I’m going to swim a mile.

It’s a new year, and since I’ve been so great at blogging regularly in 2015 (and by great, I mean horrible) I’m rewarding myself by swimming a mile in the world’s largest competitive open-water swimming event. 

Let that sink in.

Open water. That means not a the smooth glass-like surface of a pool, but waves and wind and gross lake scum.

World’s largest. That means this is not a peaceful float on a lake to enjoy scenery. This is hundreds and hundreds of other people kicking you in the face with their killer breast-stroke kick.

Competitive. This means that even in the “family fun” section (the race that we’re swimming in) you get these hard-core competitive families who’ve travelled all the way down from Joburg (which is 6 hours away) and have arms like Michael Phelps and matching swimsuits. MATCHING. This is not a joke. This is a competition.

We did it last year (“we” being my husband, my Dad and me). We didn’t train at all, we just showed up (because, I mean “family swim“, guys. Even if it’s a mile, if a family can do it, we can do it, right?) Well, then the weather got bad and they banished everyone under the age of 12 from swimming, and we were left with the hard-core Joburg people and it was a bit depressing. Most of us finished. I won’t name names or anything, but I was pretty pleased that I was actually better at my husband in one small athletic area.

So we’re doing it again this year. And we decided there should be a purpose to this suffering, so we’re swimming it in honor of iThemba Kids Camp. You’ve heard about camp a lot on this blog– it comes up usually in June and then in December. But this year we’re doing the 2 camps back-to-back in July, so we’re starting to fundraise early.

It would be completely awesome if you gave any amount ($5, $25, $50, $100) towards helping us meet our goal of getting 30 kids sponsored through this swimming event. Click this link and click the “donate to this fundraiser” button. You don’t even have to read my schpeel on the website because you’ve read it here already. Just click the link. 

Just click it.

Why aren’t you clicking it?

Do you even know how to click?

(This is a reference to the movie Frozen if you think I’m just rudely repeating myself). 

Thanks guys! You rock! I’ll blog again after the swim (which is in just TEN DAYS!) because I hear that swimming long distances provides you with lots of time to think.