Ocean Marathon
Chapter 08
1966 Marathon
Although I got in the corps in the summer of 1964, I didn't swim the Meninak Ocean Marathon until 1966. I think it was done by the time I got in in 1964, I don't remember why I didn't swim it in 1965. Maybe I avoided it, since I was not a fast swimmer. We swam from The lifeguard station in Jax Beach to the Atlantic Beach pier. I was swimming along with the other slow swimmers when a blinding rainstorm came up around Seagate Avenue. Myself, John Landon, and a few others, I think, ran in the ankle deep water until Florida Boulevard, when the rain subsided. We ran back into waist deep water and resumed swimming. The other slow swimmers left me behind and I plodded along. When I finally rounded the Atlantic Beach Pier at the old Atlantic Beach Hotel, there was no one there to welcome me. I was so far behind, they didn't see me when the next to the last swimmer left the water on the north side of the pier. Jim Thames won that race and my Commodore, George Paugh came in second. I never stopped swimming after Florida Boulevard, I was just slow. To compound my exhaustion, dismay and disappointment set in when I realized I would have to walk back to the station, which I did, carrying my Walters torpedo buoy. I got madder and madder as I made the 3 1/2 mile trek back to Jax Bch. I started venting when I got to the station and basically they told me to shut up and go home. Chapped.
May 24, 2012
