How Much is Enough

Foggy camera
on a cold night
at the pool.

When you set a goal, then meet that goal, is it enough?

It's day twelve of my 14-day Wisconsin Water Warrior challenge. My goal?  38,750 yards (22 miles) - no where near last year's winning olympian swim of Melodee Nugent at 137,400 yards (78 miles). But better than my 2009 total of 31,715 (18 miles).

In the last twelve days I've done long swims and double-swims. Iced a shoulder now and then. Dealt with the mental challenge of repeated laps. Ate heeps of beets. Slept hard with wet hair and rose early for another plunge.

And now with three days of swimming ahead and only 3.5 miles to complete, the goal looks totally doable. So do I UP the challenge at this late date or revel in relaxed completion?

Can you tell
I was tired?

When do we say enough. (And, Melodee Nugent, how do you do it?!)

Wisconsin Water Warriors is a USMS-Wisconsin event that asks you to swim as far as you can in 14 consecutive days sometime in November or December 2010. http://www.swim-wimasters.org/

A little followup:
I got a really nice email from Melodee Nugent who said when she swam the Water Warriors challenge, she left home about 4:20 AM each day and spent about three hours at the pool. She likes her SwiMP3; one strategy for workouts was descending sets. After completing the two weeks she rested one day and was back at the pool for 5,500 yards. She's just 14 miles short of 1,000 miles for the year. Wow.

I finished my two weeks of swimming yesterday and decided to stick to my original goal of 22 miles even though that meant my last two days were unusually easy swims. I'll have room to grow next year, right?