I’m one of those weird people that wears polos or t-shirts advertising products that I love. Therefore I’ve got a few beer shirts. Some polos from old military units of mine. My swim event t-shirts of course.

The Marathon Swimmers Federation (MSF) is currently abuzz about creating a logo to represent artistically our love for long open water swimming. The logos look great, but I am impatient. I want to wear my MSF polo to work tomorrow!

Why am I this kind of person, walking around showing my hobbies or allegiances to others? I think the primary reason is because I want others to join me in the fun. And I’m loyal. If I find a brand I like, I tell everyone about it!

MSF works. MSF is a great community. MSF represents great folks. I want others to see the MSF logo on my chest and ask, “What the heck is a marathon swim?” or “What the hell is the Marathon Swimmers Federation?”

Two recently-held commencement speeches have come to my attention. They both just happen to have occurred at schools I’d once considered attending. The speakers are people I am familiar with, to varying degrees. With regards to the amount of respect I have for each of them, they couldn’t be more different.

Diana Nyad gave the commencement speech at Middlebury College. Milliseconds go by before she starts with the I, a sure sign of a narcissistic speech. But I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. She may be alluding to something that came up earlier in the commencement when she said she wanted a selfie with the graduating class. Within a minute (0:48-ish) she mentions her Florida swim, and within the first two minutes she thanks the school for inviting her and thanks her team of 44 for, you guessed it, her Florida swim.

Her speech is a lot of I‘s and me‘s, but does have a good message when she relates the 17-year old swimmer at the 1968 Olympic trials (2:47-ish) talking to her about giving it her all so that she can say she couldn’t have swum her heat a fingernail faster. I thought that part was very good, a good motivational moment. She related it to herself. She could have related it to the graduating class (that’ll come later, I’m sure).

But, what’s this? What did I just hear at 7:01-ish? “…moving on to the trials or not.”  What? I thought she said she was at the 1968 trails?!  So of course, this means I have to do some research. And some rewinding (remember when that word meant something?). OK, yes, at the 2:45-ish mark, she mentions swimming at the 1968 trials (“…it came to be the Olympic Trials for Mexico City…”). She also mentions her event, the 100 back. But I cannot find her on this list (pdf) of the heats and finals for the 1968 Olympic swimming trials. I’m no expert at Olympic history or USA Swimming, perhaps they had a pre-trials? I don’t think so though. DN mentions that the top 3 from her race will go on to the Olympics (3:25), and that she congratulated the three girls who would be going at the end of the race (8:03). Was she under a different name? I couldn’t find any other Diana‘s on the list.

At 3:58 she says something that struck me. To give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe she was channeling her teenage self, for which I will excuse her. How many among us were not selfish when we were young? Anyway, she is mentioning her dreams and all the work she put in to fulfill them. She mentioned how her parents sacrificed for her (nice), and then she says, “my brothers and sisters, their dreams were so small compared to mine.” Was she just comparing size? Or was she putting a value judgement on their dreams? Harkens back to the comments she made about what she thought of her followers (Nyadians?) helping other marathon swimmers.

Compare and contrast Nyad’s speech with the one given by Admiral McRaven at the University of Texas. (Caveat: I have met the admiral. I was a nameless Captain sitting in the briefing room with him in Iraq, he the deputy commander. I liked him.) Yes, there are some I‘s in his speech, as in “my team and I.” But it was far from narcissistic. He mentions his graduation from UT 37 years prior at the 0:30 mark. At 3:00, after all the thanking of everyone in attendance, he starts giving advice, based on his experience during his six months of SEAL training. When he uses the pronoun I from that moment forward, he uses it with my team and.  His advice is useful and humorous. It’s something I’d like my kids to listen to. His stories are fun and way more believable than anything the Middlebury speaker told us.

Edit: I just saw this “speech” by Denzel Washington. He should have been Middlebury’s speaker!

The nation’s capital is lacking in open water venues. If you swim in the wrong area of the Potomac, you can be arrested. You have to drive outside of the city to find places to swim. Some state parks have lakes where you can swim, as long as you aren’t swimming as a group. You can swim in the Atlantic at Sandy Point State Park. But you have to drive to these places. They’re not close.

Close is National Harbor, MD, not too far from DC. This is a nice area of the Potomac with very little boat traffic. Very swimmable water. There are three OW swims there, to include a 10K. The only 10K in the area. These races are put on by Wave One, under the stewardship of Denis Crean, an accomplished marathoner in his own right, with a win and a place in Tampa and MIMS, respectively (2004 & 2006).

But now, all of that may be lost. National Harbor has decided to terminate Wave One’s Thursday night happy hour swims. Wave One has been running these Thursday night swims between Memorial Day and Labor Day for over 3 years, with a flawless safety record. But for some reason, they are no longer welcome. Yet to be decided is whether or not Wave One’s OW events will still run. These events also have a flawless saftey record. Will we lose the area’s only marathon swim? I will keep you dear reader(s) in the loop.

A very helpful fellow in the embassy in Addis, who saw (and probably clicked on) my blog URL in my signature block, informed me that Lake Langano is a safe lake, as far as schistosomiasis is concerned. Hurray!

My new friend tells me the only triathlon in all of Ethiopia is held at this lake. The tri is a sprint with only a 750m swim (and something like 20k bike and something-k run, but who cares about those events), but the important part is YOU CAN SWIM IN THE LAKE.

So, with my handy map tools in google I did some measurements.*  Looks like I can cross it length-wise and get in a good 10-12 miles, depending upon where I start to avoid the hippos.

Lake Langano is about 120 miles from Addis. Unsure how long that drive will take on Ethiopian roads. But it’ll be worth it. The embassy has a campground there, and I think one of our first family trips will be to Lake Langano to check it out.

*Not really, since Google went to these horrible new maps. In order to measure point-to-point, you have to use a free website tool called Free Map Tools.

Doesn’t look like there are many possibilities for open water races in Ethiopia. Or anywhere close. Not organized races that is. Perhaps I can organize a solo swim in one of those lakes.

But there are swims in South Africa. Cape Town is about a 5.5 hour flight away. And in May of every year there is the Freedom Swim, a 7.5K swim in the cold ocean water down there. There is also the possibility of arranging my own solo swim with the Cape Long Distance Swimming Association. There are a few possibilities of swims with that organization.

There’s also the possibility of 10K swims, although looking at the results of previous races, looks like only fast swimmers sign up for those.

Dear reader(s), if you’ve followed me on the Facebook or you know me IRL (that’s kid-talk for “you have a beer with me non-virtually”), then you know my family and I are in for a big adventure. We are about to move to a new home:

Nice house, eh? That’s where we’ll stuff our 4 rug-rats for the next 2-3 years. Oh, did I mention that house is in Addis Ababa? Of course, if you’ve read my blog like the loyal readers I know you are, you’d already know this. There are a few cons to our move (all outweighed by the pros, trust me):  I won’t coach anymore, and I was really getting used to those whiny, smart, athletic, lazy triathletes. I learned a lot from those guys, and I only hope they learned something from me. Worse, the club has contracted with a pool less than a mile walk or bike ride from my home for summer practices! Dammit!  If this becomes a reality (they are still inquiring about interest among the athletes), I may just show up a couple of times to surprise the club.

The other con? Schistosomiasis. A bug that you can ingest swimming in Ethiopia’s beautiful open water. However, an experienced and impressive marathon swimmer I know has dealt with this, swimming the distance of Lake Malawi in Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania. He simply took some pills a few weeks after the swim to flush his system of the bug and then got a blood test to make sure it was all gone. Hell, Ethiopians who use the lakes (fishermen, for instance) take an annual pill anyway.  My initial thoughts that I’d never get to do any open water in Ethiopia have changed a bit knowing that schisto isn’t something that should keep me from doing it. And Ethiopia has some beautiful, long (!) lakes to conquer. And even if not, South Africa is but a 5.5-hour flight away. And there are many open water and marathon swims down there.