75: Fighting Sebago Lake

I'm in Maine, beautiful Maine, visiting friends who rent a place here every August. This is maybe my 4th or 5th summer having been invited. Usually I say yes without skipping a beat; but this year I had to check my calendar for races and give a warning, "I'll be running 42 miles that week; you up for chasing me with the car and handing me water?"

When we set the date of my arrival, I'd had visions of the kids making signs for me, "KEEP RUNNING, MICHELLE!" Maybe I'd run past the Dairy Barn and they'd hand off a free rocky road cone. Or I'd dip into the Lobster Pound to use the facilities. I wasn't sure if I'd run on the road, or find a trail; but it was going to be an adventure.

Since I'm grounded, and we don't have a stationary bike here, I came up committed to at least an hour of swimming a day in Sebago Lake. It's a huge body of water, beautiful and clean. Sail boats float by and the occasional recreational motor boat, but I'd be safe staying close enough to the shore. I'm generally uncomfortable in water where I can't see the bottom, but I decided I'd suspend that whole story in my head about monsters grabbing my legs and pulling me under and act my age.

Maine's tricky. Most of the time summer days are sunny and beautiful, low humidity, and just enough of a breeze to make you feel you might actually be in heaven. And then sometimes, Maine's moody. Today's one of those days. Rainy in the morning, windy all day through, and cold.

I'm here with 7 children under age 10 and 8 adults, one special needs. My friend's the ringleader and fortunately, she's rugged. "Everyone's going in the water today!" she announced at breakfast. Swimming laps would be out as the waves were too high but I said I was going to tread water "actively" for one hour. I don't think a single person believed me!

We all went down together and made our way in. It was a lot colder than even I expected. The adults lasted 10 minutes and the kids about 12; all but one who stayed out with me for another 10 minutes until even he said, "I'm cold!" I tread water, beat the water, ran in the water, kicked and punched and swallowed my body weight for a full 60 minutes. By the time I came in, only one adult and one child were still watching me from the beach... I thanked them for staying.

I'm hoping it warms up tomorrow so I can do some proper laps but, if not, I'll do the same routine again! I also won't be surprised if I have sore muscles in some strange places tonight. There was nothing uniform about my workout today. If I had to characterize it, I'd say it was a kind-of crazy elliptical leg and arm freak-out - more like boxing than swimming, really. I'm glad most of it was happening under water because don't think I missed the adults on the shore trying to take pictures of me! See you on the sidelines on November 7th, people! Hope you've got your lenses in focus because I'll be flying by!