In the month of June, the American Red Cross put together a fundraiser called “Swim 15 Miles In June” to promote teaching children to swim. I decided to partake in this because I have always enjoyed swimming and teaching others to swim too.
The 15 Miles In June fundraiser was created to not only support children in survival swimming, but for other emergency efforts that The Red Cross provides as well including emergency relief efforts related to extreme weather and blood donations.
When I started the 15 Miles Swim, I wanted to raise money to bring awareness that other people may be going through things we don’t see online. Social media has played a big part in getting the news out to the world. But when someone’s cry for help goes unnoticed because of the algorithm, they get left behind and no one actually knows that they need help.
Whenever you see bad weather or events on the news, you will always see some sort of relief effort in the background of the news report. Nearly all of these people are volunteers and these organizations run mainly on donations and fundraisers. I have always wanted to travel to these areas to help people in times of need. When I was growing up, I was taught to help people in need no matter what the circumstance is. Due to safety concerns, I have not been able to help in these areas as much as I wanted to. I have mainly helped with food drives, taking donations to thrift stores, and spreading the word online. I felt like this wasn’t enough and I wanted to get involved even more.
When I found out about this 15 miles swim, I was ready to get back into the water and do some good for the world as well as for myself. I went to ChatGPT and asked for it to create a two-week swim program that would get me to a total of 15 miles. I had started my 15 miles challenge on June 10th with the goal of getting it all done before June 21st due to a tattoo appointment.
Unfortunately, I did not reach the 15 miles goal before then, but I did raise $150 for the American Red Cross. During the week, I work from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM and I do not have time to go to the pool during my lunch break. I ended up getting a YMCA membership so that I could swim, but I didn’t realize that their pool hours were all different and they are not open on Fridays or the weekends. I ended up only being able to go for two hours in the evening, four days a week. Another hiccup with this was that I had a few evening events to work at the zoo. This meant that I only had three days a week to swim after getting off work. In the end, I only made it 11,500 yards out of 24,750 yards, or 7.19 miles out of 15 miles and only 6 out of 9 days were completed. I had added on June 21st (a Saturday) as an extra day to swim outdoors before my tattoo on Sunday. Due to other circumstances, I had to move the appointment up a day. With tattoos, you cannot swim for two to four weeks which would put me into July with my scheduling.
I should have started this sooner, but I wanted to make sure I really would be able to have the time and willingness to do the entire 15 miles. I honestly think if I started sooner I would have been able to swim the full 15 miles easily. I was trying to swim 3,200 yards each day wich is closer to 2-3 miles each days. It put a lot of strain on my body and especially my shoulders which I was not used to. I have been swimming on and off for the last few years and my body is not what it was 4-5 years ago.
If I were to do this again, I would definitely plan it out better and make sure my body was ready for it. I am very appreciative to everyone who supported me and donated throughout the last few weeks.
Below are some pictures I took while swimming to prove I swam when I did!
Below are some of the workouts ChatGPT created for me. It’s really interesting how AI can put this together, and it’s a fairly reasonable workout. When you put your parameters and preferences in, it will create a pretty decent workout!
