I haven’t done the Mile Swim (did you get the little seahorse patch for your swim trunks?) since I was an aquatics counselor 20+ years ago, when I did it every summer at least once. We’d line up and get a number written on our hands in indelible ink. As we did laps around the pool, we’d shout out our number and the guy with the clipboard would mark us off. Towards the end of the swim, he’d tell you how many laps you had left. I always felt tired but good by the end of it.
My troop would camp at a lake out in the middle of nowhere. (I was going to say this was 20+ years ago, but it was the 70’s. 30+ years ago! :eek: )The adults would mark out a course that seemed to be about a mile, and we’d swim that with people canoing next to us. I guess that’s why I thought my first open water swim would be no big deal. Then I got kicked, my goggles filled with water, and …
Another backstroker checking in.
Started in 7th grade, quit in 10th (too much other activities - something had to go)
Lettered twice, made it to state twice in 100 back and 400 medley.
I cannot butterfly to save my friggin life. I remember our coach trying to advise me how to make it all work together to no avail. I also cannot dive. It freaks me out.
In my last residence we had a pool that I was in every day. Now I do swim up at the lake, but I don’t like lake swimming (wanna know how I learned to swim? Thrown off a dock into a weedy lake. shudder Weeds. )
Actually, that should have been, “…I finished the swim over 7 minutes ahead of the next finisher…” :smack:
Yup, I got my second BSA Mile Swim patch, after getting the first as a Boy Scout over 20 years ago. This course was in the lake, out to a buoy 1/4 mile away, then back, then repeated.
I also got an Iron Man patch, as the 1-mile swim was just the first part of a 1-mile swim, 2-mile canoe course, and 3-mile run. By the time I finished the canoe portion, some people were still swimming. 
However, I’m a terrible runner, so I ended up coming in 5th overall (out of 16). My run was more of a 3-mile hike. 
Actually, I tried to at least run on the downhill portions of the course.
My son is only 11 years old, so he didn’t participate, but he cheered me on–along with asking me for money for the Trading Post during the run. :dubious:
I swam in competitive summer league from about 6 to 13. That was when my original team disbanded and the only other team close enough contained female schoolmates of mine. I decided that there was no way I was going to let them see me in a speedo and stopped swimming.
My strokes were free and back. I was once sixth in the city in back stroke but that is the closest I came to any real success. I was very successful as a swimming instructor later on though.