Florence Chadwick

My mom sent me a copy of this story today. It is now a on my door. Currently, she is going to see if there is a relation. Regardless of what she finds, I am going to believe there is.

“Florence Chadwick was no stranger to goal setting. An American swimmer, she was the first woman in history to swim the twenty miles across the English Channel from France to England to France.”
“Florence set another unbelievable goal: be the first woman to swim the twenty-one miles from Catalina Island to the west coast of California. On the morning in 1952, the ocean was shrouded in fog – she could hardly see the boats accompanying her to keep away the sharks. Fatigue wasn’t a big problem, but the bone-chilling temperature of the water was. After 15 hours of nonstop swimming, she succumbed to the temperature of the water and asked to be pulled into one of the boats. Her mother and trainer, in a boat alongside her, urged her to keep on as they were getting near the coast. Yet all Florence could see was fog.”
”She was pulled out of the water too cold and tired to continue. Later, she realized that she was only half a mile from completing the swim and achieving her goal. When she learned how close she was when she quit, she blurted out, “I’m not excusing myself, but if I could have seen the short, I might have made it!” It wasn’t the distance or the cold that ultimately did her in – it was the fog.”
“When Florence Chadwick lost sight of her goal, she lost the will to continue.”
“2 months later, when there was no fog, she completed the swim. Same island, same coast, same distance, same body of water. The only difference between victory and defeat was the ability to see her goal”

On days like yesterday, and bad days to come, I just need to keep in mind my goal: hearing “Amanda you are in Ironman”