I LOVED THIS AND YOU WILL TOO!
I was on my neighborhood swim team in elementary school. I wish I'd had the opportunity to continue, or enough self-awareness to ask my parents to find an indoor pool at the end of the season. Fast forward to this summer when I joined the YMCA and began lap swimming again as my kids go through swim lessons.
I'm embarrassed it's taken me this long to get back to the water. My form needs work and my breathing is atrocious, but I'm thrilled to be experiencing the joy of swimming again. This had me digging for swimming books! This one popped up as highly rated, as well as topping many lists. Do I want to swim in the ocean or do long distances? Absolutely positively no! I'll take my lap pool at 75 degrees thank you very much. I just find it exciting to read about top performers in their field, particularly when it's an area of personal interest.
THIS BOOK. It's just about everything. Cox is the rare athlete who has incredible writing chops. Combined with a near photographic memory (and I'm assuming extensive journals or diary entries- or she's a freaky savant), the descriptions of her channel swims were so evocative, I felt like I was in the boat beside her- many times holding my breath or feeling chilled right along with her. This passionate writing made me interested in all the details. There are too many points of interest to name, but my top favorites were how she procured a swim pilot, what tides were acceptable for swimming, the navigational systems used before GPS to help chart the course, the tests done on her uncanny ability to maintain necessary core body temperature in frozen waters, the affects of salt water on the body....this book was bonkers.
Cox somehow manages to sound humble and gracious- no small feat when statistically you are superior to all distance swimmers, and also swimming where no attempts have previously been made. Her 1987 swim of the Bering Strait was literally hailed by Gorbachev as "diminishing tensions between Russia and the United States."
There is also careful acknowledgement and deep gratitude for race officials, mentors, family, friends, and native residents of the places she swam. She says "no one ever achieves great things alone." Many of these accounts are nothing short of miraculous. It's truly hard to envision surviving these conditions, much less setting records or charting new paths. If you want to read a jaw-dropping memoir about a super athlete, look no further. Lynne Cox is truly a class act. I can't think of anything she could have added or deleted. Plus, the good vibes from her triumphs make it the perfect summer read:-)
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