Swimming bored

I try to get three sessions of open water swimming in every week now. I want to be able to swim 10k by the end of my time here. I made reasonable progress since starting five months ago but it's been tough going since. I recall I struggled to complete my first 800m in my first week here, hugging the shore of Tanjua'An Beach closely, afraid of being swept out by the current, suffering from the heat and possibly foot cramps.

After about a month, I closed in on 2k (in actually open water, where one has better visibility and less injuries from the corals at low tide in the shallow ends).

Inspite of taking to heart the many suggestions from Total Immersion Swimming, I have stalled at around 6k now. I can't seem to get past this mark: either my nose is clogged up with salt, or my head hurts, or the sun's burned my arms off. I just get back to my starting point, treading water, and I can't get myself to swim another lap.

An hour into all my swims I start to get bored from swimming. Really bored. I'll write about this another time because it relates to the lack of sealife which is a subject for another post.

But one solution is this: there are waterproof ipods and mp3 players out on the market. I know the actual ipod name has a different etymology. But since “pod” refers to “a group of aquatic mammals”, then “i-pod” is simply a single aquatic mammal. Thereby every swimmer who listens to music should rightfully own an ipod, as he or she is forming a pod by themselves. I have taken this idea up with Steve Jobs and suggested Apple sponsors bored swimmers, but he never returns my phone calls.