Summer Edition
Time has felt particularly fluid lately. Maybe it’s the hours I spend in the water. Water has an astounding way of making me feel ageless. When I’m having tea parties with six year olds in swim lessons every day, am I really edging past the half century mark? Or am I still a 10 year old diving for quarters at the pool with my friends? Hard to say in the moment.
On Sunday, I completed my 7th—astounding even to me—17km trip down the Willamette River from Sellwood to Saint John. At the start, I found one of my swimmers who’s been training for her first Portland Bridge Swim since last August. She’d been nervous for months, calculating her pace, river velocity, and wind speed to run finishing scenarios to see what it would take to meet the cutoff times. I told her what ten encounters with this swim—including two DNSs and a 2014 evacuation for lightning—have taught me: confidence isn’t something you have to arrive with. It grows through experience. She had shown up for every training swim, learning along the way that she could meet different conditions, different sensations, and different versions of herself. On Sunday, all she had to do was start. The rest was never entirely hers to control.
So much of open water swimming is uncontrollable. This swim runs on a tidal river. Some years it’s a straightforward down-river swim; other years the tide turns mid-swim, and you go from swimming with the current to fighting it. Some years it’s hot and still; this year, we had a breeze the whole way. Maintaining confidence without control is the name of the game.
That tension — confidence without control — isn’t unique to a river swim. It’s the nature of water itself: it can be still or moving, clear or opaque, salty, brackish, or fresh. So the comfort and confidence I teach swimmers every day isn’t just about safety — it’s about being at ease inside all of that unpredictability.
Before I get any further, I’m thrilled to share that the Oregon Health Authority has finally approved our variance, and the county has approved the engineered plans for the indoor swim studio. We can finally begin the build-out, bringing me one step closer to coaching and teaching year-round. With smoke settling over the Rogue Valley today, the need for a reliable indoor place to swim feels especially clear. Stay tuned as it begins to take shape.
If you’re ready for an in person experience now, I have just a few spots left for my houseboat-based swim camp on Lake Shasta next month. We’ll spend three nights living aboard a floating house, surrounded by open water, with plenty of time to swim—and to explore everything that supports the swimming: technique, nutrition, recovery, support, and the ability to adapt when conditions or confidence shift. Book a free Discovery Call if you want to see if it’s a good fit.
And if a live-aboard camp isn’t your pace, there are half day clinic options too. If you’re in the Portland area, I’ve booked the pool at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center for morning and afternoon clinics on October 10th— I’d love to see you there. If you’re in the Seattle area, please reply to this email and let me know if you’d be interested in a clinic this fall at the Snohomish Aquatic Center.
Here in the Rogue Valley I have Beginning and Intermediate Adult Swimming classes coming up in September, October and November through Medford Parks and Recreation, email me for a link to register when it becomes available. Lessons in my outdoor pool will continue until the weather is unfavorable.
Wherever you’re swimming this season — in rivers, lakes, oceans, or pools — whether you’ve been quietly reading along or actively participating, I’m grateful you’re here.
Swimming alongside you,
