Mau: Our Fearless Leader

By emilykunze on January 14, 2013 • ( 0 )

Mauricio is a natural leader and motivator; his work for the team, for the blog, for the cause and for each of us deserves a special mention.

Our team leader strangely enough was not associated with the sport of swimming as a youth. I believe that until about 20 years ago, his only relationship to water was going in and out of the sea while windsurfing. Somehow, he naturally took on the role of our coach, organizing this swim by physically travelling to Tarifa in order to secure our dates for Gibraltar. He has set up the minimum distance the team should hit each month and records in detail each of our swims (addicted to data maybe?). He also set up the blog and has re-organized it half a dozen times for better usability. He has reached out to the OW community sharing his insight on the sport sharing his insights and pushing for the sports’ expansion. Obviously, if he is going to put his name on something, it’s not going to be good, it’s going to rock.

As a motivator he managed to get Susan and I to train again after swearing off the sport of swimming which in and of itself is a major feat. He has gotten time-constricted Carrington to lead the mileage for January and has gotten full commitment for the team. Finally, he has somehow gotten me interested in and enjoying the short swims in water temperatures of 10C despite the fact that 24C still feels “brisk” and I don’t think Susan is far behind on the cold water interest.

As far as I know, none of us are motivating him to swim, which leaders me to wonder, does a born leader need to be motivated or does it just come naturally? Thanks Mau.