Hi there,
I got back from a week in Loreto, Mexico coaching with SwimMastery founder and my coach, Tracey Baumann, at the tail end of which I got sick. I was excited to share my lessons from the water right away, but the body has a way of reminding us what’s important. Which gave me the opportunity to sit with everything that happened there longer.
We had 13 swimmers from across the US and three women from Guaymas, Mexico gathered for an open water swim camp. And what kept happening, over and over, was people discovering what their bodies could actually do when they stopped micro managing them.
After our adventure swim on the last day, Becky came up to me and gave me a big hug. “I swam for 2 hours today and nothing hurts,” she exclaimed. “Usually my knees, my low back, my shoulder — everything hurts after a long swim. But I felt great the whole time out there today.”
Over dinner, two women who’d traveled from New York were stunned when I reminded them they’d swum for 90 minutes in the sea. “Sure, I usually swim an hour in the pool — but it’s different. You’re stopping, standing, talking. You don’t stop or stand in the open water. Are you sure it was 90 minutes?”
She wasn’t counting. She was swimming.
In my recent Substack, I wrote more about this — how the number can win even when we don’t mean it to. These swimmers found out what happens when it doesn’t.
I’m taking a small group to a houseboat on Lake Shasta this August — August 24–27. Intentionally small. If you’ve been wondering what it would feel like to spend a few days in the water without a number attached to it, reply and I’ll tell you more.
