Where Emily and I train also happens to be one of Spain’s best tennis breeding grounds.  The pool is almost always empty and we enjoy it year-round.  Incidentally, we’ve noticed that club members don’t know what to make of the two women who swim 10K at a time– for 3 hours straight.  We commonly get asked “Cuántas piscinas hoy?” (how many laps today?)

One of the amazing tennis players who trains there is none other than Rafa Nadal.  I recently finished reading “Rafa” and actually tried to extract some of his insane mental strength and put it towards my swimming.  That guy is a mental machine!  Yesterday Emily and I were lucky enough to share with him our plan to swim from Spain to Africa to raise money for Worldreader.

I started by telling him that his book was inspiring to two 40-year-old moms coming out of a 20 year retirement–and how important books are to inspire people to dream big.  Then I told him about how scarce books are in Africa and how Worldreader is working hard to change that.   I showed him photos of the magic happening on the ground there– which he loved.

He also asked us a lot about our training and about all the “bichos raros” we see in the ocean.  He wanted to know how much we swam (to which he replied “Ostras!”)  Then we shared war stories- like: “which is worse- your blistered hands, or Emily’s chaffed neck“?

Happy to say that we’ve got a new Swim 4 Good supporter who will be rooting for us on July 6th!

PS- Huge thanks to Elizabeth Wood and Rebecca Worple for the pictures… we owe you lunch!

PPS- Rafa is a very, very attractive and charming man, Emily and I are kinda in love (sorry Jordi and Mauricio!).

PPS- Swim 4 Good got a new look!  Do you like the logo?  Our hope is that anyone who’s swimming a race for a good cause joins us!