10 minutes to finish a little over an hour before the other group who had a time of 3 hours and 27 minutes. When we got to the dam we were kind of down on ourselves because we were hoping to get in 4 miles a little under 4 hours so we could at least do a 50 minute mile. At lunch one of our support crew just happened to mention that where we swam from was a little beyond 5 miles to the dam. BILL JOLLY THAT LIAR. He just smiled. We had actually swam 5 miles.......5 miles in 4 hours and 10 min means we did our 50 minute mile. WOOOHOOO !!!! The other group averaging a 41 minute mile. All in all I am glad the Bill lied to us. It gave the confidence I need to know I can do it.

I like the idea of having nicknames but am really unsure of what mine should be. I was think about Flounder from the little mermaid but he's a boy so I cant do that. What else swims that's a girl or could be a girl? I thought Manatee was a great idea....but someone already took it. Thanks, Dave! So I have decided to start a poll. Everyone who reads will have to make the decision for me. Coolest, most like me, name wins.

As for the training, I have swam 3 times this week..........ok side note.....I am at the library right now and the guy next to me is about as computer illiterate as my mom. But he is cussing at the monitor right now so I am going to have to tell him to calm the heck down, hang on a sec.......(1 1/2 min. later) Ok........Where was I, I swam twice in the morning before work.....I am really not a morning person......Oh my gosh I think this guy is a little drunk. Anyway, I felt a little better after I swam I was only able to do a 1/2 mile on one day (had some medical issues) and then did 1 mile on Thursday. And today I just got done swimming 3 miles. I was bored out of my mind and thought about throwing in the towel....or should I say throw myself in the towel, but I knew I need to get my swim done. So I did it. I felt good. I pushed the first 2 miles but the 3rd I was kind of tired so I slowed it down.

So that's about it. I hope everyone of our team is doing well and getting their swim in. See ya at the lake!

Updates and nicknames

OK, to my fellow swimmers I must confess I have done a rather poor job of training since our last gathering. It seems that the warm, pollinated, blooming grip of Spring has finally wrapped her honeysuckled fingers around my throat and head and enslaved me in a Benedryled haze over the last couple of weeks. Breathing, which was was not only a pleasant and casual pastime of mine, has now become a fearless and wretched foe constantly engaging me in cough-hacking and runny-nosed battles to which I respond with a united Robitussin front flanked with a never ending supply of Kleenex and nasal spray. As of today, my enemy has presented me with a new weapon for attack: the dreaded Sneeze. The sneeze is a combination attack force with both oral and nasal capacities and the capability for multiple attacks much too strong and powerful for a single Kleenex to defend, thus lowering my munitions supply and weakening my army's capacity for a long, drawn out war.

As President John F. Kennedy once said, "Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind." It is with this in mind that I have begun negotiations with the dreaded Spring and it's biological warfare to determine a peace. I have offered up my tonsils, left lung, and right eardrum in exchange for a complete and immediate peace from the napalm attacks on my throat, constant bombing of my head and ears, flooding of my nasal cavities, and of course a ceasefire from the cough and dreaded Sneeze. Spring has refused to accept this settlement citing that if my tonsils were worth anything at all someone would have taken them years ago and noting that my right eardrum burst in the attacks of Spring 1994, making it a notoriously hostile and conflicted area for well over a decade now.

It seems, my fellow Swimmers, that the great War Against the Spring is bound and determined to continue toward certain destruction and death for at least one of its combatants.

In all seriousness, I have been pretty sick lately with some allergy issues and haven't been able to swim as much as I had planned. I have gotten a couple of swims in here and there and hope to get one in tomorrow morning assuming I'm feeling better. I suppose the good thing to note here is that after our 2 mile swim a couple of weeks ago I felt great and have the utmost confidence that I will be able to accomplish our 2 1/2 mile swim on Saturday with minimal concern or trouble, especially with Jeff "The Shark" Thode MIA for this one, thus eliminating our most swiftly-paced swimmer.

And on that note I have decided that we all need aquatic nicknames for the Swim. So for I would like to offer up "The Shark" for Jeff given the ferocity and swiftness in which he attacks the Swim and because he's in really good shape and I'm a little intimidated and afraid of him. Also, I'd like to offer the nickname of "The Tuna" to Bill Jolly since he is our coach and Bill Parcells's (NFL coach several times over) nickname was "The Tuna." Just seems to fit. That's as far as I've gotten so far, but I am calling dibs on the nickname "Manitee" for myself. I think it best describes my (in)abilities in the water, for my fondness for mango leaves, turtle grass and algae, and for my purported likeness to mermaids.

Is that a shark?

No wait it's the Big Swimmers swimming ALL together! What an experience! This is my first opportunity to do something as big as this Big Swim. At first I thought it would be no big deal considering I thought I could live in the water 24/7. I have come to realize it is harder than it looks. It is pushing my dedication. Being the mother of 20 month old, my whole life revolved around him and wanting to spend every waking minute with him. But those are selfish wants. Being part of this group has given me a new "want". That is wanting the children in this area have a great influence in there life. I am sure most of us take for granted how we were raised. Most of us had parents or grandparents or other family members so involved in our lives that it shaped us into the adults we have become. The children that is benefiting from the Big Swim will now have the same opportunity. I still have a little bit of selfishness in this swim by telling myself, "ooooh I am going to get so thin doing this!!!" But I know that the biggest reason I am doing this is for those wonderful kids. So that's it! Hope to see yall at the dam!

Welcome to the Big Swim!!!

Welcome to the Big Swim Blog!!!!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Big Swim or may have simply stumbled upon this site for one reason or another, the Big Swim is an 8 mile, non-competitive swim beginning at Anderson County park in Tennessee, continuing down the Clinch River to Norris Dam all for the purposes of raising money and awareness for Big Brothers Big Sisters of East Tennessee.

This year the Big Swim is excited to have 7 participants who are currently hard at work training for this endeavor: Robin Burris, Rosie Burris, Katina Angola, Bill Jolly, Martin Ellis, Jeff Thode and Dave Kennedy. This group has meet and will continue to meet periodically throughout the summer to check on each other's progress, learn and practice safety procedures, develop a plan and practice for group swimming in open water, and generally get to know one another as friends and teammates.

So far we have all built up to a solid 2 mile swim and are coming along quite nicely in the development of a group swimming technique and plan. Somehow this wonderful group of expert swimmers has even found a way to deal with and supplement the lack of experience and all around incompetence of its weakest link, me (Dave). We have plans for a 2-1/2 mile swim (our last pool swim) on May 17, 2008, and then we will be embarking on our very first lake swim, a 3 mile endeavor on June 7, 2008.

The Big Swim itself will be held (weather permitting) on Saturday August 2, 2008.

Thank you for visiting this site, and please check back for updates regarding our progress and training, and to get to know a few of our swimmers!!