February 2012
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Swimming Lessons
The thing about swimming is that it’s one of the least efficient ways for a human to get from point A to point B. Dolphins swim with about 80 percent efficiency, meaning that they convert 80 percent of their effort into forward motion. Humans, however, max out at about 16 percent. Most people can’t even get above 10 percent. That’s a lot of wasted energy.
Another total bummer about swimming is...
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Becoming a Swimmer
In the summer of 2009, I left a good job as an editor at a technology magazine in San Francisco. The long hours, stress, and chronic desk sitting had wrecked my mental, physical and spiritual health. I had planned my exit for months and was prepared, professionally and financially, to be a freelance writer. But first I needed to detox. I turned to swimming.
The idea appealed to me in part because...
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Indie Travel Manifesto →
January 2012
14 posts
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The Plan
Dates and locations of swims*:
May 28: Percy Priest Lake, outside Nashville, TN
May 31: Mississippi River, outside Memphis, TN
June 1: Sardis Lake, outside Oxford, MS
June 3: Lake Pontchartrain, New Orleans, LA
June 6: Beaver Lake, Beaver Lake, AR
June 8: Missouri River, Kansas City, MO
June 10: Clinton Lake, Lawrence, KS (Kansas 70.3 Triathlon)
June 13: Kanopolis Lake, outside Ellsworth,...
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“If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not...”
– Excerpt from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If-”.
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A Phone App to Track Great White Sharks →
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“I can also report about the major search to habitable planets around other...”
– An astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley in response to my asking for an interview for a piece I’m writing about extraterrestrial life.
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“Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
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Ultraswimmer
Jamie Patrick is known as Ultraswimmer for good reason. This guy criss-crosses Lake Tahoe the long way and has swum 111 miles of the Sacramento River, among other protracted, transcendent swims. Last week he was named the 2011 World Open Water Swimming Man of the Year.
In addition to epic swims, Jamie shares his love of open water by sponsoring an Adventure Swim Contest. Last November I entered...
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Backstory →
“I don’t know anything, but I do know that everything is interesting if you...”
– Richard Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
A Swim Adventure →
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