I was helpless to resist the lure of endurance events because I had
an active imagination and unflagging optimism which meant I was able
to delude myself into thinking I could easily complete all kinds of
ridiculous tasks. At this camp you could earn a special patch by
swimming a mile in the lake. I was a pretty good swimmer and a mile
doesn't sound like very far if you consider it in walking terms. I
signed up thinking it would be no big deal but I was wrong. A mile
swimming is a very long, a very very long way. I got in the water
along with my required minder in a canoe and swam out towards the
first marker which was a a quarter mile out. I was feeling strong for
the first eighth of a mile but then I started to get a little tired
and by a quarter mile I was a lottle tired. I told my minder I was
fine and swam toward the half mile buoy. At this point my minder was
getting a little board at my slow pace and he started ranging thirty
and then forty feet away. I was starting to feel really tired and my
legs were cramping. I got to the half mile buoy that was in the
middle of the lake where I was supposed to turn around but I feel
like I am going to die if I try to swim back. Unfortunately my minder
was now too far away to hear me yell with my missing voice so I
switch to a nice relaxed back stroke and start back to the quarter
mile marker. I started to loose consciousness and my vision was going
brown and then black around the edges. I stopped swimming and tried
to control my breathing and float and when I was able to see clearly
again I turned over and tried to locate my minder who was way out of
yelling range with my horse voice so I started crying a little bit
and went over to my back and started swimming again. I was really
terrified because I was not even to the last quarter mile and I was
feeling really badly. I was not passing out anymore but I was
cramping badly so I stopped swimming with my arms and just kicked my
legs. I was planning on stopping at the quarter mile buoy and just
waiting for help but in my back stroking had gotten too far off track
and overshot the buoy so when I looked up again it was a couple of
hundred feet away and I started crying again and decided that I just
needed to get to shore so I just kept swimming until my feet hit the
ground and I turned around and tried to stand up but fell back face
down in the water and I had to crawl up through the shallow water
onto the bank. When I had gotten out of the water I vomited, fell
down rolled over and passed out. A couple people ran over to see if I
was okay but I was unconscious for a little too long so they sent for
the camp paramedics who got there and revived me and gave me
something to drink. I told them I was about to pass out while I was
swimming but my minder was gone. He was still nowhere to be found. We
had been on the shore for 15 minutes or so when he came wandering up
saying he was looking for his swimmer because he couldn't find me and
he wasn't sure where I was. He got yelled at and I tried to get up
and walk but my legs were completely locked up so the Boy Scouts got
to do the figure our arm carry that they love to pull out in an
emergency. They took me up to my camp and I laid down and slept for
the rest of the day and didn't wake up immensely hungry and thirsty
in the middle of the night. I woke up and tried to go to find some
food and water but it was really dark and my legs were cramped so I
just ended up knockign over some coolers and pans waking up a lot of
people who found me in a pile and helped get me a drink and some cold
stew and I went back to bed. It was a good day because I didn't die
but besides that not an otherwise great time. The patch was not worth
it.
