Submitted by KM Hills.
As I shared, a few months back, I began a journey 24 months ago. My goal is to swim across Lake Erie, a 24 mile non-stop swim. One day this month, between July 17 & 23, I will find out if the culmination of my work will pay off.
Since my journey started I have swam 1053 miles, with 511 of them being in 2022. Many of the miles have been in the Lakewood YMCA pool and honestly there is little to focus on, while looking at the line in the bottom of the pool, other than your own thoughts. I have wondered if it has been harder to swim all the training miles or will the crossing of Lake Erie be harder. You never know if you trained enough until you attempt the task in front of you. As the weather warms, and if you are on American Lake, you may see me pulling my yellow kayak behind me as I finish my last few training miles.
One thing that has proven harder, than swimming all the miles, has been reaching my second goal. I chose to have my swim benefit Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital, as I hope to encourage $10,000 in donations, for the PICU. To date, from the support of many great donors, $4,000 has been raised. There have been many wonderful individual donors, most of them anonymous, several community leaders and some wonderful local businesses. I want to say a HUGE Thank You to all. I know these are financially uncertain times so all donations, big and small alike, mean a great deal.
There is still time to make a donation through the website (www.JustGiving.com/LakeErieSwim) that Mary Bridge helped set up. Are you able to help me reach my second goal? Through this website you can also access a link to a Facebook group where you can track my swim.
Picture Credit to my sister Virginia (aka Ginger) Preston.
