Welcome to 2.4 Miles!

Welcome to 2.4 Miles, a distance swimming blog from an enthusiastic swimmer.

I didn't start off this year thinking that I would be swimming this much. I started with a simple goal, 15,000 yards each month during 2010. I had become a bit lazy and work had me traveling. My goal was simply to get my butt in gear and get back in shape.

Shortly after the New Year, I was working hard in the pool and met up with some friends. One of my friends told of a goal he had this year to run a sprint triathlon before he turned 50. He hiked a bit, biked a bit, and didn't swim a lick. He had slimmed down by 30 pounds, felt great, and wanted to push himself even more. And it made me think about what I could do if I applied the same approach.

After doing a bit of research, I came across some swim events to push myself between 4,000 and 5,000 yards. A lot of swims recorded themselves as "5k" swims and translated to 2.4 miles (~4,400 yards). A bit more research showed that 2.4 miles is the length of a swim of the Ironman Triathlons. I might not be a triathlete - I really hate running - and I felt that swimming a 2.4 mile event before I turned 40 would be my match goal to my friend.

The event turned out to be The Swim to the Moon in Pickney, Michigan.

For the past two months, I've been increasing my distance swam in each of my workouts, growing up from around 2,000 to 2,800 to 4,000 yards. I've done the 4,400 yards indoors a couple of times in the past month, with my first time at 1:04:00 and my second time just a hair over 0:58:00. I'm so ready to hop in the open water and see this complete!

I'm going to use this blog to share some of my inspirations for this push, my workouts that help me to get there, and my gear that I'm using in this chase for 2010 and beyond. After reaching 2.4 miles once, I can't tell you how much of a thrill it was to complete the distance once, even indoors.