Tim is a swimmer. Six years ago, he was a
big time swimmer. He swam every day, five hours per day, with an elite swim
team full of olympic hopefuls. He had the second fastest time in the country in
the mile, somewhere around fifteen minutes. (A fifteen minute mile is a pretty
fast walking pace, in case you haven’t tried that.) Also on Tim’s elite swim
team were two little girls, ages eight and nine. They were already, at their
tender ages, showing great promise for the future, and have continued that
grueling training pace to the present. I feel certain that six years ago, Tim
was their hero.
The
Olympic trials were looming. But as bad luck would have it, Tim had a serious
allergic reaction to chlorine in swimming pool water, and had to drop out. Tim
manages to stay in good shape, and swims when he can in lake competitions, but
the world class level at which he had been swimming had to go by the wayside.
Last summer, Tim and Caylie borrowed my
fourteen foot aluminum boat. They floated from Lake DeGray to the Ouachita
River Bridge near Arkadelphia, Arkansas. That’s a pretty solid half day
float. I drove down to pick them up, and
when I was crossing the bridge, I could see they had missed the take-out ramp.
They floated by on the far side of the river, and when they saw it, they were
already well past.
The lakes were releasing a lot of water
due to heavy spring rains, and the river was flowing swiftly. They were both
paddling as hard as they could, but were steadily losing ground. I hollered for
them to paddle to the bank, where Tim could walk along in shallower water and
pull the boat up. They did, but immediately saw a large water moccasin on a
limb, grinning at them, daring them to get just
a little bit closer. They quickly
headed back to deep water. Paddling was not the way to go, so Tim jumped into
the river, put the rope around his shoulder, and started swimming. Now, for a
normal person, considering Caylie was still in the boat, that would have been
impossible. But Tim is not a normal man. He started gaining ground. It still
took him a long time, but he got it done.
This
past Saturday was a big day for me. For the first time, I was about to see Tim
in action, swimming against strong competition. Hundreds of great swimmers from
all over were competing at Degray Lake. Tim was entered in the one mile swim.
Swimming in the women’s division of that race were two teen age girls.
Initially, this really didn’t mean anything to me, I did not know them. But Tim
did. They were the same two little girls from
his old swim team of six years ago. He knew they had been swimming five or six
hours daily all these years since Tim had to quit. He also knew they would be
in top condition, and his chances against them would be slim. Not being in the
know, I was concerned with the whole herd of musclemen Tim would be swimming
against, and I paid little attention to the girls.
Halfway or so into the race, his shoulders
began to give him great pain, but they soon went numb. Other than having to
throw up a couple of times, everything was going smoothly. But Tim had been
right. The two little girls, no
longer little, fourteen and fifteen, were first out of the water. Tim was next
out, winning the men’s division, at around twenty four minutes. The musclemen I
had been worried about were still specks far out in the lake.
**
Tim’s father Joe is 55 years old. He owns
a landscaping business, and he normally gets up very early, riding his bike
totally unreasonably long distances. A
one hundred mile ride is standard fare for Joe. He then works all day in his
landscaping business. Then he goes out after work for a little exercise. Joe is
a regular in Iron Man competitions.
Joe was once present at a one hundred mile
run event in the mountains. He was not participating in this, so he had not
been training for it. A friend who was
entered knew Joe always stays in great shape, so he asked Joe to pace him during
the last part of the race. Joe agreed.
He paced him the last forty miles. That put both of them in the medical tent.
Joe hires several young men, twenty some-odd
years old, in his business. Occasionally, they all gang up on Joe and attempt
to pin him in wrestling, but have never yet been successful. Joe said recently,
“I gotta stop doing that. I hurt one last time.”
In the one mile swim – twenty five mile
bike ride event at Lake Degray, Joe placed second. The one man who beat him in
his age group also won first overall, and he is number four in the country in
that event. Swimming was Joe’s weakest area, but he made up for that once on
the bike.
CONTINUED NEXT POST - MORE SUPERMEN!
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